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This article sounds like the author started with a conclusion and worked their way back to a premise. Monopolistic powers are a business and economics problem,

This article sounds like the author started with a conclusion and worked their way back to a premise. Monopolistic powers are a business and economics problem, it has nothing to do with the building blocks used to build their products. >For example, if Uber’s driver rating could be exported to other similar ride-hailing services, it would have the effect of reducing the lock-in effect of Uber platform. People are not using Uber because they don't have a rating on newcomer apps. They're using it because Uber has a large number riders and drivers in many locations, and people are aware of it. > Mandate the use of open standards and open source competitor: All solutions must have open source alternatives before being implemented. For example, the Bavarian government switched the government operating system to Linux in 2018 to avoid being subject to Microsoft’s monopoly on software. While the project was not entirely successful They discovered that there's a difference between "software" and "a software implementation". A myopic view of software as just code that you can throw over a fence is missing the entire reason that Windows was and is dominant on desktop. Deploying, integrating, maintaining, and operating software across an organization is labor intensive. Microsoft doesn't "compete with Linux", they compete with Red Hat or Canonical.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> People are not using Uber because they don't have a rating on newcomer apps. They're using it because Uber has a large number riders and drivers in many locations, and people are aware of it. I think the general point is that you want to move the network effect outside the control of a single entity. So for example, like email rather than like Facebook. You relegate the service into something narrower, like payment processing, which then becomes fungible. You find the driver you want in a decentralized system and then pay them using Uber or Paypal or CashApp or Mastercard or physical cash or whatever you like. > Deploying, integrating, maintaining, and operating software across an organization is labor intensive. Microsoft doesn't "compete with Linux", they compete with Red Hat or Canonical. That depends on your scale, but there are different ways to go about it. If you're small, just compiling something from github is a reasonable thing to do. You're not deploying it to a thousand workstations or trying to centrally manage anything. What do you need with Active Directory? If you're large, you have a well-staffed IT department and possibly even your own software developers who can handle deployment issues in-house. Google has its own in-house Linux distribution in addition to ChromeOS. The target market for Windows and Red Hat and Canonical is medium-sized entities with enough money to pay someone else to solve their problems but not enough to bring that expertise in house. But many corporations and governments are large enough that they'd be better off doing what Google does, and open source communities can operate at the same scale. Medium sized companies that actually have a dedicated IT department could very well be better off to make a minor contribution to a community effort, and use it themselves, than lock themselves into one of these enterprise vendors. That would require more organization than is currently present, but not necessarily more than is humanly possible.
- kube-system 3y ago
  > You relegate the service into something narrower, like payment processing, which then becomes fungible. You find the driver you want in a decentralized system But how? Who is going to build, maintain, and provide equitable and effective governance, support, and regulatory compliance for that system? And why are others going to use it? > If you're small, just compiling something from github is a reasonable thing to do. Most small orgs don't have IT expertise. They buy off the shelf hardware and software. The computers they buy come with an OS on them, and they use that one. What would compel them to install a different one? > If you're large, you have a well-staffed IT department and possibly even your own software developers who can handle deployment issues in-house. Google has its own in-house Linux distribution in addition to ChromeOS. Google is a software company, of course they develop software. Most organizations are not software companies. There's really no reason for other large companies like PepsiCo to be making their own Linux distros for their office staff, any more than it makes sense for Google to start bottling their own beverages for their cafeteria. Yes, many are large enough that they could -- but they'll never do as good as a software company does, because they aren't one. The question isn't whether they could do it, the question is: are there enough benefits to outweigh the costs and risks? Are you really better off training and supporting your office staff to send out invoices using SumatraPDF on Ubuntu, just to save money on Adobe/Windows licensing? For companies that have nothing to do with software, this is a recipe to lose more money in operational problems than they save in licensing.