6 ms·

The idea that you can create blocks that can easily be integrated into other applications presupposes that it's a desirable thing to have data that can be easil

by jawns 5y ago

The idea that you can create blocks that can easily be integrated into other applications presupposes that it's a desirable thing to have data that can be easily integrated into other applications. Which, for us as developers, seems like a given. But when you look at it through the lens of business users, that becomes a much more murky assumption. Look at RSS. Amazing way to aggregate content from other sources into a viewer that you have robust control over. Developers love it! But is RSS desirable from a business point of view? The landscape over the past 15 years suggests that no, it's not. Businesses would prefer to build walled gardens. They want complete control over the experience of consuming the content they produce, particularly when it comes to analytics and user data generated from that content. In many cases, their business model depends on it. While the Block site touts this protocol as a way to collaboratively build and share things within a community and ecosystem that runs on cooperative principles, that may be at odds with what our current business environment is incentivizing.

culi 5y ago
Sounds like we need a different economic system that doesn't have these types of incentives
- AyyWS 5y ago
  So you're saying block protocol would be a good fit for Red Star OS?
CyberDildonics 5y ago
To be clear, you think that a standard data format and protocol is not worthwhile because some organizations don't release data?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Standardized data formats and protocols exist already - see Linked Data and the Semantic Web. They're mostly used by non-commercial data providers because of the aforementioned incentive problem.
  - CyberDildonics 5y ago
    What does this have to do with anything though? Why is another standard a problem to people who don't even care about the problem it solves?
  - rezonant 5y ago
    Linked data is actually heavily used by commercial entities, especially by video websites. This is because Google uses it for rich search results and they see value in exposing the information for that purpose. It is nowhere near universal, but it seems to be growing and I hope it continues.
DavidWilkinson 5y ago
We’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking to folks about the incentive structures around this, and think they stand on their own - although your skepticism was an initial worry we had, too. As it stands the Block Protocol enables embedding applications to make their products more useful to consumers. And block developers reach a wider audience with their tools than they would otherwise. There’s a lot more to this that we’ll write up nicely later.
- URSpider94 5y ago
  I can see how, if you get to critical mass, the network effect will drive adoption. For example, building a Blocks-based project management system becomes much, much easier if it can tie into one of many (hypothetical) Blocks-based HR information systems, so that you can pre-populate a list of employees at the company. As much as big companies love lock-in, there's tremendous potential value in enabling small companies to build open value-add tools that focus on solving a narrow problem extremely well.
doliveira 5y ago
I don't think there ever will be actual support from current major tech companies for such an endeavor, their business models are all about information and development lock-in, either explicitly or implicitly... I think it would have to start with academia and technical content, just like it did for the web (as I understand it)
mejutoco 5y ago
I have been asked to implement RSS but private please, more than once :) One way to look at it could be that protocols create potential (sowing) and businesses exploit that potential (harvesting). Without the protocols I believe some of the walled gardens would also be impossible. The best example i can think of is email, which created opportunities for businesses for events, ecommerce, login systems, etc.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
yencabulator 5y ago
> Businesses would prefer to build walled gardens. They want complete control over the experience of consuming the content they produce, particularly when it comes to analytics and user data generated from that content. Not only that, they want to actively prevent others from benefiting. Amazon shipping notification emails used to list the products included, but now it's just basically a link to the website. Can't let email providers, plugins, or 3rd party software have an easy way to view that data! Personally, I'm most disappointed in the non-answer that is their "Security": https://blockprotocol.org/spec/embedding-applications#security https://blockprotocol.org/spec/embedding-applications#securi...
eitland 5y ago
> The idea that you can create blocks that can easily be integrated into other applications presupposes that it's a desirable thing to have data that can be easily integrated into other applications. > Which, for us as developers, seems like a given. Also as power users. And I mean that in the broadest sense. I mean, as a 16 year old I already understood and liked the idea of OLE. By pretending it is only for devs we limits its potential in everyones minds. Don't do that unless you want to preserve the current somewhat sad state of affairs.
wraptile 5y ago
Nail on the head with the walled garden comment. I've been developing all sorts of web scrapers for 10 years now and businesses will go to extreme lengths to share the bare minimum required. You can really see that if you look at schema.org adoption - the only used fields are the ones that are required by seo. For example, schema's Person object can contain dozens of useful fields but most websites will provide name only even though the rest of the data is available in page content. Public data is a long lost battle.
the_other 5y ago
> Businesses would prefer to build walled gardens. They want complete control over the experience of consuming the content they produce, particularly when it comes to analytics and user data generated from that content. In many cases, their business model depends on it. Business seem very happy to share business data (user analytics) with Google, via Google Analytics.

