3 ms·

>If you're getting pushback on this, consider that this may say more about your social circle. Maybe, just maybe, technology should serve the user by enabling

by nvy 3y ago

>If you're getting pushback on this, consider that this may say more about your social circle. Maybe, just maybe, technology should serve the user by enabling people to socialize with whom they wish, rather than the opposite.

pmarreck 3y ago
The problem is that someone always has to be in charge. If no one is in charge, usually nothing good happens. So for example, we have Ecosystem A and Ecosystem B, each led by a company. Their users (note: NOT those companies) want an enhanced messaging standard between them. Who should be in charge of it? One of those two, or someone else? WHY would either company be incentivized to do so, since it hypothetically facilitates losing users to the other ecosystem? WHY would a third party come up with the best possible standard between these two (as well as maintaining it!) that they wouldn't then be compensated for? So when you say "technology should serve the user", who or what "should" do this, and why "should" they do it? For free? You have to find or build the right incentives if you want something to be. This is the same reason we are still grappling with a single medical records standard/exchange format. No one wants anyone else to be in charge of it, and yet someone must be, otherwise you have dilution of responsibility and perverse incentives.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > WHY would a third party come up with the best possible standard between these two (as well as maintaining it!) that they wouldn't then be compensated for? This is the easiest one to solve, because it's not that expensive to make a decent messaging standard (Open Whisper Systems was very small, for example; solitary individuals have done it in other cases). It's not a matter of getting someone to do the work. It's that messaging systems have a network effect, so when one comes as the default on a device with a billion users, it has a big network regardless of whether or not a competing protocol might be just as good. And then they want to lock competitors out of that network effect, which is an antitrust issue, and so here we are.
- noiseinvacuum 3y ago
  In this case, the simple solution is for Apple is to have an Android app. Which, as per the email revealed in court cases, they have had and haven't launched since 2013.
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    Wow. I was not aware.

by nvy 3y ago

pmarreck 3y ago

The problem is that someone always has to be in charge. If no one is in charge, usually nothing good happens. So for example, we have Ecosystem A and Ecosystem B, each led by a company. Their users (note: NOT those companies) want an enhanced messaging standard between them. Who should be in charge of it? One of those two, or someone else? WHY would either company be incentivized to do so, since it hypothetically facilitates losing users to the other ecosystem? WHY would a third party come up with the best possible standard between these two (as well as maintaining it!) that they wouldn't then be compensated for? So when you say "technology should serve the user", who or what "should" do this, and why "should" they do it? For free? You have to find or build the right incentives if you want something to be. This is the same reason we are still grappling with a single medical records standard/exchange format. No one wants anyone else to be in charge of it, and yet someone must be, otherwise you have dilution of responsibility and perverse incentives.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> WHY would a third party come up with the best possible standard between these two (as well as maintaining it!) that they wouldn't then be compensated for? This is the easiest one to solve, because it's not that expensive to make a decent messaging standard (Open Whisper Systems was very small, for example; solitary individuals have done it in other cases). It's not a matter of getting someone to do the work. It's that messaging systems have a network effect, so when one comes as the default on a device with a billion users, it has a big network regardless of whether or not a competing protocol might be just as good. And then they want to lock competitors out of that network effect, which is an antitrust issue, and so here we are.
noiseinvacuum 3y ago
In this case, the simple solution is for Apple is to have an Android app. Which, as per the email revealed in court cases, they have had and haven't launched since 2013.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  Wow. I was not aware.