Just sharing this longread that I think will be interesting to folks here
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Thank you for sharing! Next day I will read. Anyway, I totally agree with this: build protocols, not platforms. Indeed: build FREE protocols, not platforms.
A fantastic example of free speech protocol is XMPP open protocol for instant messaging, I use it from many months with my friends, and is fantastic. I can choose in witch server my data will pass and there are a lot of different software for every platforms. This is really decentralized! And is born in 1999, many multinational company as copied its technology for doing business (Whatsup, Google Talk, Grinder, ecc…).
Here some easy guide that explain XMPP better.
For this fact that is an open protocol (and some other reason) actually is my favorite messages system (over Whatsup, Telegram, Signal, Threema, Delta Chat…).
Thinking a protocol for the music (or something similar) I think is the way, could be a long way, but the most correct. IMHO
Open protocols allow technologies to be more open, and not to allow a single or a few companies/multinational corporations to seize it. These companies in fact, through their competitive modes almost always seek maximizing their own earnings as their first objective and not improving the life of human beings through the given technology.
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So I finally finished reading this and while I agree with the recommendation, I’m a little wary of some of the context it’s rooted in ideologically and I’m wondering if others have thoughts on these things.
Equality in the marketplace
I think the main problem with the text is that it relies heavily on the idea of “marketplace of ideas,” leaning heavily on the idea that protocols are actually good for markets specifically because they make competition more perfect (because there’s better knowledge, transparency, etc). So I’m obviously not opposed to the latter, but it’s the idea that these are in service to encourage better market creation that I find a little worrisome, and certainly something that open source and tech grapple with a lot. Rather than thinking of protocols as a commons, they’re a public commodity used to prop up a private market, and equates this private marketplace with democracy, a classic acrobatic leap free market fundamentalism.
This, then, presents a more democratic approach, in which the marketplace of filters is enabled to compete.
I think this is highlighted by some of the contradictions the author unwittingly stumbles upon:
If Google really messed up Gmail or did problematic things with this service, it is not difficult for people to move to a different email system and to retain access to everyone they communicate with.
Yes, you are free to move from Google whenever, but I, a technically savvy user who knows how to do this, and wants to do this, haven’t, because of the large sunk cost into this one email address, despite me not actually benefiting from any of the UI things google supposedly supplies because I don’t use google interfaces. And because Google can endlessly pour money into their platform because of their vast amounts of accrued capital, another service won’t be able to compete due to just sheer market size. Gmail is not as powerful as protonmail (or name a non-VC backed company). Its market power makes it much more powerful. Even if you are “free to leave.” It really reminds me of that Marxist phrase
There would probably be experiments with different types of business models involving both the data store services—which might charge for premium access and storage (as well as security)—much as services like Dropbox and Amazon Web Services do today
I think that sheer market size problem is underscored by exactly this call out to Amazon Web Services. The author thinks that by providing protocols for web communcation we’ll be free from corporate power, but ultimately the people who’s servers we run the internet on still own a massive monopoly on those servers. And here, again, having capital lets you pour money into building servers.
I guess all that to say that I think about this quote from Capital Volume One pretty regularly:
This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale and purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them together and puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain and the private interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one troubles himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in accordance with the pre-established harmony of things, or under the auspices of an all-shrewd providence, work together to their mutual advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.
On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of commodities, which furnishes the “Free-trader Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but — a hiding.
- Capital Volume 1, Chapter 6
Crypto
Then there’s the stuff about crypto:
In the last few years, with the development of cryptocurrencies and tokens, it has become theoretically possible to build a protocol that uses a cryptocurrency or a token that has some value attached to it, with the value of those items growing in conjunction with usage. A simple way of looking at this is that a token-based cryptocurrency is the equivalent of equity in a company—but rather than the value being tied to the financial success of the company, the value of a crypto token is tied to the value of the overall network.
[..]
thus, as the protocol is more widely used, demand for the currency/token increases, while the supply remains constant or expands along a previously designed growth plan.
[..]
In theory, under such a system, if it were to catch on, the appreciation in value of the tokens/currency could help fund the ongoing maintenance and operation of the protocol—effectively eliminating the historical problem of funding for open protocols that helped create the modern internet.
I think what’s standing out to me here is how important being a first mover in all of this is–whether it’s developing Gmail or Outlook or a crypto currency that generates income because you were the first to hold the token, and other people who use the currency hold it because they think it will be worth more in the future, all relies on endless growth of the protocol. What if the protocol reaches its limits? What if there is an inherent limit to how big its userbase gets? Does the crypto market for it collapse? Do people lose faith in it? Do they invest their money somewhere else?
Issues
I do think the article lays out some of the issues we’re probably all pretty familiar with
- Complexity can kill adoptability. Whether that’s complexity of protocol, or of understanding for the user.
- Performance that comes from being able to manage everything yourself. Especially search I think suffers from this.
- Entrenchment of current platforms
To that last point–the author seems to think that platforms could be persuaded to adopt open standards, but I think we’re seeing the opposite–open standards being adapted to or defined by the platforms. I also see no real indication of platforms moving away from being hugely centralized, and don’t think there has been movement on this since the author wrote this article in 2019 (which also counts as a caveat on the article itself).
The author thinks that the cost of running Facebook is primarily in moderators–and while that’s probably true I wouldn’t be surprised if LLMs are being used extensively replace this role. So it feels like that argument for a large incumbent switching to open protocols is no longer valid.
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