by jawns 5y ago

culi 5y ago

Sounds like we need a different economic system that doesn't have these types of incentives

AyyWS 5y ago
So you're saying block protocol would be a good fit for Red Star OS?

CyberDildonics 5y ago

To be clear, you think that a standard data format and protocol is not worthwhile because some organizations don't release data?

zozbot234 5y ago
Standardized data formats and protocols exist already - see Linked Data and the Semantic Web. They're mostly used by non-commercial data providers because of the aforementioned incentive problem.
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  What does this have to do with anything though? Why is another standard a problem to people who don't even care about the problem it solves?
- rezonant 5y ago
  Linked data is actually heavily used by commercial entities, especially by video websites. This is because Google uses it for rich search results and they see value in exposing the information for that purpose. It is nowhere near universal, but it seems to be growing and I hope it continues.

DavidWilkinson 5y ago

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking and talking to folks about the incentive structures around this, and think they stand on their own - although your skepticism was an initial worry we had, too. As it stands the Block Protocol enables embedding applications to make their products more useful to consumers. And block developers reach a wider audience with their tools than they would otherwise. There’s a lot more to this that we’ll write up nicely later.

URSpider94 5y ago
I can see how, if you get to critical mass, the network effect will drive adoption. For example, building a Blocks-based project management system becomes much, much easier if it can tie into one of many (hypothetical) Blocks-based HR information systems, so that you can pre-populate a list of employees at the company. As much as big companies love lock-in, there's tremendous potential value in enabling small companies to build open value-add tools that focus on solving a narrow problem extremely well.

doliveira 5y ago

I don't think there ever will be actual support from current major tech companies for such an endeavor, their business models are all about information and development lock-in, either explicitly or implicitly... I think it would have to start with academia and technical content, just like it did for the web (as I understand it)

mejutoco 5y ago

I have been asked to implement RSS but private please, more than once :) One way to look at it could be that protocols create potential (sowing) and businesses exploit that potential (harvesting). Without the protocols I believe some of the walled gardens would also be impossible. The best example i can think of is email, which created opportunities for businesses for events, ecommerce, login systems, etc.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

yencabulator 5y ago

> Businesses would prefer to build walled gardens. They want complete control over the experience of consuming the content they produce, particularly when it comes to analytics and user data generated from that content. Not only that, they want to actively prevent others from benefiting. Amazon shipping notification emails used to list the products included, but now it's just basically a link to the website. Can't let email providers, plugins, or 3rd party software have an easy way to view that data! Personally, I'm most disappointed in the non-answer that is their "Security": https://blockprotocol.org/spec/embedding-applications#security https://blockprotocol.org/spec/embedding-applications#securi...

eitland 5y ago

> The idea that you can create blocks that can easily be integrated into other applications presupposes that it's a desirable thing to have data that can be easily integrated into other applications. > Which, for us as developers, seems like a given. Also as power users. And I mean that in the broadest sense. I mean, as a 16 year old I already understood and liked the idea of OLE. By pretending it is only for devs we limits its potential in everyones minds. Don't do that unless you want to preserve the current somewhat sad state of affairs.

wraptile 5y ago

Nail on the head with the walled garden comment. I've been developing all sorts of web scrapers for 10 years now and businesses will go to extreme lengths to share the bare minimum required. You can really see that if you look at schema.org adoption - the only used fields are the ones that are required by seo. For example, schema's Person object can contain dozens of useful fields but most websites will provide name only even though the rest of the data is available in page content. Public data is a long lost battle.

the_other 5y ago

> Businesses would prefer to build walled gardens. They want complete control over the experience of consuming the content they produce, particularly when it comes to analytics and user data generated from that content. In many cases, their business model depends on it. Business seem very happy to share business data (user analytics) with Google, via Google Analytics.