[HN Gopher] Demonopolizing the Internet with Interoperability ___________________________________________________________________ Demonopolizing the Internet with Interoperability Author : samizdis Score : 263 points Date : 2021-09-25 09:05 UTC (13 hours ago) (HTM) web link (pluralistic.net) (TXT) w3m dump (pluralistic.net) | marginalien wrote: | This is already happening in banking (Europe): Google for PSD2 | and Open Banking. Financial institutions are required to provide | Third Party Providers API-acccess to customer data (if the | customer has provided his/her consent to do so) | oblak wrote: | It pains me to see even technically literate people referring to | the web as the "internet". They are NOT the same | lotsofpulp wrote: | What is the distinction? | tialaramex wrote: | The Internet is the current incarnation of the Network, this | time as a digital packet switched network (its predecessors | being the Public Switched Telephone Network, and the | Universal Postal Union which enables letters to be sent | around the world). The Network is a tremendously powerful | technology which enables civilisation on a much larger scale. | | The Web, or World Wide Web is an application of the Internet | made by (Sir) Tim Berners-Lee about thirty years ago to | deliver hypermedia over the Internet. | | The Web is to the Internet as "premium rate" chat lines were | to Signalling System Seven. | lioeters wrote: | > The internet is a global network of billions of servers, | computers, and other hardware devices. Each device can | connect with any other device as long as both are connected | to the internet using a valid IP address. The internet makes | the information sharing system known as the web possible. | | > The web, which is short for World Wide Web, is one of the | ways information is shared on the internet (others include | email, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and instant messaging | services). The web is composed of billions of connected | digital documents that are viewed in a web browser, such as | Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and others. | | https://www.lifewire.com/difference-between-the-internet- | and... | lotsofpulp wrote: | Interesting, I didn't know that! | asim wrote: | Basically the only way this really works is if we define standard | APIs for all forms of cloud services. From infrastructure all the | way up to social media and beyond. In prior eras protocols were | custom designs on top of the IP protocol. That's not going to fly | today and it also won't let us move fast enough. Most API | definitions at the likes of Google are now defined in protobuf, | another alternative is openapi. Either would suffice but I think | protobuf is less verbose and potentially easier to evolve. | | It also requires open standards for defining those services and | potentially open implementations. See github.com/micro/services | as an example. | | Ultimately it's going to take a long time and significant | coordination between multiple players for it to happen. I do wish | we just had an open set of services anyone could run and | contribute to. Then we could either go through the pains of | hosting ourselves or paying someone to do it for us. | noncoml wrote: | > is if we define standard APIs for all forms of cloud services | | Nope. All it requires is for each company to provide | unrestricted access to the APIs of their services. Plenty of | interested parties out there to complete the plumbing | jacobobryant wrote: | Yep, the good old adapter pattern. | NHQ wrote: | Interoperability needs to be brought all the back to the | protocol. Force ISPs to give people static, public IP addresses. | Then the tech industry has to build local-first, P2P apps, and | what was once a dominant social network is now just another | interface competing with features people actually want. | | What is broken about the internet is that we don't have our own | addresses, like in real life. (Cue security red-scare and | condescending technical types who think it's too complicated for | the user.) | slaymaker1907 wrote: | I think that would cause a lot of problems if forced to give a | static IPv4 address. However, I agree that they should give | people an IPv6 address. Furthermore, they should have any | dynamic mapping accessible via DNS by default (with an opt out | process for people who don't want it). Ideally IPv6 address | assignment should be done without NAT as well since NAT is a | way bigger hurdle to overcome than dynamic IP addresses. | [deleted] | jahewson wrote: | > static, public IP address | | That's basically a super-cookie. | NHQ wrote: | Everything would be a different paradigm than we have now. | Security, auth, sharing; we can only imagine how things would | shift if we turned the model we have on its head. Super | cookie? ISP is a private VPN proivder now. | | Cookies are a good example. That browsers give up a cookie at | all--who consented to this specification? GDPR could have | changed browser specs so that cookies were truly opt-in; it | regulates company behavior instead, which is weak. | | Fundamentally, our choices are being made for us at the | protocol level, and everything we have as a result is | emergent, and so people argue about regulating the emergent | properties. | jahewson wrote: | > ISP is a private VPN proivder now. | | Reality check: ISPs sell your information. They're pretty | much the last people you should trust. | | > who consented to this specification? | | Third party cookies (the "tracking" kind) were a bug. The | original specification did not include them. | NHQ wrote: | > Reality check: ISPs sell your information. They're | pretty much the last people you should trust. | | Exactly why we should regulate IP address and protocols, | so that every company that handles them is beholden to | the same conditions for preserving our privacy. Instead | we play whack-a-mole regulating individual company | behavior, while they continue to control the protocols | and addresses and everything on top of those layers. | neiman wrote: | I work on a project, Esteroids, who has a goal of creating a | democratic Internet. I also wrote about it in my previous project | Almonit (currently