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*Never build your house on someone else's land". Episode 237.

morkalork 3y ago
Kind of tired of this low effort canned reply. Unless you are the literal embodiment of a state, it's always someone else's land. You're just renting it as long as you pay taxes on it. Same goes digitally. Hosting is someone else's land. Domain name registration is someone else's land. Do you say the same thing when a piracy site loses it's domain and moves yet again to another obscure tld?
- rglullis 3y ago
  > Do you say the same thing when a piracy site loses it's domain and moves yet again to another obscure tld? Are the people on the piratebay "pissed at ICANN" when they lose a domain? No, they learned that the domain name is worthless by itself.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    How is a twitter handle different?
    - rglullis 3y ago
      Are TWitter handles overseen by ICANN and IANA? Are they bound by any type of international agreement? The problem in your example is that the people behind TPB work with the principle that any domain name might be taken away from them at any moment, unlike Mr. @music, who was naive enough to think he was immune to any takeover just because he called dibs on the name.
      - morkalork 3y ago
        Still sounds like someone else's land, just with more faith in their behaviour.
        rglullis 3y ago
        To go back: the problem with your analogy is that it's not about the land, it's about the house. ThePirateBay didn't build their solution on the premise that they would have an irrevocable right to their domain name. If the land owner decided to take back the land (like they did, many times) TPB could simply take their things and move elsewhere (like they did, many times). I don't think I ever saw someone from TPB saying "oh, they took our domain, it's so unfair!", instead what I hear them saying is "we are building magnet-links and a bunch of redundant proxies so that our service continues to exist even if we lose all the domains we have.
    - zajio1am 3y ago
      In case of domain registries there is a contract with clear terms. In case of twitter handle or other free services there is no consideration on user's side so there is no binding contract, therefore the service could be revoked at any time.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  Some land does, in fact, have private owners.
- drcode 3y ago
  I hate being that guy but if you have a self-hosted bitcoin account or ether account or use some of the naming services on those platforms, this isn't the case
  - deely3 3y ago
    What the point to have self-hosted, self-owned account if popular services ignore it? You can own land that no one wants, you can own anything that no one wants.
    - drcode 3y ago
      I 100% agree too few people care about true sovereignty to change the behavior of popular services
sneak 3y ago
By that logic, Uber and Instagram and WhatsApp should not have been started, as the iOS App Store is unequivocally "someone else's land", and these services could only exist as native apps.
- JJMcJ 3y ago
  At this point it's all but inconceivable that those would be removed from the app servers, iOS or Android. In the early days if something had gone wrong, it might have been a different story. Though I suspect that companies with good VC connections might have side channels into Apple or Google to clear up problems. Not like little guys who can wake up one morning to discover their $20K/month business is no more.
  - fernandopj 3y ago
    > At this point it's all but inconceivable that those would be removed from the app servers, iOS or Android. Not at all: one could see a future where any of those companies become Uber rivals - they're both researching autonomous vehicles. When that comes, one incident at Uber and its reason enough to expel them.
  - zmmmmm 3y ago
    See Epic games / fortnite
- rglullis 3y ago
  Why couldn't they be built as web apps? Also, if it helps, by that logic no one shouldn't be using iOS or anything by Apple, which is also a rule that I follow.
- xwdv 3y ago
  The original logic doesn’t go far enough. You can build on someone’s land, but you’d be wise to be ready to move as soon as it becomes necessary. Essentially you are a nomad, reconfiguring your business to changing conditions, accepting that things will change over time.
- Guvante 3y ago
throwaway98797 3y ago
that’s so smart a good excuse to never build anything life is risk this sucks, no doubt but this snark is so unproductive
- ovao 3y ago
  It’s not a good excuse to not build anything, but quite a good excuse to not build on what others own in such a way that you’re entirely reliant on them. Yes, unless you’re self-hosting your product on a solar-powered server via community-owned networks, you’re going to be beholden to someone, and often that’s multiple parties. But that’s not the same as being completely beholden.
  - threatofrain 3y ago
    Many businesses start with single points of failure. The goal is to get enough money to where this is not true, but they all start this way. Ultimately the goal is managing risk, and that often means not building out your own data center as the first thing you do.
    - ovao 3y ago
      This, more increasingly, doesn’t mean building out your own data center. Often this just means you can deploy services to multiple platforms without a dramatic or upending burden of effort. I don’t think startups should necessarily burn capital on federation, but startups can at least make engineering decisions and trade-offs to ensure a future livelihood not contingent on single points of failure. Unless you’re Apple or Google, you’ll have some single points of failure. But that’s not the same as the livelihood of what you’re setting out to do being reliant on a single vendor for over a decade.
    - rglullis 3y ago
      There is quite a lot between "building your own data center" and "building your tech stack in a way where you are not locked to one specific vendor".
- rglullis 3y ago

