12 ms·

Greed happened. It poisons whatever it touches. Mammon is the only thing that matters to a lot of primates.

chiefalchemist 5y ago
Keep in mind, "free" pairs with greed. The Market even pre-internet gravitated to free. I'm certainly not defending greed, but the general lack of market pushback doesn't discourage it either.
- atoav 5y ago
  I think it is more. I see people who make a simple website for a small family guesthouse voluntarily add all kinds of scripts that give them not a lot but send a ton of data to the big players. Typically the reason is, that they don't know how to do it any other way.
- hansworst 5y ago
  There is no market pushback because free services hide negative externalities. So when users choose something that’s free over something they’d have to pay for, I’d say they’re generally unaware of the negative consequences (either to them or to the rest of society) because by claiming a service is free of charge, the provider is effectively hiding those negative effects, and making their revenue in some opaque way (e.g. advertising) There will never be market pushback as long as those externalities aren’t priced in. And Imho the only for that to happen is for governments to introduce regulation, e.g. by taxing the externalities so that “free” service providers are forced to be more upfront about the actual cost of their service.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Good diagnosis, terrible treatment. First, haven't we learned already that any government regulation always ends up favoring the status quo? FAANG will be able to eat those costs right away and make it impossible for any competitor to rise up Second, what happened with personal responsibility? We can still choose to patronize companies that do not rely on ads, we can still promote/fund the development of Libre Software that is focused on the users' welfare and not the corporations' bottom line. Most of us here on HN can even help other less tech-savvy people to avoid falling into those traps and educate them about less invasive alternatives. When you say "the government should do X", you imply that we can not do it ourselves. And we pretty much can.
    - 411111111111111 5y ago
      > First, haven't we learned already that any government regulation always ends up favoring the status quo? That premise is wrong. Government regulation has lately been mostly done on account of corporations which want to protect their monopolies and strengthen their position, but that doesn't make it inherently so.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        > lately If by lately, you mean "basically always", then I'd agree. I'd be hard pressed to think of any regulation that was successfully enacted and led to actual distress and disruption in the big corporations. > that doesn't make it inherently so Why would it be different this time? Can you think of any kind of policy that has any slim chance of passing and would get us rid of Big Tech? And by "Big Tech", I mean all of it, not just the ones that you don't like.
        HWR_14 5y ago
        I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Just reign it in. And just enforcing anticompetitive regulations help. The GDPR helps. The EU regulations requiring federated messaging help. The laws in favor net neutrality help.
        rglullis 5y ago
        > I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Yes, I do. The FSF does. The IndieWeb does. > Just reign it in. To think that this is possible without any type of damaging side-effect is a huge delusion. Trusting more power to Big Government to try to control Big Tech is like saying "Look at all the destruction that Godzilla is making, we need to unleash King Kong to fight it". The only stable solution to avoid global systemic catastrophe is by removing centralized power and redistributing it to local communities. GDPR does not help, quite the opposite. It gave people some illusion of control but did nothing but scare smaller players into compliance. Messaging standardization might actually turn out to be good, but only because none of the dominant companies are from Europe.
  - northernexposur 5y ago
    This is why libraries are amazing - they are objectively funded so that “free” really means “so essential it’s funded for you.” In the case of vulnerable populations that are driven to free services (like the socioeconomically disadvantaged or especially kids), it relieves the pressure to engage in selling one’s self to receive some “free” service. This was more widely accepted in the past when services like NPR and PBS were publicly funded. You know, when we cared about education.

Keep in mind, "free" pairs with greed. The Market even pre-internet gravitated to free. I'm certainly not defending greed, but the general lack of market pushback doesn't discourage it either.

atoav 5y ago
I think it is more. I see people who make a simple website for a small family guesthouse voluntarily add all kinds of scripts that give them not a lot but send a ton of data to the big players. Typically the reason is, that they don't know how to do it any other way.
hansworst 5y ago
There is no market pushback because free services hide negative externalities. So when users choose something that’s free over something they’d have to pay for, I’d say they’re generally unaware of the negative consequences (either to them or to the rest of society) because by claiming a service is free of charge, the provider is effectively hiding those negative effects, and making their revenue in some opaque way (e.g. advertising) There will never be market pushback as long as those externalities aren’t priced in. And Imho the only for that to happen is for governments to introduce regulation, e.g. by taxing the externalities so that “free” service providers are forced to be more upfront about the actual cost of their service.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Good diagnosis, terrible treatment. First, haven't we learned already that any government regulation always ends up favoring the status quo? FAANG will be able to eat those costs right away and make it impossible for any competitor to rise up Second, what happened with personal responsibility? We can still choose to patronize companies that do not rely on ads, we can still promote/fund the development of Libre Software that is focused on the users' welfare and not the corporations' bottom line. Most of us here on HN can even help other less tech-savvy people to avoid falling into those traps and educate them about less invasive alternatives. When you say "the government should do X", you imply that we can not do it ourselves. And we pretty much can.
  - 411111111111111 5y ago
    > First, haven't we learned already that any government regulation always ends up favoring the status quo? That premise is wrong. Government regulation has lately been mostly done on account of corporations which want to protect their monopolies and strengthen their position, but that doesn't make it inherently so.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      > lately If by lately, you mean "basically always", then I'd agree. I'd be hard pressed to think of any regulation that was successfully enacted and led to actual distress and disruption in the big corporations. > that doesn't make it inherently so Why would it be different this time? Can you think of any kind of policy that has any slim chance of passing and would get us rid of Big Tech? And by "Big Tech", I mean all of it, not just the ones that you don't like.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Just reign it in. And just enforcing anticompetitive regulations help. The GDPR helps. The EU regulations requiring federated messaging help. The laws in favor net neutrality help.
        rglullis 5y ago
        > I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Yes, I do. The FSF does. The IndieWeb does. > Just reign it in. To think that this is possible without any type of damaging side-effect is a huge delusion. Trusting more power to Big Government to try to control Big Tech is like saying "Look at all the destruction that Godzilla is making, we need to unleash King Kong to fight it". The only stable solution to avoid global systemic catastrophe is by removing centralized power and redistributing it to local communities. GDPR does not help, quite the opposite. It gave people some illusion of control but did nothing but scare smaller players into compliance. Messaging standardization might actually turn out to be good, but only because none of the dominant companies are from Europe.
- northernexposur 5y ago
  This is why libraries are amazing - they are objectively funded so that “free” really means “so essential it’s funded for you.” In the case of vulnerable populations that are driven to free services (like the socioeconomically disadvantaged or especially kids), it relieves the pressure to engage in selling one’s self to receive some “free” service. This was more widely accepted in the past when services like NPR and PBS were publicly funded. You know, when we cared about education.