Does the open web require competitive markets?
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@DrPen i think it's interesting how much people are focusing on the "markets" part of this question, rather than the "competitive" part.
@evan well, its not a trick question. Where's there's money, there's competition.
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@evan well, its not a trick question. Where's there's money, there's competition.
@DrPen that's not true at all! Many of the Web's most important services are run as oligopolies or monopolies.
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Does the open web require competitive markets?
@evan the open web is in some ways antithetical to competitive markets (so no) and it needs a bit of government help in order to avoid being taken over by capitalists.
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@DrPen that's not true at all! Many of the Web's most important services are run as oligopolies or monopolies.
@evan competition isnt only the obvious antitrust kind, its the stabs in the back, the bribery, the buying out /destroying the competition, those oligarch bros try to out do each other. Even the space rockets! Academia is packed with competitive salary and job title hunters.
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@evan competition isnt only the obvious antitrust kind, its the stabs in the back, the bribery, the buying out /destroying the competition, those oligarch bros try to out do each other. Even the space rockets! Academia is packed with competitive salary and job title hunters.
@DrPen which is why I linked the Wikipedia article on competition in markets.
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@evan the open web is in some ways antithetical to competitive markets (so no) and it needs a bit of government help in order to avoid being taken over by capitalists.
@anca what? How is a monopoly web sector "open"? I don't understand your point.
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@anca what? How is a monopoly web sector "open"? I don't understand your point.
@anca I realize that Web markets, like maybe most markets, are vulnerable to capture by monopolies or oligopolies, but I don't think that means the open web is antithetical to competition.
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@evan Yes. We need a combination of publicly funded basic infrastructure and an economy of small to medium sized companies, that offer services for open-source.
Instead of big-tech, we need big-market.
@kaffeeringe so, public, small and medium sized companies that provide a competitive market for products and services?
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@evan I most certainly don't have any answers, but it's a super interesting discussion. Somewhere in there lies the question of interoperability (if I'm using it correctly). I we could all connect and "talk to" FB users using other tools/services then users would have choice (competition would exist). We could have groups for our local community and invite to birthdays without being "slaves" to FB. And if we didn't like the algo, we'd use a tool/service with a different algo (or no algo).
@leanderlindahl thanks! I think it's interesting too.
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Does the open web require competitive markets?
@evan Is it implied that markets will always exist, and the question is (therefore) whether they need to be open or not?
Or is it acceptable to answer "no" because the open web doesn't require markets at all?
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@evan Is it implied that markets will always exist, and the question is (therefore) whether they need to be open or not?
Or is it acceptable to answer "no" because the open web doesn't require markets at all?
@woozle it's always acceptable to answer as you wish!
I really regret using the term "market" instead of "technology sector" or something similar. The technical definitions of "market" seem to encompass tech sectors where many of the products, including labour, are available gratis, but I think a lot of people got hung up on the idea of commercial exchange.
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@woozle it's always acceptable to answer as you wish!
I really regret using the term "market" instead of "technology sector" or something similar. The technical definitions of "market" seem to encompass tech sectors where many of the products, including labour, are available gratis, but I think a lot of people got hung up on the idea of commercial exchange.
@woozle I personally am much more interested in the "competitive" part rather than the "market" part, which is why I linked the Wikipedia article on competition.
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Does the open web require competitive markets?
Wow, what an interesting set of results. I think the answer is "yes".
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Wow, what an interesting set of results. I think the answer is "yes".
I created this poll because I've been thinking a lot about Mozilla since the announcement of their new CEO. A lot of people here criticised the hire, since he said that Mozilla would make Firefox an "AI Browser". I don't mind that, although I don't think AI browsers are that useful, and I think running into the market where Atlas, Comet, Dia and others are already floundering sounds like a dumb bet.
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I created this poll because I've been thinking a lot about Mozilla since the announcement of their new CEO. A lot of people here criticised the hire, since he said that Mozilla would make Firefox an "AI Browser". I don't mind that, although I don't think AI browsers are that useful, and I think running into the market where Atlas, Comet, Dia and others are already floundering sounds like a dumb bet.
What I'm more concerned about is "US vs. Google", the Google Search anti-trust case which showed that Google was using search engine placement deals with operating systems and browser vendors to unfairly inhibit competition with other search engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020)
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What I'm more concerned about is "US vs. Google", the Google Search anti-trust case which showed that Google was using search engine placement deals with operating systems and browser vendors to unfairly inhibit competition with other search engines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020)
Mozilla Corporation has subsisted almost entirely on this kind of deal with Google since the company was founded. When the judge in US vs. Google was considering remedies (like forbidding that kind of deal), Mozilla argued that this remedy would make it unable to compete in the *other* area that Google has a near monopoly, namely browsers:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/internet-policy/google-remedies-browsers/
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Mozilla Corporation has subsisted almost entirely on this kind of deal with Google since the company was founded. When the judge in US vs. Google was considering remedies (like forbidding that kind of deal), Mozilla argued that this remedy would make it unable to compete in the *other* area that Google has a near monopoly, namely browsers:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/internet-policy/google-remedies-browsers/
Weirdly, the fact that Mozilla would be unable to find another buyer for its product (search engine placement), and the threat of another monopoly in browsers and browser engines, did not make Judge Mehta take *extra* remedies, like making Google sell Chrome and/or Android. Instead, the judge gave some pretty mild remedies, which probably won't do anything to make Google's 88% of the search engine market less of a problem for consumers or others in the ecosystem.
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Weirdly, the fact that Mozilla would be unable to find another buyer for its product (search engine placement), and the threat of another monopoly in browsers and browser engines, did not make Judge Mehta take *extra* remedies, like making Google sell Chrome and/or Android. Instead, the judge gave some pretty mild remedies, which probably won't do anything to make Google's 88% of the search engine market less of a problem for consumers or others in the ecosystem.
Here's the main point, though: Mozilla is supposed to be somewhat purpose-driven. Its goals and mission are somewhat laid out in the Mozilla Manifesto. In particular, it supports an open and accessible Internet.
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Here's the main point, though: Mozilla is supposed to be somewhat purpose-driven. Its goals and mission are somewhat laid out in the Mozilla Manifesto. In particular, it supports an open and accessible Internet.
I personally think that participating in an anti-competitive business practice that a court has found hurts American (and assumably also global) consumers and other businesses is not compatible with that purpose. I don't think that humans flourish in systems dominated by monopolies that use their power to extend those monopolies. Neither have most economists since about 1875.
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I personally think that participating in an anti-competitive business practice that a court has found hurts American (and assumably also global) consumers and other businesses is not compatible with that purpose. I don't think that humans flourish in systems dominated by monopolies that use their power to extend those monopolies. Neither have most economists since about 1875.
If Mozilla is really purpose-driven, I think the number one goal of the organization should be getting out of the monopoly headlock it's in right now. It should find another buyer for its search engine placement service, and it should diversify its revenue to get the business on a firm footing that doesn't keep governments from enforcing competitive markets.
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@evan At work, we're a Microsoft shop. In my personal life, I use a text editor.
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@virtuous_sloth yeah, it's a bug in ActivityPub, not Mastodon.
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@evan TIL Mastodon multi-selection polls do not allow choosing none of the entries.
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@ALFA era impossible resistere 😜
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One time i skipped a stone on a frozen lake and it sounded awesome
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@domo if you were a ant maybe you'd think differently
