4 ms·

I think nobody wants an API. The same reason why YouTube plays cat-and-mouse with yt-dl and longs for the sweet nectar of Widevine DRM To wit, there is exactly

I think nobody wants an API. The same reason why YouTube plays cat-and-mouse with yt-dl and longs for the sweet nectar of Widevine DRM To wit, there is exactly one business strategy: When you are small, be nice. When you are big, pull that ladder up behind you.

mschuster91 2y ago
> To wit, there is exactly one business strategy: When you are small, be nice. When you are big, pull that ladder up behind you. I'd add a "in venture capital and big capital" after "business strategy". When you don't have VCs or the stonk market breathing down your neck all the time, incentives massively change. IMHO, there is only one solution left... once a publicly traded company gains critical market dominance and is reasonably profitable, the government buys all shares at the current market price and places the company in a public-good trust that has a clear mandate to run its companies in a way beneficial to society at large. That way the government doesn't have to spend taxpayer money on countless r&d experiments, VC investors have a perspective to payout, and the world gets kept from utter bullshit like API games.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Well if small capital doesn't pay good, I have no incentive to run a small business at all! > once a publicly traded company gains critical market dominance and is reasonably profitable, the government buys all shares at the current market price and places the company in a public-good trust Interesting, haven't heard that one. I'll say maybe. I'd rather have Facebook not exist at all than have it be an *official* arm of the NSA
- psunavy03 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    Why? The problem at the core is the mantra of the WSB et al groupthink: stonk only go up. Of course when WSB makes jokes about it and catapults a junk stock like GME to ridiculous heights, squeezing shortsellers dry, it's pretty funny to watch. But it gets problematic when just about everyone's pension is tied to "stonks go up" as well. That leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. Just look at Boeing and how far they've fallen. Twice in recent years, literally and not just proverbially, with hundreds dead as the inevitable consequence of stonk market games.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      I think the GP had a visceral reaction to your intentional misspelling of "stock" as "stonk". I tend to agree, though I don't think I'd go so far as to think someone saying "stonk" has "lost all credibility"... but to me, it's like Republicans deliberately mispronouncing Kamala Harris' first name, because they can, and because their base eats it up. It's a cheap shot, and it feels childish, like you don't have a real argument, so instead you act like an elementary school kid on the playground calling the other kid names.
      - psunavy03 2y ago
        > It's a cheap shot, and it feels childish, like you don't have a real argument, so instead you act like an elementary school kid on the playground calling the other kid names. Exactly all of this.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        Minus one out of ten credibility then. Torched is quite an overreaction.
- ycombobreaker 2y ago
  > the government doesn't have to spend taxpayer money on countless r&d experiments If you expect the government to make a tender offer on the largest market-cap companies, they sure as heck _are_ paying for r&d indirectly. And a lot more!
  - maerF0x0 2y ago
    Isn't that kind of what they do with QE?
    - ycombobreaker 2y ago
      I think it's quite different. It involves money, but QE is all about monetary supply and interest rates alone. Buying entire companies comes with a lot more implications, like decision-making power over the organization. You want that for API keys, but do you want that across the board? Seems like regulation would be much cheaper.
      - maerF0x0 2y ago
        Thanks for replying, today I corrected a misunderstanding i had about QE. I had previously believed they were buying and selling stocks (I misunderstood their usage of "Securities")
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
38 2y ago
YouTube already uses Widevine for movies. they will never use it for regular videos, because it will kill their website. widevine is a resource killer, for both client and server.
da_chicken 2y ago
It's just more of Cory Doctrow's observation of Enshittification. Or, perhaps more simply, The Oatmeal's Reaching People on the Internet: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people https://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people

mschuster91 2y ago

> To wit, there is exactly one business strategy: When you are small, be nice. When you are big, pull that ladder up behind you. I'd add a "in venture capital and big capital" after "business strategy". When you don't have VCs or the stonk market breathing down your neck all the time, incentives massively change. IMHO, there is only one solution left... once a publicly traded company gains critical market dominance and is reasonably profitable, the government buys all shares at the current market price and places the company in a public-good trust that has a clear mandate to run its companies in a way beneficial to society at large. That way the government doesn't have to spend taxpayer money on countless r&d experiments, VC investors have a perspective to payout, and the world gets kept from utter bullshit like API games.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
Well if small capital doesn't pay good, I have no incentive to run a small business at all! > once a publicly traded company gains critical market dominance and is reasonably profitable, the government buys all shares at the current market price and places the company in a public-good trust Interesting, haven't heard that one. I'll say maybe. I'd rather have Facebook not exist at all than have it be an *official* arm of the NSA
psunavy03 2y ago
[flagged]
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Why? The problem at the core is the mantra of the WSB et al groupthink: stonk only go up. Of course when WSB makes jokes about it and catapults a junk stock like GME to ridiculous heights, squeezing shortsellers dry, it's pretty funny to watch. But it gets problematic when just about everyone's pension is tied to "stonks go up" as well. That leads to all sorts of perverse incentives. Just look at Boeing and how far they've fallen. Twice in recent years, literally and not just proverbially, with hundreds dead as the inevitable consequence of stonk market games.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I think the GP had a visceral reaction to your intentional misspelling of "stock" as "stonk". I tend to agree, though I don't think I'd go so far as to think someone saying "stonk" has "lost all credibility"... but to me, it's like Republicans deliberately mispronouncing Kamala Harris' first name, because they can, and because their base eats it up. It's a cheap shot, and it feels childish, like you don't have a real argument, so instead you act like an elementary school kid on the playground calling the other kid names.
    - psunavy03 2y ago
      > It's a cheap shot, and it feels childish, like you don't have a real argument, so instead you act like an elementary school kid on the playground calling the other kid names. Exactly all of this.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        Minus one out of ten credibility then. Torched is quite an overreaction.
ycombobreaker 2y ago
> the government doesn't have to spend taxpayer money on countless r&d experiments If you expect the government to make a tender offer on the largest market-cap companies, they sure as heck _are_ paying for r&d indirectly. And a lot more!
- maerF0x0 2y ago
  Isn't that kind of what they do with QE?
  - ycombobreaker 2y ago
    I think it's quite different. It involves money, but QE is all about monetary supply and interest rates alone. Buying entire companies comes with a lot more implications, like decision-making power over the organization. You want that for API keys, but do you want that across the board? Seems like regulation would be much cheaper.
    - maerF0x0 2y ago
      Thanks for replying, today I corrected a misunderstanding i had about QE. I had previously believed they were buying and selling stocks (I misunderstood their usage of "Securities")
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

38 2y ago

YouTube already uses Widevine for movies. they will never use it for regular videos, because it will kill their website. widevine is a resource killer, for both client and server.

da_chicken 2y ago

It's just more of Cory Doctrow's observation of Enshittification. Or, perhaps more simply, The Oatmeal's Reaching People on the Internet: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people https://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people