Slashdot Mirror
Is the Government Scaring Web Businesses Out of the US?
suraj.sun sends this quote from an article at Techdirt:
"The federal government has been paying lip service to the idea that it wants to encourage new businesses and startups in the U.S. And this is truly important to the economy, as studies have shown that almost all of the net job growth in this country is coming from internet startups. ... With the JotForm situation unfolding, where the U.S. government shut down an entire website with no notice or explanation, people are beginning to recognize that the U.S is not safe for internet startups. Lots of folks have been passing around [a] rather reasonable list of activities for U.S.-based websites."
"Is slashdot scaring away developers with more political submissions? Remember when there used to be a Developer section instead of all this political BS? I swear YRO has ruined this site."
Politics is about resource allocation. Much of computing design is about resource allocation, too. So they are more connected than you might think at first.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
One problem is that the latest "war of the da"y is always profitable to somebody:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
War is just not usually beneficial to most people who have to pay the costs (which includes the US taxpayer, as well as all the victims abroad or at home who were in the way...)
And so a society consumes itself, burning itself to the ground because every incremental step makes sense to the fire... Where are the "political" firefighters when we need them?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Good questions. Please keep digging...
Some of my own thoughts on that:
http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html
"This article explores the issue of a "Jobless Recovery" mainly from a heterodox economic perspective. It emphasizes the implications of ideas by Marshall Brain and others that improvements in robotics, automation, design, and voluntary social networks are fundamentally changing the structure of the economic landscape. It outlines towards the end four major alternatives to mainstream economic practice (a basic income, a gift economy, stronger local subsistence economies, and resource-based planning). These alternatives could be used in combination to address what, even as far back as 1964, has been described as a breaking "income-through-jobs link". This link between jobs and income is breaking because of the declining value of most paid human labor relative to capital investments in automation and better design. Or, as is now the case, the value of paid human labor like at some newspapers or universities is also declining relative to the output of voluntary social networks such as for digital content production (like represented by this document). It is suggested that we will need to fundamentally reevaluate our economic theories and practices to adjust to these new realities emerging from exponential trends in technology and society."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
... through arguing over resource allocation. According to "Conceptual Guerilla", mainstream economics is just mainly a mythological cover story to justify elites:
"The Mythology of Wealth"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
Example:
http://www.responsiblefinance.ch/appeal/
"The authors of this appeal are deeply concerned that more than three years since the outbreak of the financial and macroeconomic crisis that highlighted the pitfalls, limitations, dangers and responsibilities of main-stream thought in economics, finance and management, the quasi-monopolistic position of such thought within the academic world nevertheless remains largely unchallenged. This situation reflects the institutional power that the unconditional proponents of main-stream thought continue to exert on university teaching and research. This domination, propagated by the so-called top universities, dates back at least a quarter of a century and is effectively global. However, the very fact that this paradigm persists despite the current crisis, highlights the extent of its power and the dangerousness of its dogmatic character. Teachers and researchers, the signatories of the appeal, assert that this situation restricts the fecundity of research and teaching in economics, finance and management, diverting them as it does from issues critical to society."
Other ways to look at economics:
http://debunkingeconomics.com/
And also the similarly named:
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Rest-Us-Debunking-Science/dp/1595581014
"Why do contemporary economists consider food subsidies in starving countries, rent control in rich cities, and health insurance everywhere "inefficient"? Why do they feel that corporate executives deserve no less than their multimillion-dollar "compensation" packages and workers no more than their meager wages? Here is a lively and accessible debunking of the two elements that make economics the "science" of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined. The first is used to justify the cruelest policies, the second grand larceny. Filled with lively examples--from food riots in Indonesia to eminent domain in Connecticut and everyone from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham to Larry Summers--Economics for the Rest of Us shows how today's dominant economic theories evolved, how they explicitly favor the rich over the poor, and why they're not the only or best options. Written for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary economic thinking--and why it is dead wrong--Economics for the Rest of Us offers a foundation for a fundamentally more just economic system."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
One of the main reasons I opted for the ISP I'm using for my business is not the fact that they're cheaper (it's only $10/month difference), but the fact that SaskTel hosts their data center in Florida, and the one I'm using is hosted in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
I don't want my business anywhere near US regulation and control without oversight and intervention by Canadian authorities. The US has been proving to be insanely jackbootish about their approach to the internet for the past 2-5 years, and I simply do NOT want to take the chance of having them interfere with my business.
Or rather, I don't want US media companies interfering with my business. They don't do proper checks before issuing their takedown requests, and were I in the US, I'd be effectively subject to domain seizure and content takedowns without due process and the chance to defend myself. That is an UNACCEPTABLE BUSINESS RISK when it is so easy to avoid.
Worse, the US dollar is in such a sorry state that I will not be accepting payments in greenbacks. I want to be paid in a stable currency that I don't have to pay exchange rates on in order to spend -- namely Canadian dollars. For years I've had to pay extra to convert my Canadian currency to US dollars to pay for goods and services ordered out of the US. The shoe is on the other foot now.
Even if I work a contract in the US for a US company, I'll either be paid in Canadian dollars or charging a 5% premium for the hassle of converting US currency to Canadian dollars (it's a 2-3% bank fee as well, so 5% isn't as much as you might think.) Add in the fact that all foreign payments get held by the bank for 30 days, and the resulting lost opportunity cost of having my money tied up and inaccessible, and I find I really don't have much interest in business south of the border at all right now.
Besides, if I have to travel to service a customer, I may as well visit somewhere I've never been before, preferably China, Australia, New Zealand, or Germany. (I've just always wanted to see those countries some day. I've already spent about 12 years living and working in the US, so I've seen the US. I want to see someplace different next.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Sounds like a good reason to leave GoDaddy, IMO.
Sounds like a good reason for a decentralized name resolution system.
While GoDaddy are a bunch of scummy toadies, they aren't the real problem. The real problem is the tendency of those in power to abuse their power. Today it is the secret service and godaddy, tomorrow it could easily be some other government and some other DNS provider.
Ultimately the only solution is to decentralize name resolution. Sure that comes with a whole host of problems on its own, starting with trust and reliability. But the current hierarchal DNS is just such an easy single-point-of-choking that it is inevitable that the powerful will abuse it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You obviously have never started a business! The US is pretty safe on the balance given the rule of law. I've started and operated businesses in the US and Thailand, and investigated starting businesses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Australia, Sweden, and Ireland. While HK and Singapore (arguably Ireland, but that is a bigger reach) are much more tax-friendly than any of the others, each country has significant risks. By comparison, the US is the easiest place to make money and build a long-lasting business.
Now... there are plenty of stupid regulations that you deal with, and there are certain aspects of taxation that are fairly oppressive for a small business (namely being taxed on retained earnings rather than just draw or other money taken out of the business). The whole MAFIAA crap needs to stop, and patent law needs a makeover, to be sure. But, in your daily life you don't have to worry about who needs to be bribed, what regulations exist simply for someone to collect a bribe to look the other way... or what your competitor might be able to do to you without any recourse on your end.
Manufacturing is a different story. And, if you are doing anything borderline illegal, sure... you may have some concerns. Also, things change when your revenue is over a certain amount as to what place is most advantageous.
Specific to JotForm, they got screwed because someone was using their service for phishing. They discovered it, stopped it, and the SS shut them down in parallel. If they needed a service that was more resilient, they could have planned differently.
The moral of the story is plan for confiscation of equipment or domains when running an online business. Maximize resiliency.