discontinued). | | https://almonit.club/blog/2021-01-08/self-governing_internet... | sbt wrote: | Another problem is that Big Tech owns the relatively corrupt US | government. | AniseAbyss wrote: | Yes but only authoritarianism can make big business kneel. But | that has it's own problems. | orthecreedence wrote: | > Yes but only authoritarianism can make big business kneel | | I'd say this only applies within a capitalist mode of | production. | aabaker99 wrote: | Health care software is being forced to be interoperable soon in | the US. The 21st Century Cures Act requires it | (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Cures_Act). One | interesting and, to technologists, disappointing aspect of the | regulation is the complete lack of a standard by which to | interoperate. There is no prescription for any data format for | any type of health information. Health software companies are | only required to provide a hyperlink to a web page that describes | the data format. | | This is a step in the right direction but it certainly doesn't | enable the anything that looks like the developments we have seen | around the internet due to its open protocols. Health care will | be "interoperable" without any of the compatibility or interfaces | the TFA wants. We need regulators who understand the technology | and have a much higher standard for interoperability if we are to | demonopolize the internet. | jeswin wrote: | That's not true as a generalization. The newly mandated HL7 | FHIR standards are a huge step forward in interop [1], and | we've seen varying but progressively improving levels of | support from all leading EHR vendors. The immediate deadline | mandates patient information to be made available via FHIR, | with more data segments to follow. | | Prior to this each vendor had a custom API, and getting | integrations working was an enormous effort. There are a bunch | of companies who offer a standardized API around various EHRs, | such as Redox https://www.redoxengine.com/. Now most of them | have started supporting FHIR, as a way to ingest and expose | data. FHIR isn't comprehensive yet, but it'll get there at its | own pace. | | 1: https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and- | Guidance/Guidance/Intero... | aabaker99 wrote: | I confess I don't know much about CMS. What is in scope? Or, | what is available in FHIR? The Cures act includes all PHI | plus anything that could be used to make medical decisions. | jdavis703 wrote: | We're much better off letting the market decide on the best | standard. Imagine if XML had become the only legal standard for | data transfer. Or SAML the only one for authentication. While | one single standard is preferable, regulators should give the | market time to evaluate which standard is battle proven. | aabaker99 wrote: | I agree requiring XML could have been a disaster. Still, the | law seems to need to require more of we are to more | meaningfully achieve interoperability. What's stopping | companies from coming up with pathological data formats or | generally making the data available but not easily available? | Could the law specify some necessary characteristics of the | data format? What if there already is a popular standard | (http://fhir.org)? | ajsnigrutin wrote: | If the standard is open (so that anyone can read the | documentation and write a fully capable parser), it really | doesn't matter what the standard is exactly. | dillondoyle wrote: | Plaid for healthcare startup? | redmattred wrote: | Redox + Health Gorilla both do this | tyingq wrote: | I'm skeptical that will do anything. Healthcare tried to be | interoperable with the HL7 protocol. Which worked out so well | that software companies sell "hubs" to translate between the | different vendor flavors of HL7. | erikerikson wrote: | See also CloudEvents[0]. | | This post misses mentioning the incentives of incumbents who have | seen the innovator risk filtering pipelines constricting. | Inviting more people to play feeds their futures. | | [0] https://cloudevents.io | barnabee wrote: | I strongly believe platforms should be forced to allow | interoperability and it should be illegal to prevent or frustrate | access from other clients or services. | | The idea that someone hosting a product on the internet should be | able to control how I access my data or services is utter | nonsense and it's amazing that we've allowed it to become the | norm. | | This should include interoperability that allows "unbundling" | such as using a site/app's messaging feature alone with a | different client or service and replacing the platform's feed | curation algorithms with your own or third party algos. | | If they can't make money under these conditions, tough. They | either need to start charging for the core product instead of | extracting value in hidden ways, improve their own money making | services so people don't go elsewhere, or die. | _Algernon_ wrote: | What happens if platform A wants to interoperate with platform | B and requires information from person C's account about person | D (because they are friends)? Person D has likely not accepted | any kind of privacy policy of platform A or consented to the | exchange of data about them. | | This would very quickly turn into a massive GDPR headache. | toss1 wrote: | Yup, mandatory interoperability, transfer of data in and out, | and required all directions are the same difficulty (and the | same for transactions - no single-click signup and 3hrs on hold | in five tel calls to unsubscribe) | WallyFunk wrote: | > If they can't make money under these conditions, tough. They | either need to start charging for the core product instead of | extracting value in hidden ways, improve their own money making | services so people don't go elsewhere, or die | | Agreed. It is possible to have FOSS software that is not | _gratis_. Ever heard of a business model called: 'Making | something of value and charging for it'? | Taek wrote: | You can't call your license FOSS if the code isn't entirely | gratis to run and distribute. It's the first requirement | defined by the OSI. | | It's also the only requirement that I disagree with | fsckboy wrote: | > You can't call your license FOSS if the code isn't | entirely gratis to run and distribute. | | you're introducing some confusion here: first, OSI doesn't | define FOSS, just their subset of OSS; | | and someone can offer to sell you, and you can buy and then | resell, FOSS code (both Free (GPL according to FSF et al) | and Open Source (BSD, MIT, according to OSI et al)); you | are simply not required to pay extra ex post for reselling. | | from OSI webpage https://opensource.org/osd | | "1. Free Redistribution | | The license shall not restrict any party from selling or | giving away the software as a component of an aggregate | software distribution containing programs from several | different sources. The license shall not require a royalty | or other fee for such sale." | clcaev wrote: | This is a distinction without a difference. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | There is actually a difference. | | The person who wants a change can pay you, or anyone | else, to implement it. Then everyone gets it, but you | still get paid for it. | | Which is actually a sustainable business model. One | corporation pays you $5000 for change A, another pays you | $3500 for change B, an individual pays you $100 for small | change C, you make $8600 this month and the whole world | gets A, B and C. | | In theory you might now have corporation A waiting for | someone else to pay for the change instead of paying for | it themselves, but if the change to them is worth | $10,000/month and waiting for somebody else to do it | causes them to have to wait five years, how does the math | work out for them on that? | Proven wrote: | > I strongly believe platforms should be forced to allow | interoperability | | That is ludicrous. What gives you the right to decide how | people run their business and what services should or shouldn't | be available to their consenting customers? | | > The idea that someone hosting a productt on the internet | should be able to control how I access my data or services is | utter nonsense and it's amazing that we've allowed it to become | the norm. | | Your data is yours before you share it. If you don't want to | share it, don't use such services, or use services which | provide contractual guarantees that address your concerns. | judge2020 wrote: | Wouldn't this be a direct antithesis to any expectation of | privacy or data security people have of their social media | hosts? If I run an instance called mycoolfacebook.example and | get thousands of people to sign up, what's stopping me from | just passively saving all 'friends only' posts that pour in | from people with friends @facebook.com? Do we need e2ee | mastodon now, or do we just hope laws take into account | malicious observations? | fiddlerwoaroof wrote: | I think that expectation of privacy is mostly misplaced and | the hosting providers are the least part of the concern: | anyone who's "friends" with more than a handful of people on | social media should be treating all the posts on that | platform as potentially public: there's no way to prevent one | of your connections from screenshotting and/or otherwise | broadcasting your "private" posts. | | In this way, the older unauthenticated model of the internet | was better: by not creating an illusion of privacy around | your website (think c2.com or Wikipedia), it does not | encourage you to rely on that illusion for safety. | Kinrany wrote: | This doesn't seem like a new problem. If | mycoolfacebook.example is a new frontend for Facebook, it | must only talk to Facebook's backend, this is reasonably easy | to verify. If it has its own backend, we'll have the same | concerns we already have about Facebook. | williamtrask wrote: | Great point. It's a solvable problem, at least using code | audits (since it's client side) | zepto wrote: | > The idea that someone hosting a product on the internet | should be able to control how I access my data or services is | utter nonsense and it's amazing that we've allowed it to become | the norm. | | Nobody can control your data unless you give it to them. What | do you want to do that doesn't have an open alternative? | [deleted] | dageshi wrote: | The lesson of the internet is that lower friction always wins. | If people had charged for everything on the internet from its | inception, it would have died. | | I'd rather have good than perfect, I think the internet is | pretty good at the moment. | pharke wrote: | I see it more as capture of unwitting content producers. It's | the same faustian deal made by medieval landlords to their | serfs. The social media companies own the real estate and | tools for improving it and allow their users to live and work | there for free so long as they sign over everything they | produce to their lords. | dageshi wrote: | That's not even remotely true. If you're sufficiently big | enough on social media you can get your own advertising | deals directly with advertisers and cut out the platform | itself. If you're small enough that you can't do that then | your content isn't worth much anyway on an individual | basis. | hobs wrote: | So... exactly what they said in the parent post? You have | no choice and no value unless the landlords bestow it | upon you. | dageshi wrote: | Will anyone pay me for this comment? I'm guessing not. | Will anyone pay for yours? Also probably not. Because in | both cases they take minutes or less to write. 