Slashdot Mirror
Tech's Ruling Class Casts a Big Shadow (theverge.com)
Veteran technology columnist Walt Mossberg believes that Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, or Gang of Five -- as he likes to call them, are casting a big shadow over how today's startups foster, a phenomenon he believes will continue to happen over the years to come. From his column for The Verge: What we have now in consumer tech, in 2017, is an oligopoly, at least superficially similar to the old industrial-era American corporate groups that once dominated key industries. I think that their enduring and growing power casts a shadow over the Silicon Valley legend that there are lots of great new consumer tech innovations being incubated right now in garages or dorm rooms somewhere that will be taken all the way to becoming great companies, the way each of the Gang of Five was. What I fear is more likely to happen to any such startup is that, if they're good, they get acquired by a member of the Gang, or that their idea is turned into a feature for one of the Gang's products. And, even if that never happens and a startup thrives, too often it can only thrive by being successful on a platform controlled by one or more Gang members, with the big guy maybe taking a cut. For instance, Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, which went public last week, famously spurned a $3 billion takeover offer from Gang member Facebook in 2013. But it depends for its very operation on the cloud services of Google and on the mobile app platforms of Apple and Google. And plenty of other companies which either presented threats or opportunities to the Gang have been snapped up by them. Each of the five companies actively scoops up numerous smaller companies every year, in many cases just for their talent and / or patents. In fact, I'd be amazed if there weren't plenty of startups whose main goal is to be purchased by the Gang.
Not like a trump insult communist, like a for real one. I encourage you to read any and all of his articles, every one has a strong anti-business slant.
Many startups dream of getting purchased by the big companies like Yahoo and AOL. They will be around FOREVER!
The submitter makes it sound like there was no other choice but to rely on one of the "Gang of Five" when that is far from true. And seriously with the Nickname? There is already a GoF (Gang of Four) on tech. Clearly these guys aren't hard core techies.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This newb sounds like a babe wet behind the ears.
>> "I'd be amazed if there weren't plenty of startups whose main goal is to be purchased by the Gang."
Welcome to the industry, er, Walt.
The leaders are oligarchs, just the same as the CEO of an Exxon, Wal-Mart, or any other terrible company.
What about Moz://a? Why wasn't it included? It's one of the big players in the tech industry.
There will always be the top 5.
Sign its from the verge, might as well be from national inquirer. At least the national inquirer is correct more often.
Seriously, he's been around long enough to know that every single one of his "gang of five" got where they are by starting up out of nowhere, blindsiding a dominator of a key industry, and knocking the fromer king of the hill off his perch. Apple and Microsoft have even been blindsided themselves, knocked down before (Apple almost to bankruptcy), and shifted gears to become dominant again.
If Mossberg's notions were correct, none of the five would exist now in the first place. They'd all just be sub-divisions of IBM.
Imagine all the people...
What about Moz://a? Why wasn't it included?
Because they are all but bought by Google already. Why else do you think they would fire Eich, adopt DRM, ape Chrome, and plan to kill off the browser extenstion system that gave users unprecedented control over their own browsing experience (through adblocking and script-blocking and a million other essential features).
The submitter makes it sound like there was no other choice but to rely on one of the "Gang of Five" when that is far from true. And seriously with the Nickname? There is already a GoF (Gang of Four) on tech. Clearly these guys aren't hard core techies.
Well, when Microsoft (long overdue) drops out, they'll be the Gang of Four, at least in this particular writer's mind... Snapchat is an app, much like FB. FB will also falter, and already is on the slippery slope of Google Wave, Buzz, So.cl etc. Something else will take its place, or it will become the EA of social sites.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I've worked at 2 startups in the bay area in the last decade. Both were almost 100% dependent on Facebook and the goal was always to have them buy us.
One question i've been hearing from more and more venture capitalists is 'do you have a patent' Which makes me angry, since 10 years ago software patents didn't even exist. If Google started today, they'd be destroyed by patent trolls before becoming big and successful. Even if they managed to succeed in court without loosing all their money, they would be bought up by Yahoo or Bing so the company could acquire the tech, and of course the patents!
You had a few large tech companies and everything revolved around them until PC's came along and killed their businesses?
The submitter makes it sound like there was no other choice but to rely on one of the "Gang of Five" when that is far from true. And seriously with the Nickname? There is already a GoF (Gang of Four) on tech. Clearly these guys aren't hard core techies.
Well, when Microsoft (long overdue) drops out, they'll be the Gang of Four, at least in this particular writer's mind... Snapchat is an app, much like FB. FB will also falter, and already is on the slippery slope of Google Wave, Buzz, So.cl etc. Something else will take its place, or it will become the EA of social sites.
