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No. No no no no no. This is not the solution to the problems we’re facing. While it’s nice to push people to run their own hardware and software, it does nothi

No. No no no no no. This is not the solution to the problems we’re facing. While it’s nice to push people to run their own hardware and software, it does nothing to solve the problem of large corporations having large amounts of control and power with little regulation oversight. We like to do this thing in tech where we try to solve all of our problems with engineering and software. What we’re encountering now is not something that can be solved with software: it’s a political and economic problem. We have large corporations who have the power of small countries with little (if any) oversight on the stuff they build. Apple is attempting to scan users’ photos. Amazon is using software to exploit their workers and treat them like shit, and to stalk their users around the web into buying more shit. Facebook is giving teens eating disorders and trying to create a version of Instagram for children. The problem we’re having now is fundamentally a political problem. We have to work together as a society, collectively instead of individually, to decide what the limits of these corporations should be. That happens through boring political processes and debates that nobody likes, which isn’t appealing to us programmers. But it’s the reality we face. Individualistic ‘solutions’ like this only cause more harm because they don’t address the actual problems at hand. It’s like when Shell introduced the idea of the ‘carbon footprint’ to shift the conversation from us as a society holding corporations accountable to individuals being held accountable. The focus *must* be on political solutions to these problems, because there is no technical way this can be solved.

betwixthewires 5y ago
But there are technical ways this can be solved. Don't use their services is one. I've got a lot of problems but you know what problems I don't have? Being censored and tracked by facebook and google. It really is very much an individual problem with individual solutions, though some may not like that fact because individual solutions don't accomplish their goals, it is still a fact.
- brightstep 5y ago
  Please explain to me the path from individuals hosting their own Small Web apps to the mitigation of Amazon's power and prevalence in our lives. It's nice that you are off fb, I am too. But some number of individuals deciding not to use the platform does nothing when it is the way most people access the internet. People don't like this example because of its stereotypical user base, but remember what happened to parlor? That's what FAANG does, and will do, to individual small competitors unless their power is challenged in the political and economic arena.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    If I don't use amazon, they have no power over me. They're background noise, like sally beauty salon. And consequently, the less people that use them the less power they have. It's easy to forget that their power isn't immutable, we give it to them.
    - brightstep 5y ago
      That's idealistic thinking. Amazon does have power over people that don't use it. It influences national, state and local governments. Where it decides to open a distribution center has a huge impact on communities. It controls AWS, which is essentially the interstate highway system of the internet. You might not perceive the effects, but that doesn't mean it has no power over you. With Amazon the logistics and e-commerce juggernaut it is, there's really no meaningful alternative, and saying "just don't use it" is not very helpful.
- samwighttt 5y ago
  Please read through my comment again. The “don’t use their services” line is another individualistic framing that exists solely to deflect blame from these large corporations. Shell launched a PR campaign in the 90’s to popularize the term ‘carbon footprint’. This shifted the climate change conversation from large, multinational corporations needing to solve it to individuals, who have little-to-no power, needing to solve it. 71% of global CO2 emissions are emitted by just 100 companies. Even if every individual on Earth lowered their output by as much as possible, we’d all still be fucked because of the emissions by these corporations. We must talk about corporate power in terms of policy, government, and collective responsibility. Individuals have no power in comparison to these large corporations. This is something we’ve observed in nearly every market these corporations compete in: if I had a dime for every company that tried to compete with Google Search and died over the years, I’d be really fucking rich. While their might be technical alternatives to these services, that doesn’t solve the problem of these corporations having unrestricted power to do whatever they want. That’s what we need to solve.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
Appreciate your take on this. Those of us who wince at spending time in the Social Mess Halls may be inclined to build our personal curios in dusty corners of the net, content with a dozen views a month, but that does not serve as a rebellion to the problems in tech. There must be some better way we can think as groups of people, on necessarily large platforms. Something better than Dorsey and Zuck have managed to build. I am very concerned about the metaverse trend, it's like people watched the Matrix and thought "yeah, let me plug into the machine and not deal with real life" and didn't catch the moral of Ready Player One, "Real Life is the only thing thats Real", but were sold on the nostalgia orgasm of having Jurrasic Park and Back to the Future in the same game. I would like to build some anti-meta-verse, that helps you build the actual world by keeping your attention on your own intentions, not allowing your mind to wander at the whim of ad-campaign designers (we can all agree the IOI represented facebook, right? the bad guys that want to fill 80% of your peripheral vision with ads? but if it is more addictive then real life, of course people will choose to spend their time there.)

