'The End Of The Level Playing Field' (avc.com) 108
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.
Subsidies (Score:5, Funny)
No we don't know because that movie isn't on Netflix yet, you insensitive clod!
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Blame the studios, not Netflix.
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Netflix is the one defining the global price, not the studios. I blame Netflix for overcharging overseas.
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Why not blame them for undercharging in the U.S.A.?
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It's never been level (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:It's never been level (Score:4, Insightful)
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The poor and the kicks pay taxes, big tech companies do not.
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The poor make less in earned income tax credit than their excise and payroll taxes [bloomberg.com]
Nice to find the rebuttal in less than 1 minute
Local problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Local problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the issues cited are specific to the US. Most of the "innovation" coming from the US these days consists of adding more bells & whistles and/or gaming the system. But there are lots of places that aren't in the US.
LOL! (Score:1)
subsidized data plans.
Does anyone really think these exist anymore?
These companies haven't ungraded their infrastructure in years. They are probably all fully depreciated and every penny they bring in above and beyond the maintenance costs is pure profit. They don't invest in network upgrades, as evident that most neighborhood still language as early DSL speeds, or in the case of cable, their over crowded loops.
I have a 100mbit connection with "Spectrum", but fully 1/4 of the time I'm look at 0 to 50kb do
Re:Local problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
So no, I think allowing an infection in the US could cause a worldwide problem.
Not for long (Score:5, Insightful)
Not for long. The US is very adept at exporting its horrible laws to other countries by writing them into trade agreements.
Re:Not for long (Score:5, Insightful)
This too may have passed. I expect the rest of the world to be more resistant to the US exporting much of anything, policy-wise, for the near future.
President Trump prefers bilateral treaties (Score:2)
At least for the next 47 months, we don't have to worry about the United States exporting bad laws quite as quickly if President Trump continues his stated preference to deal with other countries one at a time in bilateral treaties, not en masse like the TPP was supposed to do.
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A local problem in the US often is a global problem by extension.
The US represents about 20% of the global economy. Although that figure is declining, it's still a big chunk. And being able to us American consumers as a cash cow underwrites the economic power of these companies in other places.
By analogy look at the kind of market power Microsoft had in the 90s and 00s. It could always survive failure in any market it entered, sometimes for years on end, because of its Office and Windows cash cows.
AOL minus CDs in the mail (Score:2)
Economies of scale (Score:2)
I imagine that without economies of scale, ISPs offering "a modern version of AOL" are likely to either cease offering "the real deal" or charge hundreds of dollars per month for "the real deal", making it cost-prohibitive to become a freelance techie.
this happens in most mature markets (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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Re:this happens in most mature markets (Score:5, Interesting)
As soon as you start thinking in terms of "winners" and "losers", you are passively accepting the picture of the Internet as a commercial marketplace in which corporations compete for profit. There are already far too many aspects of modern life of which this is true.
Regardless of its commercial excrescences (which we are free to ignore if we wish) the Internet continues to be of huge value as a common medium of communication. It's all too easy to overlook the enormous amount of learning and discussion that goes on every day, without anyone paying much notice becuase there is little or no money involved.
Rather like FOSS, in fact, the true extent of whose adoption is very hard to establish because there is little or no money involved. (How big is the "market" for Linux distributions? N times zero equals zero for all values of N).
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As soon as you start thinking in terms of "winners" and "losers", you are passively accepting the picture of the Internet as a commercial marketplace in which corporations compete for profit. There are already far too many aspects of modern life of which this is true.
I'm not sure that's "passively accepting", so much as it is acknowledging the existing state of affairs as it is perceived by the majority of people who aren't Slashdotters.
Regardless of its commercial excrescences (which we are free to ignore if we wish) the Internet continues to be of huge value as a common medium of communication. It's all too easy to overlook the enormous amount of learning and discussion that goes on every day, without anyone paying much notice becuase there is little or no money involved.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of money involved in building and maintaining the infrastructure, so all of that grass-roots activity you're rightly extolling exists at the sufferance of corporations that can and will pull the plug in accordance with their own desires and profit-driven agendas.
Rather like FOSS, in fact, the true extent of whose adoption is very hard to establish because there is little or no money involved. (How big is the "market" for Linux distributions? N times zero equals zero for all values of N).
Also rather like FOSS, in fact, the true exten
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That describes Fred pretty accurately, yes. Always been an idiot, always will be. He hasn't got what it takes to learn.
