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There's the obvious difference that there's no platform lock-in with these, and therefore there's choice and competition. Telephony, Internet, are open technolo

by Geee 13y ago

There's the obvious difference that there's no platform lock-in with these, and therefore there's choice and competition. Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. Think back when we lived in caves. We shared stories, we shared cave paintings, we shared music by singing together, we had fun together, we explored and shared our curiosity, we created new things together. Most technology today is still just tools to do these same fundamental things, but in novel ways. Facebook wants to be the middleman in this. They didn't invent 'social', they brought it into digital world, they want to own it, and they want to monetize it.

loup-vaillant 13y ago
> Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. No, they are natural local monopolies. It takes explicit effort in policy making to avoid actual monopolies. The result is mixed: while it is possible to change your provider, it is much less convenient than changing the theatre you will go to next time. Switching costs aren't negligible. And in the US, I hear you have only two provider at any given place: the DSL provider, and the cable provider. As you suggest, there is nothing wrong with Facebook wanting to monetize human interactions. The problem is how they do it. If they charged their user for the service, and didn't bother them with ads and constant spying, that would be fine. Heck, they could even prevent most spying and cut down the server costs by selling little servers you could plug into your home, have them talk peer-to-peer, and charge for updates or something. But no, they had to violate our most intimate conversations constantly. Okay, maybe not the most intimate (those actually go through Gmail), but you get the idea. That is what's wrong with Facebook (and Google, and Apple…). Not charging for the service, but the hidden costs, the spying, and other totalitarian artefacts.

by Geee 13y ago

loup-vaillant 13y ago

> Telephony, Internet, are open technologies without locking you in as a customer for any company. No, they are natural local monopolies. It takes explicit effort in policy making to avoid actual monopolies. The result is mixed: while it is possible to change your provider, it is much less convenient than changing the theatre you will go to next time. Switching costs aren't negligible. And in the US, I hear you have only two provider at any given place: the DSL provider, and the cable provider. As you suggest, there is nothing wrong with Facebook wanting to monetize human interactions. The problem is how they do it. If they charged their user for the service, and didn't bother them with ads and constant spying, that would be fine. Heck, they could even prevent most spying and cut down the server costs by selling little servers you could plug into your home, have them talk peer-to-peer, and charge for updates or something. But no, they had to violate our most intimate conversations constantly. Okay, maybe not the most intimate (those actually go through Gmail), but you get the idea. That is what's wrong with Facebook (and Google, and Apple…). Not charging for the service, but the hidden costs, the spying, and other totalitarian artefacts.