betwixthewires 5y ago

But there are technical ways this can be solved. Don't use their services is one. I've got a lot of problems but you know what problems I don't have? Being censored and tracked by facebook and google. It really is very much an individual problem with individual solutions, though some may not like that fact because individual solutions don't accomplish their goals, it is still a fact.

brightstep 5y ago
Please explain to me the path from individuals hosting their own Small Web apps to the mitigation of Amazon's power and prevalence in our lives. It's nice that you are off fb, I am too. But some number of individuals deciding not to use the platform does nothing when it is the way most people access the internet. People don't like this example because of its stereotypical user base, but remember what happened to parlor? That's what FAANG does, and will do, to individual small competitors unless their power is challenged in the political and economic arena.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  If I don't use amazon, they have no power over me. They're background noise, like sally beauty salon. And consequently, the less people that use them the less power they have. It's easy to forget that their power isn't immutable, we give it to them.
  - brightstep 5y ago
    That's idealistic thinking. Amazon does have power over people that don't use it. It influences national, state and local governments. Where it decides to open a distribution center has a huge impact on communities. It controls AWS, which is essentially the interstate highway system of the internet. You might not perceive the effects, but that doesn't mean it has no power over you. With Amazon the logistics and e-commerce juggernaut it is, there's really no meaningful alternative, and saying "just don't use it" is not very helpful.
samwighttt 5y ago
Please read through my comment again. The “don’t use their services” line is another individualistic framing that exists solely to deflect blame from these large corporations. Shell launched a PR campaign in the 90’s to popularize the term ‘carbon footprint’. This shifted the climate change conversation from large, multinational corporations needing to solve it to individuals, who have little-to-no power, needing to solve it. 71% of global CO2 emissions are emitted by just 100 companies. Even if every individual on Earth lowered their output by as much as possible, we’d all still be fucked because of the emissions by these corporations. We must talk about corporate power in terms of policy, government, and collective responsibility. Individuals have no power in comparison to these large corporations. This is something we’ve observed in nearly every market these corporations compete in: if I had a dime for every company that tried to compete with Google Search and died over the years, I’d be really fucking rich. While their might be technical alternatives to these services, that doesn’t solve the problem of these corporations having unrestricted power to do whatever they want. That’s what we need to solve.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Appreciate your take on this. Those of us who wince at spending time in the Social Mess Halls may be inclined to build our personal curios in dusty corners of the net, content with a dozen views a month, but that does not serve as a rebellion to the problems in tech. There must be some better way we can think as groups of people, on necessarily large platforms. Something better than Dorsey and Zuck have managed to build. I am very concerned about the metaverse trend, it's like people watched the Matrix and thought "yeah, let me plug into the machine and not deal with real life" and didn't catch the moral of Ready Player One, "Real Life is the only thing thats Real", but were sold on the nostalgia orgasm of having Jurrasic Park and Back to the Future in the same game. I would like to build some anti-meta-verse, that helps you build the actual world by keeping your attention on your own intentions, not allowing your mind to wander at the whim of ad-campaign designers (we can all agree the IOI represented facebook, right? the bad guys that want to fill 80% of your peripheral vision with ads? but if it is more addictive then real life, of course people will choose to spend their time there.)