99.999% of | most content on most social media is equivalent to this, | what is it worth? | | The internets "landlords" didn't decide these comments | have no monetary value, we did. | Taek wrote: | With the right micropayments architecture an upvote could | easily be 0.1 or 0.01 cents. Or even $1. None of it has | to be visible to the user either, just like mobile data | bills aren't visible to the user | hobs wrote: | It's worth everything - without these small dribs and | drabs there's no social media at all. | dageshi wrote: | No, viewing the posts of the person with 50k+ followers | is worth something, the dribs and drabs are just the cost | of business. | concordDance wrote: | If you don't assign value to posts written by those | without 50k followers, why are you reading these | comments? | AnthonyMouse wrote: | If you took a social network and split it into one | network with everyone who has more than 50k followers and | one network with everyone who has less than that, | everyone would use the second one, because it would be | the one with all their friends and family on it. | | And then all the pop stars would move to that one because | they're inherently the ones chasing the users, whereas | dad doesn't want to install another app on his phone | which means mom can't stop using that one and neither can | you. | nobody9999 wrote: | >The internets "landlords" didn't decide these comments | have no monetary value, we did. | | I disagree. The value of my "creative" (I'm using that in | a very broad sense) output is real and belongs to _me_. | | While that may not be translatable to a pay day, not | everything is a commodity to be bought and sold. | | There are a variety of issues which created the current | (dysfunctional, IMHO) landscape, none of which have | anything to do with monetization. | | Firstly, there's the huge barrier to entry that comes | with the prevalence of asymmetric internet links. If I | have (multi)GB _symmetric_ network links, I can host as | well as consume. | | Secondly, there's no broad-based mechanism for | _individual_ control of creative output. PGP or a similar | mechanism would be great for that. But instead, we have | centralized platforms (see my first point) that dictate | how and to whom data is shared. | | With symmetric network links and strong cryptographic | access controls, barriers to an individual having control | of their creative output are significantly reduced. | | Some folks will want to monetize that, others will not, | with a mix of both being the norm. | | But claiming that there's no "value" in something because | you can't assign it a monetary equivalent seems a pretty | narrow view of value, especially WRT to social | interactions with friends and family. | foxfluff wrote: | The internet wouldn't have died, because there always were | and always will be actors without a profit motive. | matheusmoreira wrote: | > I think the internet is pretty good at the moment | | Yeah, with uBlock Origin installed it's actually bearable. | qsort wrote: | Yeah, _some corners_ of the Web are bearable, assuming | uBlock origin or equivalent is installed. Most mainstream | stuff is frankly braindead, uBO or not. | | Still much better than, as Pink Floyd would put it, | "thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from". | dmos62 wrote: | Thanks for saying that. I strongly agree. | [deleted] | alexashka wrote: | 100% on interoperability. | | It's not amazing that it's become the norm because, it's | _always_ been the norm that people control other people in ways | that seem barbaric and counter-productive in hindsight. | | There are a few creative spirits who _think through_ what would | be best for as many, as long as possible. Then there 's | everyone else that wants to play whatever the game already is | and win. | | You just can't explain to people who care only care about | winning that logic, decency, solidarity, are fundamental | pillars everything else they enjoy relies upon. They want what | they want, their world is simple and cruel, like the animal | kingdom. | rektide wrote: | i dont look at the boon of interoperability as being that of | the creative few. i view interoperability as leaving the on | ramp open to anyone, of permissionlessness that lets everyone | have a chance to respin, remake, reconsider, ongoingly. we | dont just think through really good solutions... we adapt & | coadapt & readapt. discovery is continual & progressive & | inclusive & shifting. | | the social arguments dont seem necessary. | rwbhn wrote: | > need to start charging for the core product | | I think you've misunderstood what their core product is. They | charge good money to their customers - companies placing ads. | imglorp wrote: | Seems like there's roughly four revenue streams. Some | companies dip into all of them! | | * Sell you a physical product | | * Sell you a service | | * Sell information about you: your conversations, your | clicks, your friends, etc | | * Sell you ads | | Smart TV's are an example of all four at once. | Torwald wrote: | What about digital products? I guess you left that out for | a reason, what would that be? | TeMPOraL wrote: | A variant of #1 or, usually, #2: most of the time when | you "buy" a digital good, you're really renting it out | under extremely limiting terms. | Torwald wrote: | I got your point, it's valid, specially membership sites. | But some stuff is different. Ebooks, audio files. | TeMPOraL wrote: | Which ebooks and audio files? Two mainstream providers - | Amazon (Kindle) and Spotify - both rent out access, not | sell actual ebooks. | spijdar wrote: | It's still correct regarding ebooks and audio files, | you're not paying for the files but the rights to keep a | copy of the file and use it personally. | | If the files are not protected by DRM, then there's no | technical limitation on copying or redistributing the | file, but according to your license agreement you're not | permitted to do so. | | In practice, no one is probably going to come after you | for copying your music files or ebooks across your | devices or sharing it with friends, but you don't _own_ | the file. Try mass distributing it or reselling it long | enough and you 'll attract someone's attention. | zepto wrote: | > I strongly believe platforms should be forced to allow | interoperability | | At what level of API with what level of SLA? | | > and it should be illegal to prevent or frustrate access from | other clients or services. | | Many existing APIs that are _intended_ to allow access are | extremely frustrating and poorly designed and implemented. | Obviously this is true for products and services as well. | | It seems very hard to imagine how you could mandate good | quality design and implementation of APIs. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | You're making this too complicated. | | All that's required is that breaking changes to the API the | vendor's first party client uses to access the service be | documented and announced e.g. two years in advance. | | It doesn't matter how poor the vendor's documentation is. It | doesn't even need to exist. As long as the first party client | can be reverse engineered and the fruits of that work don't | get wiped out every month by purposeful undocumented | adversarial modifications. | | And then a vendor has a simple way to avoid running afoul of | the rule -- keep a stable API. You can still change it, if | you have to, but then the documentation of the change has to | satisfy the lawyers, and more importantly you only get to do | it once every two years, because you have to provide that | much advance notice. | | And it doesn't apply to adding new features, only breaking | existing ones. | zepto wrote: | > You're making this too complicated. | | You're pretending this is simpler than it is. | | > you only get to do it once every two years, because you | have to provide that much advance notice. > And it doesn't | apply to adding new features, only breaking existing ones. | | What about changing existing features, or removing them? | | Can that only be done every two years? | AnthonyMouse wrote: | How is it complicated? | | If an API existed yesterday, and it does the same thing | it did yesterday, you're fine. If you don't like how it | works, add a new one and use that. You just can't take | the old one out, or change how it works, without | providing significant advance notice. | zepto wrote: | > _significant_ advance notice | | Are you changing your mind about it being 2 years? | | What if you want to make a change to the system that | isn't compatible with maintaining the old api? | | How about if the old api can't scale as the user base | grows? | | This is a clearly unworkable proposal. | amelius wrote: | > At what level of API with what level of SLA? | | Could be dependent on the size of the company/userbase. E.g. | Facebook (>100M users) should implement full API, while a | small company inventing new social software (<100k users) | should only implement minimum API. | raghavtoshniwal wrote: | Browsers are cited as an example of interoperable tech in the | article. While it maybe true that *anyone* can write their | browser, we see that Chrome does have inordinate amount of power. | Even though it's literally based on an open-source engine that | people can (and have) fork to build competing browsers, there | isn't a wildly competing browser market. | | Maybe just enforcing interoperability won't cut it. | streamofdigits wrote: | Its a valid concern. There are so many issues with the current | architecture there is likely no silver bullet. | | The ultimate objective is to align the interests of users with | the interest of service providers (abolish the user-as-a- | product business model). Interoperability may be used as a | fulcrum to force some price discovery about services, or allow | building new business models that add value to the users, who | knows... Anything but the current dystopia | rektide wrote: | i'm 1% concerned 99% still thrilled & delighted. the | interoperetability here is amazing. and there's still a lot of | room for growth. especially if we start focusing on websites | that support interoperation, encourage it. | srtjstjsj wrote: | Browser competition doesn't matter much for interoperability, | because they don't restrict what sites you can use. It's only a | risk if browsers start banning sites like the app stores do. | | And open source Chromium and Firefox are bulwark against that, | with active fork ecosystems. | cma wrote: | It goes the other way now, Google blocks non-Chrome and | select others: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25155451 | slx26 wrote: | When he says "Let's Fix the Internet, Not the Tech Giants", in my | mind I translate that to: "capitalism doesn't care directly about | human well being. Well, that's not cool, but I believe it's | better to try to provide an alternative flow / dynamic / space | for competition than trying to stop the immoral practices of | these powerful beasts directly. Don't fight the problem face-to- | face, try to make it obsolete". | | Well. One should be shocked: government and laws are exactly what | should protect human well-being _directly and decisively_ when | other things fail (or in prevention), but now it turns out | capitalism is too powerful so we can 't do that? We have to | ignore morality for a while, and start to leverage government and | laws just to create a side pathway that might eventually lead to | the possibility to compete against the big beasts of capitalism | in their own (or slightly shifted) terrain? Hope we adapt better | than they do? | | I'm not even saying this is stupid. It might actually be the most | pragmatic way forward. I tend to take a similar view when looking | for solutions... but when we reached this point, we should | realize that the problem is not the tech giants, | interoperability, Java's error model, APIs, EFFs, js typecasting | nor the internet. If having to resort to this kind of strategies | doesn't make it clear to us that we are playing the wrong game, | we are doomed at a more fundamental level: money sits at the top | of the power pyramid, and we have _no effective mechanism_ to | balance human well-being against it (which doesn 't make patches | useless, but maybe we should start prefacing appropriately or | writing angry o.o comments about it at some point). | jdavis703 wrote: | How does this solve the content moderation problem? We're allowed | to upload 18+ content on Twitter. But a nursing parent posting a | nipple on Facebook is grounds for account deletion. Or in another | case, what if I block a user on Facebook, but they come through | on Twitter? Does interop need to be include verified user | identity to prevent abuse? | k__ wrote: | You can say about Ethererum what you want, but the payable | keyword in Solidity blew my mind. | | Having a globally available standardized decentralized and | transparent way to pay for all APIs calls baked into a | programming language is a pretty awesome feature. | [deleted] | chubot wrote: | It's a nice idea, but what can I pay for now? Does it rely on a | centralized notion of identity? | matheusmoreira wrote: | Right now Ethereum smart contracts don't have access to real | world data from