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > But how? Who is going to build, maintain, and provide equitable and effective governance, support, and regulatory compliance for that system? And why are others going to use it? Who does it for Debian or Blender or DNS or SMTP? > Most small orgs don't have IT expertise. They buy off the shelf hardware and software. The computers they buy come with an OS on them, and they use that one. What would compel them to install a different one? The computer they bought came with Windows 7, but Windows 7 isn't supported anymore. Windows 11 says it doesn't support that hardware. Meanwhile it's a quad core with enough RAM and an SSD and even if it's a few years old it's still fine. All they need it for is to use Google Docs and Chrome/Firefox. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a new machine when you can just have your niece install Debian? > There's really no reason for other large companies like PepsiCo to be making their own Linux distros for their office staff, any more than it makes sense for Google to start bottling their own beverages for their cafeteria. There is though. Bottling beverages is a low margin commodity market. Software isn't. If you can bottle your beverages just as well as Pepsi, you might save a fraction of a percent on something that costs you a fraction of a percent of your revenue. If you can cut Microsoft out of a large enterprise, you can eliminate tens of millions of dollars in licensing costs. That pays for a non-zero number of software developers. Meanwhile free software exists, so you're not starting from scratch with an empty plot of land and have to figure out how to mold plastic into beverage containers. You start with a Linux distribution that other large enterprises are already using and make some minor modifications to tailor it to your needs. > Yes, many are large enough that they could -- but they'll never do as good as a software company does, because they aren't one. In many cases they are. If you're a bank, you're "not a software company", but how are your customers interacting with you in the main? How about a health insurance company? A telecommunications company? An online retailer, like Amazon (which knows this quite well)? You don't have to be "a software company" for software to be a major part of your business. > Are you really better off training and supporting your office staff to send out invoices using SumatraPDF on Ubuntu, just to save money on Adobe/Windows licensing? For companies that have nothing to do with software, this is a recipe to lose more money in operational problems than they save in licensing. It's not just about licensing. Okay, so you save a couple hundred bucks per seat on licensing. That's several million dollars, you could justify that, but maybe it's not much better than breakeven. But then you're not trapped in a Skinner box, where every day you have to keep clicking "no" to a box that, if you ever click yes, you end up violating a privacy law and putting your company in regulatory peril. Or locking yourself into a vendor who can then raise prices on you by more than your original estimate of what they would cost, but by then it's too late and the cost of extricating yourself is now more than the cost of paying the danegeld. There is value in opting yourself out of the enshittification of major platforms.
andsoitis 3y ago
> This article sounds like the author started with a conclusion and worked their way back to a premise. That’s how all articles or persuasion techniques work! You have a message you want to convey in mind, and then you decide how to convince the reader and write accordingly!
- kube-system 3y ago
  It is how persuasive essays work, but things like exploratory essays certainly exist.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> People are not using Uber because they don't have a rating on newcomer apps. They're using it because Uber has a large number riders and drivers in many locations, and people are aware of it. I think the general point is that you want to move the network effect outside the control of a single entity. So for example, like email rather than like Facebook. You relegate the service into something narrower, like payment processing, which then becomes fungible. You find the driver you want in a decentralized system and then pay them using Uber or Paypal or CashApp or Mastercard or physical cash or whatever you like. > Deploying, integrating, maintaining, and operating software across an organization is labor intensive. Microsoft doesn't "compete with Linux", they compete with Red Hat or Canonical. That depends on your scale, but there are different ways to go about it. If you're small, just compiling something from github is a reasonable thing to do. You're not deploying it to a thousand workstations or trying to centrally manage anything. What do you need with Active Directory? If you're large, you have a well-staffed IT department and possibly even your own software developers who can handle deployment issues in-house. Google has its own in-house Linux distribution in addition to ChromeOS. The target market for Windows and Red Hat and Canonical is medium-sized entities with enough money to pay someone else to solve their problems but not enough to bring that expertise in house. But many corporations and governments are large enough that they'd be better off doing what Google does, and open source communities can operate at the same scale. Medium sized companies that actually have a dedicated IT department could very well be better off to make a minor contribution to a community effort, and use it themselves, than lock themselves into one of these enterprise vendors. That would require more organization than is currently present, but not necessarily more than is humanly possible.

