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Standards are a bad thing. Convenient isn't the same as good. They mostly help large companies to monopolize large markets. Without standards, there would be a

Standards are a bad thing. Convenient isn't the same as good. They mostly help large companies to monopolize large markets. Without standards, there would be a patchwork of companies catering to different communities. It would create a lot of work opportunities, lots of competition and there would be adapters to bridge between different interfaces. It would be more hassle but it would improve everyone's work life 100x and would probably result in faster technological progress as more people would be able to have capital to innovate, in a more flexible self-directed way.

AlotOfReading 1y ago
Who monopolizes floating point or electrical sockets? Whose lives would be improved if every product had a different, incompatible implementation? I would actually go entirely the opposite direction and argue that many standards are so useful that it's inappropriate to lock them behind a paywall. They should be entirely free and public despite the costs to produce standards.
- jongjong 1y ago
  Small producers would benefit. Producers who produce solutions that are most compatible for a specific community would benefit from other solutions not being compatible. In such system, everyone would be a small producer. So everyone would benefit. It would be much harder to move cities or countries but that would be a good thing. Everyone would have a great work life. Everyone would have an advantage within their community over unknown foreign producers. Equality of opportunity would be maximized. The biggest problem in everyone's lives today is their job/career. People spend all their time working. So the system should be optimized to make workers' lives better, not consumers' lives. Capitalism already looks after consumers naturally. The government's job should be focused mostly on producers. It's not right that every aspect of the system looks after consumers when they don't necessarily produce much social value. A lot of their income nowadays is subsidized by money printing, not the result of past labor as the myth suggests.
  - gessha 1y ago
    Giving people meaningless work like translating between one company’s “standard” to another’s is BS. For successful cooperation and trade you need standardized way of doing things. Languages are a form of standard way of communication. If it wasn’t for standard there won’t be civilization.
  - AlotOfReading 1y ago
    A regional standard is still a standard, like the electrical sockets I already gave as an example. What you're advocating for is the absence of standards. Not having standards generally makes producing things harder because you now have to reverse engineer anything you want to be compatible with instead of just designing to the standard.
  - TFYS 1y ago
    People and communities are not that different from each other, so I don't think the idea that each community would benefit from a customized local solution would work. You'd lose the benefit of economies of scale and add a lot of friction to economic activity for no good reason. The workers are also consumers, and would have to pay a lot more for everything because a huge amount of work would have to be duplicated everywhere in the economy, making things more expensive. Large scale is good, the problem is who owns the large scale solution. When it's owned privately, it's easy to abuse such a position of power and workers and consumers don't get the full benefits of scale. The solutions should be collectively owned and managed.
saurik 1y ago
All of the monopolies I can think of are built on the back of a proprietary solution and every "patchwork of companies catering to different communities" is seemingly enabled by a standard...
- jongjong 1y ago
  Look behind and you will find that this so called 'patchwork' all benefit a small number of centralized entities who define the standards, ultimately. True decentralized communities do not require standards. They don't require global coordination. The problem is that you don't even realize that they exist. If you're mainstream, your idea of decentralization is actually just a thin veneer. It's often all centralized behind the scenes. Made centralized using standards and an unhealthy obsession with cooperation on a global scale. Ignoring that small-scale competition is healthy and necessary to keep everyone motivated and doing the right thing. Then they sooner or later fall victim to a big company like Microsoft with their three Es philosophy; Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
gessha 1y ago
> Standards are a bad thing. Convenient isn't the same as good. We successfully communicate on this bulletin board thanks to standards and protocols. We will be in the Stone Age of computers if it wasn’t for standards.

AlotOfReading 1y ago

Who monopolizes floating point or electrical sockets? Whose lives would be improved if every product had a different, incompatible implementation? I would actually go entirely the opposite direction and argue that many standards are so useful that it's inappropriate to lock them behind a paywall. They should be entirely free and public despite the costs to produce standards.

jongjong 1y ago
Small producers would benefit. Producers who produce solutions that are most compatible for a specific community would benefit from other solutions not being compatible. In such system, everyone would be a small producer. So everyone would benefit. It would be much harder to move cities or countries but that would be a good thing. Everyone would have a great work life. Everyone would have an advantage within their community over unknown foreign producers. Equality of opportunity would be maximized. The biggest problem in everyone's lives today is their job/career. People spend all their time working. So the system should be optimized to make workers' lives better, not consumers' lives. Capitalism already looks after consumers naturally. The government's job should be focused mostly on producers. It's not right that every aspect of the system looks after consumers when they don't necessarily produce much social value. A lot of their income nowadays is subsidized by money printing, not the result of past labor as the myth suggests.
- gessha 1y ago
  Giving people meaningless work like translating between one company’s “standard” to another’s is BS. For successful cooperation and trade you need standardized way of doing things. Languages are a form of standard way of communication. If it wasn’t for standard there won’t be civilization.
- AlotOfReading 1y ago
  A regional standard is still a standard, like the electrical sockets I already gave as an example. What you're advocating for is the absence of standards. Not having standards generally makes producing things harder because you now have to reverse engineer anything you want to be compatible with instead of just designing to the standard.
- TFYS 1y ago
  People and communities are not that different from each other, so I don't think the idea that each community would benefit from a customized local solution would work. You'd lose the benefit of economies of scale and add a lot of friction to economic activity for no good reason. The workers are also consumers, and would have to pay a lot more for everything because a huge amount of work would have to be duplicated everywhere in the economy, making things more expensive. Large scale is good, the problem is who owns the large scale solution. When it's owned privately, it's easy to abuse such a position of power and workers and consumers don't get the full benefits of scale. The solutions should be collectively owned and managed.

saurik 1y ago

All of the monopolies I can think of are built on the back of a proprietary solution and every "patchwork of companies catering to different communities" is seemingly enabled by a standard...

jongjong 1y ago
Look behind and you will find that this so called 'patchwork' all benefit a small number of centralized entities who define the standards, ultimately. True decentralized communities do not require standards. They don't require global coordination. The problem is that you don't even realize that they exist. If you're mainstream, your idea of decentralization is actually just a thin veneer. It's often all centralized behind the scenes. Made centralized using standards and an unhealthy obsession with cooperation on a global scale. Ignoring that small-scale competition is healthy and necessary to keep everyone motivated and doing the right thing. Then they sooner or later fall victim to a big company like Microsoft with their three Es philosophy; Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

gessha 1y ago

> Standards are a bad thing. Convenient isn't the same as good. We successfully communicate on this bulletin board thanks to standards and protocols. We will be in the Stone Age of computers if it wasn’t for standards.