For nearly 10 years I have referenced this thread in various forums I've moderated. While I never entirely agreed with every aspect, it has mostly held up well as a lodestar over the years.
Until recently.
And now, with the benefit of enough sequential observation over time, I am comfortable describing what I believe is a major hidden assumption, and thereby weakness, in this entire argument:
For the concept of "walled gardens" relating to online communities to succeed and thrive, there must exist an overlay of credibly alternative platforms. ... (read more)
There is more than a single solution to this problem. Yes, one solution is to enforce First-Amendment style free-speech requirements on the oligopolistic giants that control the majority of the discourse that happens on the Internet. Another solution would be to address the fact that there are oligopolistic giants.
My solution to the above problem would be to force tech companies to abide by interoperability standards. The reason the dominant players are able to keep up their dominance is because they can successfully exploit Metcalfe's Law once they grow b
For nearly 10 years I have referenced this thread in various forums I've moderated. While I never entirely agreed with every aspect, it has mostly held up well as a lodestar over the years.
Until recently.
And now, with the benefit of enough sequential observation over time, I am comfortable describing what I believe is a major hidden assumption, and thereby weakness, in this entire argument:
For the concept of "walled gardens" relating to online communities to succeed and thrive, there must exist an overlay of credibly alternative platforms. ... (read more)
There is more than a single solution to this problem. Yes, one solution is to enforce First-Amendment style free-speech requirements on the oligopolistic giants that control the majority of the discourse that happens on the Internet. Another solution would be to address the fact that there are oligopolistic giants.
My solution to the above problem would be to force tech companies to abide by interoperability standards. The reason the dominant players are able to keep up their dominance is because they can successfully exploit Metcalfe's Law once they grow b
... (read more)