For Facebook to falter an entire generation would have to jump ship, typically the next generation coming up. I don't see that happening today. Usually this type of schism is prompted by technology change. Perhaps the next social media landing place will be in VR. But until then, I don't see Facebook being replaced any time soon.
Compu Global Hyper Meganet
Nothing new, wrong, or irregular about that.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Then you might have missed the fact that the next generation do not use Facebook because their parents are on it.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Trust busting was a thing?
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
According to The Innovator's Dilemma , this is the goal of starting most businesses.
After a certain point, such as watching the ongoing failure of Uber and the multi-billion-dollar valuations of companies that produce nothing but analytics, one comes to the realization that all tech startups exist to be sold, not to make money. The unicorns exist because they're funded by advertising, not because they sell any products -- web storefronts (which are essentially retailers) being the only exception.
Everyone else is just coasting on venture capital as some kind of daycare for brogrammers.
Mod up +1, Fact
You seem to have forgotten the time when MySpace was the 800 pound social network gorilla that Facebook is now. Then the fickle winds of what's cool changed direction and it went from being the dominating player to a whithered husk in about a year. The only real advantage that Facebook offered was blocking the stupid CSS tricks people used to "pimp their MySpace". And that would have been trivial for MySpace to offer themselves. Otherwise, Facebook's entire position is based on being where the cool people hang out. And that can change in an instant and for no apparent reason.
Imagine all the people...
Back in the dot-com fast times of the late 90's, I was with a start-up and floated a draft expansion plan for the servers.
But was told, "Forgettaboutit, our main goal is to get purchased by a bigger co, not grow."
Neither happened. They died a painful death.
Table-ized A.I.
I submit that facebook and mySpace are quite different. facebook is much much more about interaction, and mySpace was a lot more about publishing. To that end its hard to extricate yourself from facebook. When your friends put out invitations as facebook events, when your relatives check their E-mail once a month but their facebook messages ten times a day, when all the photos your wife have been stored their for 10 years, its hard to leave.
Actually even today's kids use FB not the way their parents do but they still regularly login which is what the ad men care about so FB is just fine going forward even if the interactions change.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
It was happening with Yahoo! before that IBM ruled the roost.
The only difference is the Gang has younger CEOs with even less moral qualms about squashing the new comers.
The world misses Jobs, Gates has set the standard for embrace, extend, extinguish.
Even JP Morgan left some money on the table for others.
Zuck does not. Ask the early buyers of FB stock.
It sounds a lot like the 90s, except in the 90s it was just Microsoft who was the ostensible gatekeeper.
I am worried about the dominance of the Gang of Five, but a Gang of Five is a far, far better situation than a Gang of One.
How they foster what? Orphan kittens?
Indglish at his most jolly fine.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I submit that facebook and mySpace are quite different. facebook is much much more about interaction, and mySpace was a lot more about publishing. To that end its hard to extricate yourself from facebook. When your friends put out invitations as facebook events, when your relatives check their E-mail once a month but their facebook messages ten times a day, when all the photos your wife have been stored their for 10 years, its hard to leave.
Actually even today's kids use FB not the way their parents do but they still regularly login which is what the ad men care about so FB is just fine going forward even if the interactions change.
First, FB and myspace were similar when FB came out. It wasn't that much interaction. The exodus has started already - the younger generation, those that even have FB pages, don't log in much anymore. They're on Instagram (also FB now) although that's soooo last year already, Pinterest, Snapchat, and other stuff that suits their style of communication better.
It's relatively easy to extricate yourself from facebook. Just delete your account, if you really want to be gone, or just stop logging in. Delete all your cookies on all your browsers. Do this daily for a few weeks in a row. At the least, use adblock and block facebook domains (you should be using some sort of filtering plugin anyways) As for the friends and relatives, breaking them of their FB addiction is the best thing you can do for them.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Microsoft, IBM, and Apple were not tech innovators outside of their main fields for any measurable amounts of time, they were monopolists (each to a degree). Google if you remember came about because Search Engines were not that good and all trying to generate clicks and ad revenue, where Google was supposed to do away with that. Facebook had so much free advertising that it was impossible for a business like MySpace to compete, and Facebook still receives huge amounts of free advertising. Amazon was competing with tons of people until patents and licensing put the others out of business.
Now that the IT market is well monopolized, we see a different thing. Innovation is being bought up by one of the big guys, and if you don't sell you will see yourself in court facing litigation for Copyright or Patent infringement. Many startups plan on the "buy out" and cater to just that. I hate to break it to you, but there are no young "Google" companies on the horizon.