outside the Ethereum virtual machine. This is | why most contracts are financial in nature. | | There are projects attempting to fix that but so far nothing | has materialized yet. | bitwize wrote: | It's funny how interoperability has to be reintroduced as a new | concept now, when back in the day it was part of the philosophy | of the internet itself. I heard stories about a CS professor who | had to teach incoming students what files and folders were. The | interoperability thing is like that. 30 years into the Eternal | September, we're learning that nothing we were enculturated in | computing-wise can be taken for granted and we must re-teach it | all to our successors. | TeMPOraL wrote: | Interoperability is kryptonite to business. It kills whatever | one's moat is, the way a microneedle will kill a cell by | puncturing its membrane. Most companies avoid it at all costs, | except for using it as a weapon to hurt competition. Of note is | how upstarts embrace interoperability while it gives them an | edge over incumbents - and then abandon it as soon as they | establish themselves as a major player (see e.g. Slack, which | built their userbase on this trick). | | Early Internet was interoperable because of low commercial | interest. Now it's centralized because it's a big market. | Interoperability got replaced by contracts. | endisneigh wrote: | Too bad the US government is worthless. Say what you will about | other countries and the EU, but at least they assert themselves | sometimes. | ghuin wrote: | Maybe if they asserted themselves as much as the EU does the | tech situation of the US would be the same as the one in the | EU. | largbae wrote: | Would the EU assert itself so firmly against a European | Facebook? Maybe multiple governments fighting for their slice | of the internet tax pie is just slowing big tech's regulatory | capture. | endisneigh wrote: | Maybe, maybe not. Is the EU's situation a result of their | regulation? | zepto wrote: | Probably. | endisneigh wrote: | Based on what? Any evidence? | zepto wrote: | Yes, I assume that European are as smart an | entrepreneurial as Americans, therefore the kinds of | companies they build are likely a result of the | regulatory environment. | ResearchCode wrote: | Reductionist to the point of nonsense of course. It could | be any of many factors. | zepto wrote: | Such as? | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | I disagree that forced interoperability will somehow make they | emergence of "winner-take-all"-style tech giants less likely, and | I think the last ~25 year history of the Internet proves that. | | I mean, in the late 90s everyone was talking about how the | Internet would "democratize information", because anyone could | become a content publisher from their garage. The story then was | about how "the power" was concentrated in huge media companies, | and the Internet would change that. | | But when the barrier to entry is tiny, and indeed the barrier to | switching is so low, it means that any competitor that is even | just a tad better than the other guys will vacuum up all the | business. It's indeed actually this _more_ open framework that | leads to _higher_ concentrations of wealth and power, not the | other way around. | fsckboy wrote: | it is difficult to stop the "winner-takes-all" economic | dynamics from playing out, but interoperability does allow for | small competitors to emerge in niche markets and through | technological innovation bite off substantial markets. (AMD | uses interoperability to compete with Intel.) | | and ?por que no los dos, interoperabilidad y antimonopolio? | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | Completely agree. I'm in favor of interoperability for its | own benefits (it's not without issues but thank God I can | mostly depend on USB-C on all my devices these days), but | just pointing out that interoperability as a counter to | wealth/power concentration is insufficient. | hanniabu wrote: | It's less about wealth/power concentration and more about | the ability to upset that wealth/power concentration. | nitrogen wrote: | Yes, for example if Myspace, Facebook, Google+, and all | the open alternatives had all been interoperable, it | would have been less likely for one of them to become a | monopoly on the friends/wall/timeline segment. | ouid wrote: | What is your claim? I don't think that the dynamics of tech | giants are being properly accounted for in your example. Walled | gardens are properly anticompetitive. You can't just go and | iterate on facebook and expect to "suck up all of the | business". | gizmo686 wrote: | "Better" is a multi-dimensional measure and people have very | different preferences for what constitutes "better". The source | of the winner take all dynamic is network effects. Because of | those, everyone agrees that the "better" platform is the one | that everyone is on, which inevitably causes everyone to use | that same platform, even if they would have different | preferences but for the number of people on it. | cwp wrote: | Not quite. Yes, network effects are important, but if that | were the only important thing, then Facebook would be the | only social media site. The opposing dynamic is that it's not | hard to be on multiple sites at the same time. So if there's | a site that meets my definition of "better" and has critical | mass among the people I'd like to connect with it, it can | compete. Each new generation gets its own social network | because it has no interest in connecting with the squares on | Facebook. | peoplefromibiza wrote: | > and indeed the barrier to switching is so low | | the cost of switching is not low though, exactly for lack of | interoperability | | if a user moves from a platform to another one, the user has to | start from scratch because all of the contacts, social | interactions and content are locked behind walled gardens | slightwinder wrote: | > I mean, in the late 90s everyone was talking about how the | Internet would "democratize information", because anyone could | become a content publisher from their garage. | | Well, to be fair, this did happen. People today are better | informed than ever. It worked so well, that classical media