Re:this happens in most mature markets (Score:5, Insightful)
We can always take lessons from the past and compare auto industries with whatever we like (in good /. tradition!).
Nevertheless there are significant differences... and that's just taking the examples from the summary.
Facebook is not an early internet company... they've turned up after others looked mature enough to get some cash from their products/services... but failed.
Amazon is an early internet company (IMHO) but which industry cycle pattern applies if they went on a huge horizontal expansion and then vertical integration that leads them to where they are today?
Google I don't understand and never will...
Microsoft does not get a mention even though they've been an early internet-related company before 3 out of 4 in the list, and now gets a higher sales total now than when their OS was in 90%+ of devices. They've become a smaller fish in a much larger pond.
The company formerly known as Apple Computer made their greatest product line by beating established companies in a mature market.
What cycles do we see there if these companies are all actors in multiple markets precisely to avoid being overtaken by newcomers? The patterns are not *that* obvious and predictable as the grandparent poster suggests. If some new company invents something really great that gets them millions of paying customers, net neutrality rules changing will be a pain but won't stop them completely. More likely the hurry to be acquired will be a bigger factor.
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NONE of those are early internet companies. Microsoft was quite late to the party, and famously said that the internet was not here to stay. Shit, their OS couldn't even run a network stack in the days the early companies were online.
Real early internet companies include DEC and HP. There were no Windows machines on the internet then.
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Be fair, it ran a network stack just fine, it just didn't come from MS.
Re: this happens in most mature markets (Score:2)
> They've become a smaller fish in a much larger pond.
More like a slightly-larger fish in an exponentially-larger ocean. On its least-profitable month during the Great Recession, Microsoft made more money than they did the entire year after Windows 95 came out. Most investors would be *delighted* to experience Microsoft-style failure.
Most of Microsoft's wounds have been either self-inflicted, or more like allergic reactions to imaginary problems -- dumping Windows Mobile *right* at the point when its cap
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It's not even true. There is more opportunity for the little guy now than there ever was. More people have computers, especially smart phone and especially in developing nations. We have things like Kickstarter, which despite all the scams has helped a lot of niche products get off the ground. Well, actually turns out many of them are not niche, like board games which have raised millions in the last year alone.
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Agreed. None of the fat ass corps are going to sell to niche markets products people want because returns are too low. We're not totally screwed yet because small businesses can scoop these up like hot cakes and probably do pretty well. No one is going to become rich doing this, but you can make a comfortable living this way if done right.
Inustries mature (Score:1)
It's also harder to start a car company today than 100 years ago...
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It's also harder to start a car company today than 100 years ago...
How much of that is directly caused by regulations introduced since then, such as CAFE?
The Gold Rush (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
This isn't really new... try talking with VCs (Score:1)
This isn't a new item. In the 1990s, you could have a conversation with a VC, they were willing to fund a venture into completely uncharted waters, even it meant a miserable failure later.
These days, a VC won't plunk money on the line unless you have a way for them to immediately exit with them being richer. You have to run your startup yourself, then what will happen is that some company will make you a "deal you can't refuse" and your startup will be bought out. You also have to either be into analytic
About-to-Retire Venture Capitalist? (Score:3)
Says a guy about to hang it up, right?
reap what you sow (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Stop making things up.
The pseudo-syllogism that
capitalism is bad
VCs are capitalists only in it for the quick profit (never mind examples such as Amazon)
Some legals types create a VC firm which type up IP
Therefore VCs created this environment.
Is retarded.
AAJ gives legislators a conflict of interest (Score:2)
Behind every sleazy lawyer there's a sleazy client. The real enemy is the laws that the lawyers use. But then perhaps trial lawyers are the enemy to the extent that the American Association for Justice contributes to legislators' election campaigns on the tacit agreement that said legislators will keep statutes and regulations complicated.
The Golden Rule (Score:3)
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.
Just scratching the surface here. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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it's not that new. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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The older crowd was the one that gave us unsecure protocols like SMTP and DNS. I think that what changed it not only the average technical level of the crowd, but the fact that once the internet grew from a few thousands to a billion, the sense of a small community was lost and replaced by a sense of alienation in a huge crowd where everyone is only for himself.
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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.
Sure, the internet technically existed before the 90s but the 90s is when it took off. The 90s is when HTML took off. The 90s is when shopping on the internet took off. The 90s is when everyone starting using email. The 90s is when the internet left the laboratory and started being used by businesses and consumers alike.
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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.