The only place you can see any growth is in the services side, and even much of that is being brought in-house today.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I've been a programmer for 30 years and I've seen tech companies come and go. Google and Facebook and to a lesser degree, Amazon, run their companies on Linux. These are Internet-only companies. There was no Linux 30 years ago, and there was no Internet as it exists today. Linux was created 26 years ago. The general public joined the Internet around 22 years ago. There was no Google, Facebook, or Amazon 30 years ago, and none of these companies would have made any sense 30 years ago.
30 years ago, Commodore was the dominant player in the computer market. Microsoft was seen as small potatoes compared to IBM. Apple existed and the Apple II was fairly popular but the Mac was a machine regular people couldn't afford to purchase so you saw them mainly at schools, where they were discounted.
In 30 years, the present day landscape will be radically different. Maybe all of those companies will exist in some form but I see Facebook as the most likely to not make it, as people's tastes in online computer bulletin board systems are fickle. Facebook is today's Internet BBS. Some companies will exist in different forms. There will certainly be new dominant players.
If your window into the tech world is only 10 or 15 years then you need to do a little bit more research. It's not like I'm an old man. I'm only 41. The tech world did not come into being in the year 2000.
Until they get out of college. Those graphs are very well known inside FB- usage goes up from 13, then falls to near 0 due to parents. Then spikes at 18 (friends in other colleges) and again at 22 (friends post college). They still all come onto the platform eventually.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
GAMAF is politically correct however AMFAG makes me laugh.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
My kids never use Facebook. It's not dynamic enough for them and they think it's for their parents to find out about the next family picnic.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
My big 10" black dick...
Time to bring out the anti-monopoly laws and shatter each of these corporations into two or more competing firms.
Well, when Microsoft (long overdue) drops out
Never happen. Maybe you hadn't noticed, but despite their consumer tech missteps, Microsoft still builds much of the plumbing and glue type software that keeps American, European, Asian and indeed most other businesses running. Their Azure cloud product is at least as competitive as similar offerings from Google and Apple, although Amazon still has the lead in that category, and Microsoft SQL Server still runs tons of back office business processes, from mom and pop shops to stock exchanges. Oracle still has the very high end SQL market, but Microsoft continues to consolidate the rest and chip away at Oracle's high end offerings. Finally, their Visual Studio IDE and .NET platform are extremely popular in workhorse business software development and they're making serious inroads into Linux and Apple support now that Satya Nadella has made open source and non-Windows development a more serious priority for .NET and other flagship Microsoft products. Meanwhile, while Microsoft is not as sexy or as much in the consumer eye as Apple, Google or Facebook they continue to print money for their stock and bond holders. Just because you don't favor their consumer products hardly means that Microsoft will "drop out". I expect that under Satya Nadella's leadership they will remain peers of Apple, Google and Facebook for decades to come.
Satya, is that you?
Not enough doing the needful.
I personally like how Facebook is ready to censor everyone so well they are telling China they are ready!! Then there is MS Gates, you know the Vaccine Genius, being kicked from all countries because the autisim and death is shooting through the roof!!! I mean whats not to like right!!!!
sadly, if only people would learn the simplest things about email.... you can have everything FB does without all the data gathering and privacy invading aspects of FB if people only learned about distribution lists. Yes, many people have no idea that they can create a simple "joes" list in most of their email clients and drop all their friends into it and voila, stuff just works and they can even control who see what. Simply shocking what this old dinosaur tech is capable of.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Relying on a gang member for cloud VMs and SaS is as different from being integrated into one of their products as voting for Trump is from being a Nazi KKK member.
And this is more proof of it.
These big companies get ridiculous beliefs, then they force the startups to accept those ridiculous beliefs.
"There is no tech talent in the USA outside of Silicon Valley, we need more H1B visas!"
"If you're over 35, don't bother applying for a job, you're too old"
"We don't want to hire anyone who is not asian, east asian or white"
"There is only one political viewpoint that is correct, hard left."
"You must locate in Silicon Valley to obtain funding."
Not cluttering my email is the biggest feature of Facebook.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Not cluttering my email is the biggest feature of Facebook.
This only makes sense if you don't go to FB. My email was never that cluttered, because people didn't tend to take a selfie of them entering McDs, standing in line at McDs, ooh, there's the menu!!!, look - formica!!!! Here's the paper wrapper!!! etc crap that makes up what seems like half of FBs "content". They'd send 1 email saying they met joe, and here's a pic.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.