was | (is?) dying. But what people forgot to mention was that money | will still drive society, that people still cannot know | everything and make failures, as people also will still | manipulate others for whatever reason. | | The world has become better, but it still remains flawed. After | all, nothing will ever be perfect. | jahewson wrote: | > I mean, in the late 90s everyone was talking about how the | Internet would "democratize information", because anyone could | become a content publisher from their garage | | Well, it did democratize _dis_ information. | pessimizer wrote: | I'd say that it didn't really happen that way. What happened | was that they would be interoperable initially, the other | clients would get neglected as the dominant client vacuumed up | _half_ of the business, then when the dominant client reached a | certain size, it would close. The neglected clients wouldn 't | be able to pick up the people resentful that the dominant | client closed because of their fewer features, more difficult | (and less opinionated) UI, and the loss of half of the user | network. Attrition happens among the holdouts, they switch to | the dominant client, and development that was once slow on the | other clients stops dead. Then the dominant client starts | asking for your firstborn and gets contracts with the CIA. | | I'd submit that it's the closing that's the problem, not the | openness. Openness tends to support a power law distribution of | clients. One or two will dominate, but there will be a dozen | that are significant. | infogulch wrote: | The problem is that the open _protocols_ which were initially | used by the dominant client to achieve its dominance later | became closed when they "seamlessly" forced their users onto | a closed protocol. OSS licenses solve the open code issue to | varying degrees but has largely fell flat on the issue of | open protocols. So if coopting IP-law (aka OSS licenses) is | the wrong approach, what is the correct tool to address this | problem? Would other legal concepts like like contracts help? | Something else? | Kinrany wrote: | "Winner-take-all" giants are not the problem. The problem is | when something is strictly better (price, features, UX, | performance or security) but can't win due to properties that | are not inherent to the solution like network effects. | asiachick wrote: | Interoperability is arguably a hit to innovation. You start with | just text messages, one company wants to add images, either (A) | they have to push for a standard which takes years or (B) they | add a non-standard extension. Then someone wants to add video | clips, audio clips. Okay you say, older clients will skip those. | But then someone wants to add threading, suddenly the entire | format needs to change (see A and B above). | | Or, you just let each developer go as fast as they want to adding | new features and/or selecting the ones they want (Apple putting | adding in memoji that works by sending only the parameters, to | very specific and copyright protected assets) | orbifold wrote: | I had this thought that it might be possible to define some of | the social media interfaces in terms of CapnProto services. Then | it wouldn't matter where the service was hosted. Especially for | things like LinkedIn the major draw is that CV data is made | available in a convenient and canonical form. | amelius wrote: | Big tech should be making just that: big tech. They should not be | touching our data. Let them produce hardware and software | independently, like in the old days of the internet. That way, | they empower companies by providing the modules they need rather | than the monolithic products that work against the interest of | both consumers and smaller companies. | dr_dshiv wrote: | I know I'm alone in this, but i trust Google with my data more | than the government, more than my family and more than myself. | If they don't handle it well, they lose billions of dollars of | value. | | On the other hand, I don't trust Facebook worth sh##. I would | love to have an decentralized alternative (blog culture & the | FOAF dream was nice while it lasted) | Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: | Not handling your data well will not cost google billions of | dollars in value. | | Dealing with mega-corps that treat you poorly always remind | me of this exchange from hhgttg: | | Builder: Do you have any idea how much damage this bulldozer | would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you? | | Arthur: No. How much? | | Builder: None at all. | dr_dshiv wrote: | You don't think that if Google has a data accident (e.g., | my Gmail data gone or leaked) that their stock price would | fall? Of course it would. | danielheath wrote: | If they lost everyones? Of course. | | Yours? No. You can join the choir of people complaining | that google has locked them out of their accounts. | afarviral wrote: | if your individual data was leaked? Um, you'd open a | support case and likely get some bottled response... | before then needing to go a media outlet or trying to | gain some traction on social media... even then the | impact would be minimal. Maybe if you are a famous person | or the data leak occurred en-mass itd be a different | story? Id be curious if this sort of thing has happened. | jefftk wrote: | I think this would be a major news story: I'm pretty sure | it has never happened. | | (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself) | amelius wrote: | Just like Facebook brand value plummeted after Cambridge | Analytica. I.e., not at all. | dr_dshiv wrote: | Yeah, exactly. If that happened to Google, they would | lose value in a way that Facebook wouldn't. That's why I | trust Google. | | I'm sure millions of others at least implicitly share my | opinion. And, I'd argue, the more explicit this opinion | becomes, the more real the value and the greater the risk | to Google for being a poor data steward. | olah_1 wrote: | There is nothing Alphabet could do to lose money. | Nothing. | | They have already completely screwed people many times | over. Deleting all of their drive data and locking them | out of 10 year old accounts for false alarms on some "bad | content" or something. | | One