While they may not value openness and decentralization as much as you do, I think non-technical users value choice. Don't like Netflix? Sign up for Hulu. Don't like Spotify? Sign up for Tidal. Don't like YouTube? Put it on Vimeo. It's more choice with less effort than they're used to, even if they're all proprietary. It's what people are used to, they go to car shop and there's Audi and Ford and Mercedes. Building one from parts and blueprints or DIY kits are for a select few, it's not a skill they have nor
Google and Youtube feed us ourselves -- tribalized (Score:2)
Re:crony capitalism (Score:4, Informative)
Dear God, you are stupid.
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Ah, well, that settles it! Your insightful analysis has clearly shown the error of my ways!
Let's give Google and Netflix what they have been lobbying for, because obviously what they really want is more competition and lower prices for their competitors! What other explanation could there be?
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Why would I spend insightful analysis on an idiot?
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Why would anybody care what a Dutchman has to say about US politics, or anything at all?
It's obvious why you avoid substantive discussion: given your educational background, you're simply incapable of it.
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You know first inviting comment, and then going sour grapes, is just proving what an idiot you are?
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I'm sorry you're such a special snowflake that you think idiots should be handled with care. In fact, you are so sensitive that you don't even dare put your own identity to your comments.
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Yes, they will hit google and netflix "on the backbone" and then google and netflix will hit the consumer "on the tailbone."
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Dude, no business absorbs costs with their profits. Well maybe as a Band-Aid fix but not as a regular policy.
When media & telecoms start charging each other, it WILL be absorbed by customers. Hell, even my trash company has a 'fuel recovery fee' for them to even come out & bless me with their service. I fill their gas tank separate from the actual service, (which is a robot arm). Companies WILL find a way to fee you, (while keeping base prices competitively low naturally). Keep in mind I'm righ
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Correct.
There is nothing to "absorb". Net neutrality doesn't change the total cost of providing Internet service, and hence, as you point out, it doesn't change the total amount of money people pay for Internet service. What it changes is who pays for it. In particular, with net neutrality, people who don't use serv
Re:crony capitalism (Score:4)
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.
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Usually, the large, multi-billion dollar corporations are unfairly using regulation to their advantage.
Why do you think Netflix and Google are so keen on net neutrality? Out of the goodness of their hearts?
Same thing that "went wrong" last time we removed the Internet from common carrier status and FCC r
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Usually, the large, multi-billion dollar corporations are unfairly using regulation to their advantage.
And they would behave more benevolently and fairly without any regulation? What planet do you hail from where this is the case?
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Again, do you think that Netflix and Google are pushing for net neutrality because they are benevolent and fair? Of course not. They push for this out of naked self interest.
The planet in which I have lived through several telecoms deregulations and seen massive benefits from that, both in the US and in Europe. Eliminating common carrier status for internet access and getting federal
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This is utter nonsense. Netflix and Google will simply pass down any cost increase they are forced to swallow by ISPs onto you. ISP's are common carriers. Their profit margins should be regulated down to the last nickel because they themselves do not innovate. They buy 3rd party gear and roll out a network. They are rent seekers with a simple fixed capital cost model and monopolistic rent seekers at that. There is no reason not to enforce a strict profit margin on all them just like we do with insurance car
What If You Are Wrong (Score:1)
What if you are wrong? What is the mechanism to put an incorrect legislative and oversight choice right again?
And no, it's not simply to elect a new President. Even if that happens and the new President decides to return to net neutrality as a policy, the ISP's will howl that their competitive positions, profitability and growth prospects are being harmed. Are you against jobs?! No one can be against jobs and growth! They will say that and then demand to be compensated for their lost profit prospects.
A
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ISPs aren't going to start charging the little guy extra delivery fees, they aren't going to create barriers to entry, that's not in their interest.
Yet they do exactly this by zero-rating the selected services.
Um (Score:3)
Mom and pop example for you (Score:2, Interesting)
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 m
Writing style (Score:3)
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.
Pay him no mind (Score:2)
Fred is easily one of the stupidest people I've ever interacted with. You shouldn't waste your time reading anything he's got to say. Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day, doesn't mean you should spend 12 hours looking at it waiting for something correct to come from it.
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I set my stopped clocks so that they are right three times a day. 50% more useful.
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Vint was a shill for spamming when he worked for MCI. His credibility has been gone since long before Google hired him.
The failure of libertarianism (Score:2)
Either billionaires produce a robust economy OR billionaires are a product of a robust economy.
The Libertarians had this idea that we could all buy insurance to protect each other, but they didn't actually explain how we can guarantee the
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