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'The End Of The Level Playing Field' (avc.com)
Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson writes in a blog post: When the Internet came along in the early 90s, we saw something completely different. Here was a level playing field where anyone could launch a business without permission from anyone. We had a great run over the last 25 years but I fear it's coming to an end, brought on by the growing consolidation of market power in the big consumer facing tech companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc, by the constricted distribution mechanisms on mobile devices, and by new leadership at the FCC that is going to tear down the notion that mobile carriers can't play the same game cable companies played. It is certainly true that consumers, particularly low-income consumers, like getting free or subsidized data plans. There is no doubt about that. But when the subsidies are coming from the big tech companies, who can easily pay them, to buy competitive advantage over that nimble startup that is scaring them, well we know how that movie ends.
No we don't know because that movie isn't on Netflix yet, you insensitive clod!
#DeleteFacebook
You can make money up to a certain point, but if the big companies notice you and can't buy you out, they will destroy you with legal proceedings. The broken patent laws are enough to put anyone out of business, pretty much everyone is breaking some unknown law.
and by new leadership at the FCC that is going to tear down the notion that mobile carriers can't play the same game cable companies played
Isn't that mostly a local problem in the single country where the FCC has authority?
its almost like you could describe it as a cycle of sorts, funny that....
see here for more info - www.inc.com/encyclopedia/industry-life-cycle.html
The Internet was in the era of the gold rush, where independent sorts rushed out into the wild to try to make their fortunes. Several did, many didn't. Now we're in the era of the company towns and robber barons. The ending of that era came in part when government set rules with teeth, and in part by the rise of unions.
>> Random Venture Capitalist says "there's nothing new to invent"
Says a guy about to hang it up, right?
Seriously, a venture capatalist is complaining about the state of things? VCs created this very environment so that they could profit from it. It was only possible by tying up all of the IP and suing everyone into oblivion if they infringed over the smallest detail.
You reap what you sow.
He who has the gold makes the rules. You should be far more concerned about cash-rich companies that can afford to hire lobbyists who will effectively tilt the playing field in their direction through regulations that only they can afford to deal with. Deregulation is the playing field leveler.
But there is a more insidious, a more disconcerting tilting of the playing field is happening. Before big-data and this level of data consolidation, commerce/trade happened between large mass of anonymous consumers and service/goods providers. The price information was public, and a few diligent consumers who compare prices, the informed consumers were mixed up with general public. Now the companies are able to cherry pick diligent informed consumers and give them special coupons, special deals and then raise the rack rate, the posted prices. So much of the consumer behavior is being captured, analyzed and the power of the general consumer is getting increasingly diluted.
So the established big companies are not only able to keep competition away by giving away most common services people want, they are also able to find the consumers who are likely to look for alternatives and keep them in the fold too.
This kind of power is not similar to cable tv operator vs giants in 1980s. It is more like 19th century London traders who had information about rainfall and estimated harvests from all over the world, and were dealing with uninformed local farmers in various parts of the world. Especially cotton and sugarcane. Say a bumper crop of cotton in South India might be happening while Egypt and south USA were hit by drought. But the Indian farmers might be selling to the agents of London traders at pennies instead of pounds. Today the companies can price products knowing exactly how much they can push you individually not as part of a large collective mass. The implications should frighten people.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
When the Internet came along in the early 90s
Don't mistake when you personally became aware of it with the beginning. I was on the net in 1983, and it wasn't new then. I know a person who was on arpanet in 1979, and it actually started circa 1969 or 1970.
But yes, it is becoming more centralized, centrally controlled, and proprietary all the time. That's being driven by the choices of several billion non-technical users who don't grasp how critically important it is to maintain openness and decentralization. I do not believe Facebook would have succeeded with the tech-literate users of the 1980's internet. It took the eternal september crowd to make that happen.
Some applications get our admiration because they give us our previous interests and predisposition. These reinforcements of ourselves corral us into similar minded groups, who then get similar non-conflicting information. We become tribalized. That can further understanding in the tribe of astronomy. In internet social arenas, we can become like Belfast, Ireland, where protestants go to protestant schools, catholics go to catholic schools, and the two tribes learn to hate each other. Tribalizing science is efficient. Tribalizing politics, religion, and empathy is destructive.
Not for long. The US is very adept at exporting its horrible laws to other countries by writing them into trade agreements.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Tech companies have never played fair. They break laws until they are big enough, then close those loopholes behind them.
Like around 1999 I sold stuff on eBay. All sorts of stuff. I sold Electronics, designer sunglasses that I got "gray market," shoes (brand name and otherwise), soaps, and basically every piece of plastic garbage made by humans you can imagine. I had over 100,000 feedback at one point and revenues of like $3.7 million per year. I had 4 employees. It was a nice little gig. But around 2006 you saw Chinese fakes start abounding, and they changed their fee model, and it really wasn't even the fakes that were so much the problem as just Chinese sellers happy to take a 5 cent profit per transaction where even if I moved my warehouse to the lowest cost hell hole in the US I still couldn't compete. So I got out of that business entirely because my margins were down to like 3% and for 3% I could just but a rental building, rent out apartments and not bother having to wake up at 8am anymore. When your competition is happy to make $700 in an entire month you have no choice but to leave the business and do something else. I was old enough and rich enough by that point to not care anymore but I feel really bad for your average AMERICAN person today because efficiencies have killed not just the mom and pop store but even mom and pop online sales. It is impossible today to get into online sales unless you have $100k a month to gift to Google/Amazon to get you to the top of the search and a very unique product on top of that. Selling commodity goods is just impossible since you will be on page 25,975 somewhere where no one will ever see you. On Amazon you have to give up insane amounts of freebies to "reviewers" just because the freebies (not so much the reviews since they eliminated reviews from non-buyers) bump your search rank since they count as sales. Basically -- show you have $250k in inventory to give away or don't bother selling on Amazon because they only want large sellers. They don't want to deal with mom and pops. For about a decade you really could make a lot of money just selling online. Now - forget it.
Dear God, you are stupid.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Hopefully, Trump will first direct the FCC to stop enforcing the net neutrality rules, and then Congress will permanently remove FCC authority over the Internet.
Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong by removing any kind of regulatory oversight? Surely none of the large, multi-billion dollar corporations would ever unfairly use a lack of regulation to their advantage.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It is certainly true that consumers, particularly low-income consumers, like getting free or subsidized data plans. There is no doubt about that. But when the subsidies are coming from the big tech companies, who can easily pay them, to buy competitive advantage over that nimble startup that is scaring them, well we know how that movie ends.
I really object to this person's writing style, which repeatedly seeks to put words in others' mouths rather than proposing facts and backing them up with cites as appropriate. "We all know" that that's the writing style of someone who may well be running a spin game rather than an information dissemination game. I want to be informed, not pushed into going along for the ride.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.