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>But in the spirit of experimentation, should we not try the one thing we have not actually tried online yet – capitalism? Garbage quote. The Internet has been

>But in the spirit of experimentation, should we not try the one thing we have not actually tried online yet – capitalism? Garbage quote. The Internet has been largely an ancap[0] wet dream. Rules are enforced by unaccountable corporations wielding monopoly power and one-sided contracts and enforcing laws through summary judgment and tattooing "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" on people's heads. The only thing we're missing is the 3D Internet and ancient Babylonian computer viruses. The EU already implemented data ownership, it's called GDPR. The points where it differs from a vanilla property right are there specifically because tech companies have already made data "too cheap to meter". If you just build a property right around data, the tech companies will just say "your data is the price of admission to a free service", and people will accept that because... - Monopoly status is a form of power equivalent to that of government[1] - People on the business end of power have no negotiating leverage This is how dragnet surveillance became legalized in America[2]. SCOTUS argued that if you tell someone where to send a message or connect a call, that information has no expectation of privacy. AT&T would then go and put EULA roofies[3] into everyone's phone service that let them sell your phone numbers. Government and private surveillance coevolved from there into the privacy nightmare we have today. In order to fix this we need to change the starting conditions. Also... >Academics and the digital NGOs, a familiar looking blob, hate the prospect, in part because it leaves them with a diminished political role, if any at all. I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean beyond the usual right-wing knock against civil libertarians and people with well-rounded educations. [0] Short for "anarcho-capitalist", which is a contradiction in terms for reasons that should already be evident from everything else I already said. [1] Conversely, government is just a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Maryland [3] A colorful term Louis Rossmann uses to refer to contractual clauses you'd never agree to but for your lack of negotiating power.

Karunamon 3y ago
people will accept [paying with their data to access a free service] because monopoly status is a form of power equivalent to that of government Sort of agreed, but monopoly status is the status of having no meaningful competition, which company/service does this apply to? The other problem is that ~nobody can articulate a way that this "data for access" arrangement has actually harmed, or even so much as inconvenienced them.
- kmeisthax 3y ago
  It's a very specific and weird kind of monopoly enabled not by being the only meaningful competitor but by being the trusted intermediary everyone else uses. As the operator of a centralized communication network the monopoly is on your ability to contact friends who choose to use their services. In other words, the network effect. While you and your friends can use other services, that still requires you all agree on not just leaving one service, but moving to another service. This might sound like a contrived example, but a significant portion of my extended family uses Facebook and only Facebook to communicate as a group. Since I have zero desire to see any more of my data fly up Mark Zuckerberg's asshole, I very rarely use Facebook, and as a result I am practically dead to a good chunk of my extended family. If I do want to contact them, it is on Mark's terms: I must use his client software, which contains as much spyware as Apple and Google will allow. There is no negotiation, just a choice between capitulation or detachment. The reason why I consider this to be a monopoly is the same reason why I consider, say, Comcast or the United States government to be monopolies. Technically speaking, there are alternatives to cable companies and your national government, but to access them, you need to move, subject yourself to immigration formalities, etc. Messaging apps work the same way. Look at how many people are continuing to stay on Twitter despite Elon Musk radically changing the functionality and political editorialization of the site to be complete garbage. Even mechanically identical services like Threads, Bluesky, or Mastodon have yet to eclipse it because there is no interoperability between them and Twitter[0]. [0] FWIW literally every Mastodon instance I federate with already blocks Threads despite federation merely being a planned feature that doesn't even exist yet. The reasoning behind that is... complicated.

Karunamon 3y ago

people will accept [paying with their data to access a free service] because monopoly status is a form of power equivalent to that of government Sort of agreed, but monopoly status is the status of having no meaningful competition, which company/service does this apply to? The other problem is that ~nobody can articulate a way that this "data for access" arrangement has actually harmed, or even so much as inconvenienced them.

kmeisthax 3y ago
It's a very specific and weird kind of monopoly enabled not by being the only meaningful competitor but by being the trusted intermediary everyone else uses. As the operator of a centralized communication network the monopoly is on your ability to contact friends who choose to use their services. In other words, the network effect. While you and your friends can use other services, that still requires you all agree on not just leaving one service, but moving to another service. This might sound like a contrived example, but a significant portion of my extended family uses Facebook and only Facebook to communicate as a group. Since I have zero desire to see any more of my data fly up Mark Zuckerberg's asshole, I very rarely use Facebook, and as a result I am practically dead to a good chunk of my extended family. If I do want to contact them, it is on Mark's terms: I must use his client software, which contains as much spyware as Apple and Google will allow. There is no negotiation, just a choice between capitulation or detachment. The reason why I consider this to be a monopoly is the same reason why I consider, say, Comcast or the United States government to be monopolies. Technically speaking, there are alternatives to cable companies and your national government, but to access them, you need to move, subject yourself to immigration formalities, etc. Messaging apps work the same way. Look at how many people are continuing to stay on Twitter despite Elon Musk radically changing the functionality and political editorialization of the site to be complete garbage. Even mechanically identical services like Threads, Bluesky, or Mastodon have yet to eclipse it because there is no interoperability between them and Twitter[0]. [0] FWIW literally every Mastodon instance I federate with already blocks Threads despite federation merely being a planned feature that doesn't even exist yet. The reasoning behind that is... complicated.