4 ms·

I'm sure a centrally planned initiative will beat the market and create a better product for you to use in Europe, just like Lada defeated Ford!

constantcrying 1y ago
Exactly. Just like Airbus can't compete with the likes of Boeing.
- gunalx 1y ago
  Well. At least airbus dosent drop out of the skies, or loose emergency doors out of the blue.
  - subulaz 1y ago
    constantcrying's comment may be meant with sarcasm because Airbus leads Boeing in market share in addition to having fewer models with explosive decompression issues...
ambicapter 1y ago
It doesn't need to be better, it just needs to be good enough that certain features can pull users away from the incumbent (thus applying pressure to them).
hiddencost 1y ago
looks at the American health care system
- ethbr1 1y ago
  The issues with the American health care system are conceptually simple: (1) too much complexity (creates as ossified system that cannot be changed), (2) as a consequence of the above, too little pricing transparency (everything is a bespoke party:party contract and/or state-specific market/regulation), & (3) therefore too little actual competition at key points. If it were forced to simplify, competition would take care of many of the ills.
Wobbles42 1y ago
It certainly won't beat the market in what the market optimizes for -- namely risk adjusted return on capital. It probably won't beat the market on the implicitly coupled metric of "value delivered to customers" either. The trick here is that "users" and "customers" have become all but totally decoupled when it comes to the modern internet. Not enough people were willing to pay, so the market has turned to other sources of revenue. I share your skepticism about bureaucratic government agencies creating value, and doubly so when it comes to technology. At the same time, as an individual voter I am beginning to question whether "the market" is optimizing for the same things that I value. Perhaps there is a natural conflict between maximizing utility for the majority of people vs maximizing utility for the majority of capital.
thmsths 1y ago
I am not advocating for central planning. As I underscored in my comment, I advocate for something closer to the defense procurement model: where the market is failing to provide an appropriate off the shelf product and the state contracts an entity (usually a private company, but in the case of software it could be a public agency) to make it for them. This is a model that is currently in use in the US, in the EU, and actually worked well in the USSR too, their Ladas (and consumer products in general) might have been terrible but their defense industry was great.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  The USSR defense industry also funded multiple OKBs that would compete with each other for projects. In the EU's case, multi-party competitive bidding, with the winner taking the prime slot and others being assigned modular chunks of the product, sounds attractive. Specifically, with the stipulation that results would be used as a criteria in future bids. tl;dr -- Use the pyramid league system (e.g. from football) with promotion and relegation to efficiently create industry competition. Fuck up too many projects, down the pyramid you go.
  - thmsths 1y ago
    Sounds good to me. I am not too dogmatic about the exact implementation of who does the work and your system seems to align incentives properly while also avoiding the too many cooks in the pot/too much dilution of the money into small projects to have an impact issues. From past failures the 2 things I want to be addressed are: 1) Have a proper procurement agency with actual experts at the helm, they are the "customer", they hand over the bids, they measure success, they should of course listen to end users. 2) Shield the project from petty internal politics. While I understand that political interference is inevitable, especially if you get public funding. The top priority is to have a good alternative to existing software in these 3 categories I defined. Not yet another job program/kickback to politically well connected entities.
    - ethbr1 1y ago
      The typical reason for poor procurement outcomes is the who-watches-the-watchers-ad-infinitum problem. At stake: huge amounts of money Naturally, people will go to great lengths to try and obtain that, by influencing the key decision makers. So you put in a layer above the decision makers. So they influence the layer above the decision makers. Repeat-repeat. The only true defense against corruption, at scale, is competition. Because then everyone tries to knife each other in the back, and it generally zero-sums.

constantcrying 1y ago

Exactly. Just like Airbus can't compete with the likes of Boeing.

gunalx 1y ago
Well. At least airbus dosent drop out of the skies, or loose emergency doors out of the blue.
- subulaz 1y ago
  constantcrying's comment may be meant with sarcasm because Airbus leads Boeing in market share in addition to having fewer models with explosive decompression issues...

ambicapter 1y ago

It doesn't need to be better, it just needs to be good enough that certain features can pull users away from the incumbent (thus applying pressure to them).

hiddencost 1y ago

looks at the American health care system

ethbr1 1y ago
The issues with the American health care system are conceptually simple: (1) too much complexity (creates as ossified system that cannot be changed), (2) as a consequence of the above, too little pricing transparency (everything is a bespoke party:party contract and/or state-specific market/regulation), & (3) therefore too little actual competition at key points. If it were forced to simplify, competition would take care of many of the ills.

Wobbles42 1y ago

It certainly won't beat the market in what the market optimizes for -- namely risk adjusted return on capital. It probably won't beat the market on the implicitly coupled metric of "value delivered to customers" either. The trick here is that "users" and "customers" have become all but totally decoupled when it comes to the modern internet. Not enough people were willing to pay, so the market has turned to other sources of revenue. I share your skepticism about bureaucratic government agencies creating value, and doubly so when it comes to technology. At the same time, as an individual voter I am beginning to question whether "the market" is optimizing for the same things that I value. Perhaps there is a natural conflict between maximizing utility for the majority of people vs maximizing utility for the majority of capital.

thmsths 1y ago

I am not advocating for central planning. As I underscored in my comment, I advocate for something closer to the defense procurement model: where the market is failing to provide an appropriate off the shelf product and the state contracts an entity (usually a private company, but in the case of software it could be a public agency) to make it for them. This is a model that is currently in use in the US, in the EU, and actually worked well in the USSR too, their Ladas (and consumer products in general) might have been terrible but their defense industry was great.

ethbr1 1y ago
The USSR defense industry also funded multiple OKBs that would compete with each other for projects. In the EU's case, multi-party competitive bidding, with the winner taking the prime slot and others being assigned modular chunks of the product, sounds attractive. Specifically, with the stipulation that results would be used as a criteria in future bids. tl;dr -- Use the pyramid league system (e.g. from football) with promotion and relegation to efficiently create industry competition. Fuck up too many projects, down the pyramid you go.
- thmsths 1y ago
  Sounds good to me. I am not too dogmatic about the exact implementation of who does the work and your system seems to align incentives properly while also avoiding the too many cooks in the pot/too much dilution of the money into small projects to have an impact issues. From past failures the 2 things I want to be addressed are: 1) Have a proper procurement agency with actual experts at the helm, they are the "customer", they hand over the bids, they measure success, they should of course listen to end users. 2) Shield the project from petty internal politics. While I understand that political interference is inevitable, especially if you get public funding. The top priority is to have a good alternative to existing software in these 3 categories I defined. Not yet another job program/kickback to politically well connected entities.
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    The typical reason for poor procurement outcomes is the who-watches-the-watchers-ad-infinitum problem. At stake: huge amounts of money Naturally, people will go to great lengths to try and obtain that, by influencing the key decision makers. So you put in a layer above the decision makers. So they influence the layer above the decision makers. Repeat-repeat. The only true defense against corruption, at scale, is competition. Because then everyone tries to knife each other in the back, and it generally zero-sums.