> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Joshua Bell
> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 10:26 AM
> To: Brin-L
> Subject: Re: Questioning "free" enterprise
>
>
> "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Re: the local monopolies of newspapers
>
> >It is essentially for the same reason that one operating system dominates
> >desktops: as soon as one competitor pulls significantly into the lead, it
> >has great economic advantages over newcomers.
>
> Erm, well, I'd disagree with that and point back to the Network
> Effect, but
> that's another discussion.
I don't see how you could disagree and point to network effects -- I didn't
say it in so many words, but this is, indeed, a network effect, like the
domination of Windows. Or you could call it increasing returns. Same
concept.
> What I would suspect (and/or hope for) is that a cycle will form in these
> cases where the power of the monopoly is eroded over time. In the
> newspaper
> example, the cost for production and distribution is eliminated by things
> like the Internet. Sources become distributed and shared, and things like
> aggregation (what used to require a human "editor") can be replaced by
> automation.
I agree that the Internet has the seeds of change in it, but I think the
change is bigger than just "cheap distribution" or we'd already be seeing
tremendous power shifts.
Regarding aggregation, information systems and automating the job of
editors, that's my field, and unless you're in the realm of science fiction,
we are a long, long way from even a glimmer of how to do that in a way that
approaches human intelligence. What seems far more possible in the
foreseeable future is a network of people, not autonomous software agents.
The "age of amateurs," as DB calls it, may have its most profound effect as
amateurs, so to speak, assume the roles of editors.
> I don't know what the next cycle would be - perhaps eliminating the sites
> and editorial power altogether and distributing filters or Napster-like
> tools which pull content from various feeds and pay directly to
> the sources.
> The tool - which is built around de-facto standards for transport and
> formats - is free and the content is microbilled to the
> originator. The next
> hump might be that content producers are forced to generate a tremendous
> amount of content to stay liquid - mining things like newsgroups
> for trends,
> blitzing events with microcameras, contracting people-on-the-street with
> cameras, etc.
Mining newsgroups for trends, by the way, is exactly what my last startup
(Opion) does -- I have a patent in process for doing things along those
lines. And I think you're quite right about this general idea, although the
problem of micropayments may go away, in a sense, by using non-monetary
compensations and just plain old cooperation and collaboration. The need
for standards, as you say, is critical. So is a need for reputation
systems, which is also what my last startup is doing (see www.pseuds.org).
> Is this chaotic cycle (assuming I'm not making up total BS)
> something that
> happens as a consequence of the free market - thus, "if it ain't broke,
> don't fix it", or is there some participation by what Brin
> identifies as a
> "white blood cell" meme, where certain active members of society push for
> altruistic directions?
Well, I think that the Internet demonstrates rather vividly that a system
that is decentralized, encouraging collaboration through standards,
addresses an enormous need, or at least a want, in the world today. I think
we all should think a bit harder about the significance of the Internet
explosion. If the mass media was giving people what they want, why did so
many people, so incredibly quickly, start tapping into the Internet for
information? It's not as though they abandoned traditional media; it is
utterly clear that it is delivering something that its predecessors weren't.
It is also utterly clear that people were very, very hungry for whatever it
is, or they wouldn't have adopted it so fast. I think there's some
essential knowledge about the way the universe works to be derived from this
extraordinary phenomenon, having to do with our ability and willingness to
use collaboration in conjunction with competition.
> Standards bodies like the W3C could be seen as big chunks of WBC activity
> (hmmm, scarily similar acronyms). In a biological metaphor,
> they're enzymes
> which help reactions get from one local minima to another; proprietary
> conflicting standards to public interoperable standards. The benefits
> require the ecosystem of a market to play in.
Oh, that's *very* interesting. I was one of the original W3C advisory board
members, by the way. Could you expand on that? It's interesting largely
because I've been struggling to expand on my own intuition that this whole
notion of corporate symbiosis is closely related, especially mathematically,
to Stuart Kaufman's writings on auto-catalysis and self-organization, as
well as related biophysics.
Speaking of the same kind of thing, does anybody here know of ecological
models that treat groups of organisms (symbionts, on a larger scale than
normally considered) as competitors with other such groups? I'm starting to
think that the metaphor of Internet-based open collaborations as competitors
with corporate symbionts that are anti-competitive as a group but not
individually (which is why our political-legal system can't touch them).
Nick