does not simply sue a company like this. It is larger | and more wealthy than a nation state and unaccountable to | all. | | The Butlerian Jihad seems more plausible every year. | infinitezest wrote: | > Yeah, exactly. If that happened to Google, they would | lose value in a way that Facebook wouldn't. | | Why do you think that it would be different for Google? | dr_dshiv wrote: | Because they offer a very different service than | Facebook. | jefftk wrote: | Aside: Cambridge Analytica was a scandal of | interoperability. People gave CA access which it then | abused to collect data about others. In the kind of | highly interoperable world that is being proposed here, | this is not something that you could prevent. | Lambdanaut wrote: | It doesn't really matter whether you trust Google or the | government more with your data, because either way the | government gets it. | | * | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) | hengri wrote: | PRISM is old news, google encrypts data between datacenters | now | jefftk wrote: | The government can still get it with a valid warrant, | though. | | (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself) | andrey_utkin wrote: | Hardware and software is not the game at big tech. The game is | profiting off data and comm channels ownership. | | Hardware and software is the game for "hobbyists" like Purism | and Pine64 now. | shadilay wrote: | Google made a custom video encoder for youtube which further | entrenches their monopoly. | https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/google- | alphabet/google-s... | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | The internet is already widely interoperable. But some efforts of | late make it less interoperable, and less able to route around | problems in the network. | | The obsession with HTTPS has to end. Not because of privacy, but | because of interoperability. | | DNS over HTTPS is not interoperable with the whole universe of | existing DNS products. But what's worse, it's locking people into | centralized platforms. With traditional DNS, you can move to any | network at all, and automatically pick up a new local, fast, | customized DNS catching resolver designed for the network you're | on. If you're on DNS over HTTPS, you've always got the same | provider, which does not scale to every network. The solution, | people will tell you, is just to disable DoH. Until we no longer | can, because everything expects to use it. | | The obsession with HTTPS has also led to the apologists decrying | any technical solution that _doesn 't_ use TLS 1.3 and HTTPS, | _because middleboxes!!!!_ And because literally everyone is | reluctant to design new protocols that can be extended as | successfully as HTTPS. If it doesn 't work over HTTPS, it's not | part of the modern internet. This not only severely restricts how | you can design technical solutions today, it's stupid: we have | this transport protocol with 65,000 port numbers, but we'll only | ever use one of them (443), because a redesigned stack is just | _unfathomable_. | | Every modern network service today needs many things. Routing | metadata, dynamic host/service lookup, federated | authentication+authorization, encryption, geo-localized load | balancing, error correction, session management, etc. If we build | things like these into lower levels of the stack, and build | primitives for them into the operating system, then all | applications can gain their benefits, and we won't need to rely | on convoluted hacks to provide it all. | | We can't keep on for the next 100 years with the shitty protocols | and shitty solutions we have today. We _have_ to start thinking | about brand new designs, and how we will upgrade systems to use | them. Otherwise, every solution we come up with will just become | more and more convoluted and ridiculous, as we build more and | more on top of antiquated systems designs from 40 years ago. | | Phone lines were pretty cool. We were able to extend them to | transfer data, from 1400 baud to 1.5 megabits. We could | technically do up to 50+ megabits, but it wouldn't scale. So we | built new solutions. They were expensive, but we needed them in | order to grow. Well, I think it's time for tcp/ip and its related | protocols to be replaced as well. Not _immediately_ , but it's | time for us to start building the replacement. | | That new replacement can take everything into account in a | variety of new stacks. Federation of data, access, services; new | kinds of encryption and privacy mechanisms, new trust models. New | routing and service models to make the "last mile" less | complicated and more flexible. And more responsive to network | partition, including the ability to detect them early, to make | applications more responsive. | | We can do literally anything we want, people! We can start | building the future today! But we have to choose to do it! | kaycebasques wrote: | Tangential: What a beautiful website! | shadowgovt wrote: | I agree with Doctorow's goals here, but framing it as he does at | the start of the piece doesn't make any sense. He claims we need | to fix big tech abuses, then gives as examples of issues to fix | disinformation and copyright infringement. | | Those aren't big tech abuses; they are two systemic side effects | of the internet itself... Of a technology that disintermediates | gatekeepers from peer to peer communication. If anything, big | tech serves as a gatekeeper that _has any chance at all_ of | addressing those issues. Empowering communities and individuals | to escape monopoly platforms decentralizes disinformation and | copyright infringement and increases the severity of those | problems. | | I think there are good reasons to decentralize the current mega | platforms we have, but addressing disinformation or copyright | management aren't them. | chaosite wrote: | The longer piece on CACM touches on this: | https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/10/255710-competitive-co... | kisil_reboot wrote: | I came here to say just this. The pivot at "rather than fixing | tech companies, we can fix the internet" makes absolutely no | sense. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-25 23:00 UTC)