kube-system 3y ago
> You relegate the service into something narrower, like payment processing, which then becomes fungible. You find the driver you want in a decentralized system But how? Who is going to build, maintain, and provide equitable and effective governance, support, and regulatory compliance for that system? And why are others going to use it? > If you're small, just compiling something from github is a reasonable thing to do. Most small orgs don't have IT expertise. They buy off the shelf hardware and software. The computers they buy come with an OS on them, and they use that one. What would compel them to install a different one? > If you're large, you have a well-staffed IT department and possibly even your own software developers who can handle deployment issues in-house. Google has its own in-house Linux distribution in addition to ChromeOS. Google is a software company, of course they develop software. Most organizations are not software companies. There's really no reason for other large companies like PepsiCo to be making their own Linux distros for their office staff, any more than it makes sense for Google to start bottling their own beverages for their cafeteria. Yes, many are large enough that they could -- but they'll never do as good as a software company does, because they aren't one. The question isn't whether they could do it, the question is: are there enough benefits to outweigh the costs and risks? Are you really better off training and supporting your office staff to send out invoices using SumatraPDF on Ubuntu, just to save money on Adobe/Windows licensing? For companies that have nothing to do with software, this is a recipe to lose more money in operational problems than they save in licensing.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > But how? Who is going to build, maintain, and provide equitable and effective governance, support, and regulatory compliance for that system? And why are others going to use it? Who does it for Debian or Blender or DNS or SMTP? > Most small orgs don't have IT expertise. They buy off the shelf hardware and software. The computers they buy come with an OS on them, and they use that one. What would compel them to install a different one? The computer they bought came with Windows 7, but Windows 7 isn't supported anymore. Windows 11 says it doesn't support that hardware. Meanwhile it's a quad core with enough RAM and an SSD and even if it's a few years old it's still fine. All they need it for is to use Google Docs and Chrome/Firefox. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a new machine when you can just have your niece install Debian? > There's really no reason for other large companies like PepsiCo to be making their own Linux distros for their office staff, any more than it makes sense for Google to start bottling their own beverages for their cafeteria. There is though. Bottling beverages is a low margin commodity market. Software isn't. If you can bottle your beverages just as well as Pepsi, you might save a fraction of a percent on something that costs you a fraction of a percent of your revenue. If you can cut Microsoft out of a large enterprise, you can eliminate tens of millions of dollars in licensing costs. That pays for a non-zero number of software developers. Meanwhile free software exists, so you're not starting from scratch with an empty plot of land and have to figure out how to mold plastic into beverage containers. You start with a Linux distribution that other large enterprises are already using and make some minor modifications to tailor it to your needs. > Yes, many are large enough that they could -- but they'll never do as good as a software company does, because they aren't one. In many cases they are. If you're a bank, you're "not a software company", but how are your customers interacting with you in the main? How about a health insurance company? A telecommunications company? An online retailer, like Amazon (which knows this quite well)? You don't have to be "a software company" for software to be a major part of your business. > Are you really better off training and supporting your office staff to send out invoices using SumatraPDF on Ubuntu, just to save money on Adobe/Windows licensing? For companies that have nothing to do with software, this is a recipe to lose more money in operational problems than they save in licensing. It's not just about licensing. Okay, so you save a couple hundred bucks per seat on licensing. That's several million dollars, you could justify that, but maybe it's not much better than breakeven. But then you're not trapped in a Skinner box, where every day you have to keep clicking "no" to a box that, if you ever click yes, you end up violating a privacy law and putting your company in regulatory peril. Or locking yourself into a vendor who can then raise prices on you by more than your original estimate of what they would cost, but by then it's too late and the cost of extricating yourself is now more than the cost of paying the danegeld. There is value in opting yourself out of the enshittification of major platforms.

andsoitis 3y ago

> This article sounds like the author started with a conclusion and worked their way back to a premise. That’s how all articles or persuasion techniques work! You have a message you want to convey in mind, and then you decide how to convince the reader and write accordingly!

kube-system 3y ago
It is how persuasive essays work, but things like exploratory essays certainly exist.