I don't buy the comparison of our internet practices to feudalism. There is no Lord with control over all the land and thus control over the people, who need to work the land to survive.
Google, Facebook, and the like provide a service. A completely optional service. Anyone can choose among them freely. Don't like that X won't let you take your data when you want to move? Choose Y. Don't like any of the above? Set up a mail server on EC2. Don't like Amazon? Pay for your own host somewhere. Can't afford a host? Pool your money with like-minded people.
Unlike the land of Lords, the internet is not all bought up and unavailable to us peasants.
Unlike the land of Lords, the internet is not all bought up and unavailable to us peasants.
Yet.
What happens when all your family and friends are on X (where X is (or is like)) Facebook or Google+, and the only way to keep in touch with them is by giving in and joining?
Explain to them about the risks and business plans of companies like Facebook and Google. Give them your email address, telephone number and website/blog and ask for theirs.
If they are only prepared to keep in touch with you through something like Facebook and Google+, then they're not really interested in keeping in touch. Rather go find people with which you are actually both mutually interested and stop chasing after 'obligations'. Life is too short.
> then they're not really interested in keeping in touch
Yes, or they are simply not interested in stories about the risks and plans of Google and Facebook. Or do not understand when you try to explain it.
A significant part of my family and friends is already on that path: only reachable through sites like facebook or gmail. Taking some "political stance" in not joining (how they see it) will very readily be translated in "you are not joining. you are not really interested in keeping in touch with me."
So no. It will work out precisely the other way around.
I am compelled to point out that gmail is just an interface to email. Perhaps you meant G+?
Either way, I think email is a pretty open method of communication. As hard as they've tried, FB/G+/Twitter have managed to augment rather than supplant email.
They're also pretty new. I suspect in 30 years, nobody will be using them, but email will still be around. (Probably still using SMTP and battling spam, TBH...)
Still a poor analogy. With feudalism, people had no choice. Now people have a choice but due to social pressure make terrible choices. No system can save people from their own short-sightedness, the best case is a system where those who want to choose an alternative can do so, and the Internet provides that.
And there is always the option of creating a puppet account on facebook and keeping any sensitive information anonymous.
Comparing this to indentured servitude is pretty silly. A serf has to eat. If all your friends and family are on Facebook and refuse to interact with you via any other means, that is not the same as being forced.
What? Ignoring the fact that I can't figure out what your second sentence means, obviously he's comparing it to forced labor. That's what we're talking about.
Trying to clarify what I mean, I'll probably give up after this as I'm
on my 3rd day of very little sleep so perhaps I'm just incoherent.
My reading of his linked essay is as a discussion of the power dynamic
between users and companies they rely on. This is compared with a
romanticized version of feudalism. While the users are not compelled
to actually use these services, once they enter into them they are at
the mercy of the companies (feudal lords) to not take advantage of
their much greater position of power (like his version of the early
feudal era serfs).
> There is no Lord with control over all the land and thus control over the people, who need to work the land to survive.
But there is.
The lords change with time (oh, do they ever!), but there are inherent aspects of technology which make it very prone to developing monopolies.
First was AT&T (we're talking 1913 and the initial anti-trust agreement, the Kingsbury Committment). In the 1950s, IBM emerged as a computing powerhouse, a position it retained until 1990. Intel dominated (and still dominates) ICs and CPUs. Microsoft ruled consumer operating system space from the late 1980s through the mid 2000s, and still dominates in business workstations and small servers. Apple, Google, and Facebook have emerged in portable consumer electronics, search and applications, and social networking, respectively. Telecoms is once again a monopoly or oligopoly, with AT&T owning POTS and Comcast most cable contracts.
Attacking any one of these positions is very difficult. Generally, the old giants collapse either from internal mismanagement, the emergence of a new paradigm or technology, or both. Technical superiority, economies of scale, and network effects generally provide extremely strong competitive advantages to market leaders.
However brief their tenure in the power seat, during that tenure, the incumbent or incumbents are exceptionally powerful. Most of the companies I've listed have been among the most highly valued in the world at some point in their existence.
I thought the point of his analogy (originally, not in this piece) was that the Internet was becoming such a dangerous/warlike place that individual businesses or users couldn't feasibly have the infrastructure to defend themselves, and would need to be part of a bigger collective like Google, AWS, etc. to deploy services and operate within their protective umbrella.
i.e. it was about technical security originally, not functionality and privacy/control.
That doesn't preclude "rugged individualists" from living in the mountains in a cabin full of guns, and remaining safe as long as they stay out of the focused attack of one of the Great Powers or some band if brigands, but it does mean all the regular farmers will want a feudal lord to protect them, rather than living in an undefended farmstead somewhere (as one might do if there weren't constant warfare).
The trend there is actually increasingly toward needing "real infrastructure" to host things, vs. the old style run a web server on a workstation on your desk as the first-class solution. If nothing else, it's partially because there are now billions instead of thousands of potential users.
This is a great example of exactly the kind of opinion-setting Bruce is talking about. I think it's pretty clear that services like Google are hardly optional in this day in age, especially when it comes to making a living i.e. eating, which brings us right back to the feudalism allegory.
There's nothing to disagree with in the OP's comment or your comment. Because they are just refusing to accept any of the facts of the article. It's pointless to engage you because you will never try to directly refute evidence, but will instead attempt to distract and dramatize. I've seen this rhetorical style a million times; it's very formulaic.
This kind of head-in-the-sand, denial-comment like the OP is exactly the same rhetorical style that Israel used in the Lebanon war on Reddit. Is the OP an actual agent with opinion setting agenda? Does it matter? Our only option is to be aware of common fallacious argument methods, and do our research.
This entire comment is a non-sequitur. I can't even figure out what part of my comment it replies to. Are you sure you replied to the right comment? That's a mistake I sometimes make.
Perhaps you should reread your comment then read mine to help you grok. I could say the same about your comment. What does the authors comfort have to do with anything? You simply ignored their source refuting that these services are optional and attacked the author.
At least I'm actually talking about the subject and you continue to offer nothing but passive aggressive Ad hominem attacks. I'm not at all surprised and I anticipate another comment from you along the same lines.
Oh, that's easy: I think you should feel a little uncomfortable telling someone else you think they're being misleading, because it's another way of saying they're being deliberately deceptive, which is not something you'd say to their face.
I'm sure it's something I've said too, and if I was called out on it, I'd like to think I'd agree and amend my comment.
It is a little strange to call that point out as "ad hominem", for whatever it's worth.
Google, Facebook, and the like provide a service. A completely optional service. Anyone can choose among them freely. Don't like that X won't let you take your data when you want to move? Choose Y. Don't like any of the above? Set up a mail server on EC2. Don't like Amazon? Pay for your own host somewhere. Can't afford a host? Pool your money with like-minded people.
Unlike the land of Lords, the internet is not all bought up and unavailable to us peasants.