Kind of tired of this low effort canned reply. Unless you are the literal embodiment of a state, it's always someone else's land. You're just renting it as long as you pay taxes on it. Same goes digitally. Hosting is someone else's land. Domain name registration is someone else's land. Do you say the same thing when a piracy site loses it's domain and moves yet again to another obscure tld?

rglullis 3y ago
> Do you say the same thing when a piracy site loses it's domain and moves yet again to another obscure tld? Are the people on the piratebay "pissed at ICANN" when they lose a domain? No, they learned that the domain name is worthless by itself.
- morkalork 3y ago
  How is a twitter handle different?
  - rglullis 3y ago
    Are TWitter handles overseen by ICANN and IANA? Are they bound by any type of international agreement? The problem in your example is that the people behind TPB work with the principle that any domain name might be taken away from them at any moment, unlike Mr. @music, who was naive enough to think he was immune to any takeover just because he called dibs on the name.
    - morkalork 3y ago
      Still sounds like someone else's land, just with more faith in their behaviour.
      - rglullis 3y ago
        To go back: the problem with your analogy is that it's not about the land, it's about the house. ThePirateBay didn't build their solution on the premise that they would have an irrevocable right to their domain name. If the land owner decided to take back the land (like they did, many times) TPB could simply take their things and move elsewhere (like they did, many times). I don't think I ever saw someone from TPB saying "oh, they took our domain, it's so unfair!", instead what I hear them saying is "we are building magnet-links and a bunch of redundant proxies so that our service continues to exist even if we lose all the domains we have.
  - zajio1am 3y ago
    In case of domain registries there is a contract with clear terms. In case of twitter handle or other free services there is no consideration on user's side so there is no binding contract, therefore the service could be revoked at any time.
fluoridation 3y ago
Some land does, in fact, have private owners.
drcode 3y ago
I hate being that guy but if you have a self-hosted bitcoin account or ether account or use some of the naming services on those platforms, this isn't the case
- deely3 3y ago
  What the point to have self-hosted, self-owned account if popular services ignore it? You can own land that no one wants, you can own anything that no one wants.
  - drcode 3y ago
    I 100% agree too few people care about true sovereignty to change the behavior of popular services

sneak 3y ago

By that logic, Uber and Instagram and WhatsApp should not have been started, as the iOS App Store is unequivocally "someone else's land", and these services could only exist as native apps.

JJMcJ 3y ago
At this point it's all but inconceivable that those would be removed from the app servers, iOS or Android. In the early days if something had gone wrong, it might have been a different story. Though I suspect that companies with good VC connections might have side channels into Apple or Google to clear up problems. Not like little guys who can wake up one morning to discover their $20K/month business is no more.
- fernandopj 3y ago
  > At this point it's all but inconceivable that those would be removed from the app servers, iOS or Android. Not at all: one could see a future where any of those companies become Uber rivals - they're both researching autonomous vehicles. When that comes, one incident at Uber and its reason enough to expel them.
- zmmmmm 3y ago
  See Epic games / fortnite
rglullis 3y ago
Why couldn't they be built as web apps? Also, if it helps, by that logic no one shouldn't be using iOS or anything by Apple, which is also a rule that I follow.
xwdv 3y ago
The original logic doesn’t go far enough. You can build on someone’s land, but you’d be wise to be ready to move as soon as it becomes necessary. Essentially you are a nomad, reconfiguring your business to changing conditions, accepting that things will change over time.
Guvante 3y ago

throwaway98797 3y ago

that’s so smart a good excuse to never build anything life is risk this sucks, no doubt but this snark is so unproductive

ovao 3y ago
It’s not a good excuse to not build anything, but quite a good excuse to not build on what others own in such a way that you’re entirely reliant on them. Yes, unless you’re self-hosting your product on a solar-powered server via community-owned networks, you’re going to be beholden to someone, and often that’s multiple parties. But that’s not the same as being completely beholden.
- threatofrain 3y ago
  Many businesses start with single points of failure. The goal is to get enough money to where this is not true, but they all start this way. Ultimately the goal is managing risk, and that often means not building out your own data center as the first thing you do.
  - ovao 3y ago
    This, more increasingly, doesn’t mean building out your own data center. Often this just means you can deploy services to multiple platforms without a dramatic or upending burden of effort. I don’t think startups should necessarily burn capital on federation, but startups can at least make engineering decisions and trade-offs to ensure a future livelihood not contingent on single points of failure. Unless you’re Apple or Google, you’ll have some single points of failure. But that’s not the same as the livelihood of what you’re setting out to do being reliant on a single vendor for over a decade.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    There is quite a lot between "building your own data center" and "building your tech stack in a way where you are not locked to one specific vendor".
rglullis 3y ago