You should go read the article rather than assuming it's restating your favorite straw man.
The specific claim of the article is that a) inequality isn't intrinsically bad, b) bad things can cause inequality (SF nimbys creating a housing shortage), c) good things can cause inequality (Uber), d) we should focus our efforts on (b) rather than inequality.
Yeah it's really not about inequality at all, but about the bad things. If there were zero inequality, with everyone in equal poverty, we should attempt to fix poverty. Likewise with non-zero inequality.
>Technology firms such as Google and Facebook are working on projects to offer free internet to parts of Africa and India.
Um, no. Facebook is not offering free internet. They are offering "Facebook internet", where website maintainers must abide to their guidelines in order to be part of the internet that they offer.
"For those projects to work, the companies need to offer internet access with no strings attached, the World Bank says. At one point, it calls out Facebook’s recent efforts to provide free internet access to consumers in some countries – but only to access Facebook."
This article is all over the place. First it equates income inequality with protests against gentrification, and second, it's ambivalent about technology. On the one hand it "democratizes" on the other hand it "eliminates no-skill and low skilled jobs". It doesn't know what it wants. It only knows something is "not normal".
It offers one possible solution in regulation, but regulation will not be able to protect no skill and low skilled jobs, which is the bigger issue over things like "access to the internet".
Basically tech is creating problems; we don't understand things completely, but in any case, technologists are at fault for creating this new transition period fraught with uncertainty and also for being indifferent about what they do.
Unions were the only way unskilled workers could get leverage in negotiations with capital holders. Those systems have slowly been dismantled. That's one place governments can begin countering the rise of inequality. Another is guaranteed basic income, which will be vital once these tech companies begin wiping out inefficiencies throughout all industries.
The World Bank is mainly addressing/concerned with tech effects in poor/emerging/stagnant economies; you have developed countries in mind. [unions are not strong and are often in bed with gov't. they don't have the tax base for basic income]
Evenso, unions can't fight automation. Are they going to enroll "robots" or, in most scenarios, software?
I don't think we need governments to address this problem except for guaranteed basic income or a negative income tax. Technology can be used to address many of the problems created by technology. What I don't understand is why technology hasn't been used to help unskilled workers negotiate?
Tech is a lever and it looks like only one side is using it effectively. The only explanation I can think of is that anyone who spends the time to learn how to use that lever effectively, simply moves to supporting the other side of the issue because they feel entitled to the rewards that come from their effort learning their newfound power.
One of the most maddening things we have yet to use technology to solve is eliminating all the middle men in the banking industry. Banks borrow at ridiculously low rates, but tack on a significant amount of interest when lending to final consumers. I don't see why we couldn't reasonably automate lending directly from the government at a few percentage points above the risk-free rate. Obviously, such lending would have to begin with the lowest risk loans with land as collateral.
I've been looking for something like this quote from the original World Bank report:
“The economics of the internet favor natural monopolies, the absence of a competitive business environment can result in more concentrated markets, benefiting incumbent firms. Not surprisingly, the better educated, well connected, and more capable have received most of the benefits – circumscribing the gains from the digital revolution.”
My assertion is that this is actually due to the nature of the TCP/IP protocol. IP addresses are assigned hierarchically and packets have a hop limit. Together, this makes a mesh network impossible. The TCP/IP Internet is an engine that centralizes power. I'm working on a side-project to create a (free and open) scalable (wired) mesh network protocol.
I'm really glad I saw this, it'll make a perfect citation for my requirements doc.
Anyone disagree with the above? I'm looking to try to strengthen my arguments.
I feel like its going too far to point at TCP/IP as a or the root issue behind growing inequality (especially inequality between 3rd world countries and 1st world countries).
To look at the larger historical perspective, we're still headed in the right direction. How much did it cost to copy a book by hand? How much did it cost to print a copy with Gutenberg style printer? How much does it cost to distribute a book's worth if internet in the day and age of the Pony Express?
Even within the digital age, we have a lot of alternative methods when issues arise... just look at the growth of community owned ISPs or network end points. And things like P2P transfers, Tor network, or the ad-hoc, informal cuban data sharing network.
My point is other factors seem to be significantly higher impact than cost to distribute, or technical limitations behind the access to information. Devices and access are getting cheaper (despite what most of those monopolies would wish) and with that comes expansion. Will pure access to the internet solve all of the problems? Of course not, but I think we'd all agree it will help. And if TCP/IP isn't cost effective (or has another issue) in serving the 3rd world, something else will pop up to fill the gap.
I'm not sure that follows. TCP/IP's primary design point was avoiding centralized network failure in a nuclear war, so you can't strongly claim that it is responsible for heirarchies (i.e. Star) we see in modern topology -- that's likely due to other forces like cost optimization (eg branching structure is a common feature of such optimizations).
Now this isn't to say that TCP/IP is efficient for all decentralized networks. And I think there are quite a few points that make mesh networks challenging... But you could also argue that for the interplanetary network protocols as well, so I think it's not so much the concept of decentralization, it's more the specific constraints of mesh or interplanetary that are unsuitable for TCP/IP.
Regarding the quote:
This argument seems to be partly based on economies of scale and how they are currently applied. But internet economies can be platforms as well as products.
Platforms have a strong tendency towards monopolies (i.e., Apple App Store, Uber, VISA). But even in platforms, they may centralize wealth by treating customers as resources, or they may distribute wealth by treating them as partners.
As we race towards the so-called "gig" economy, I think a key differentiator in platform providers will be the extent to which they grant power to their users as partners in creating value.
This changes the classical idea of monopoly quite a bit as the old concept merely controlled a market for maximum exploitation of its consumers. If consumers are given back some power in terms of profit sharing, content creation, value creation, the Internet could be an extremely vitalizing force.
You see this in spates: Etsy, Steam, Heroku.
Maybe greater collaboration will be necessary to drive increasing efficiencies. The key point might be "central management" vs "empowerment" rather than platform, product, monopoly etc.
24 comments
[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 66.1 ms ] threadIt was one giant false dilemma logical fallacy between having economic growth or having low economic inequality.
The specific claim of the article is that a) inequality isn't intrinsically bad, b) bad things can cause inequality (SF nimbys creating a housing shortage), c) good things can cause inequality (Uber), d) we should focus our efforts on (b) rather than inequality.
Um, no. Facebook is not offering free internet. They are offering "Facebook internet", where website maintainers must abide to their guidelines in order to be part of the internet that they offer.
More on the atrocious limitations that they're imposing is outlined here: https://info.internet.org/story/platform
There has been a lot of traction in the news about this too, so it's worth reading about this before labelling it as "free internet": https://www.google.com/search?tbm=nws&q="free+basics"
"For those projects to work, the companies need to offer internet access with no strings attached, the World Bank says. At one point, it calls out Facebook’s recent efforts to provide free internet access to consumers in some countries – but only to access Facebook."
Providing free internet to the public will offset the income inequality? Talk about a simplification.
I know this to be true because I know some of them, they use Facebook to gossip and YouTube to listen music but that's about it.
It offers one possible solution in regulation, but regulation will not be able to protect no skill and low skilled jobs, which is the bigger issue over things like "access to the internet".
Basically tech is creating problems; we don't understand things completely, but in any case, technologists are at fault for creating this new transition period fraught with uncertainty and also for being indifferent about what they do.
Evenso, unions can't fight automation. Are they going to enroll "robots" or, in most scenarios, software?
Tech is a lever and it looks like only one side is using it effectively. The only explanation I can think of is that anyone who spends the time to learn how to use that lever effectively, simply moves to supporting the other side of the issue because they feel entitled to the rewards that come from their effort learning their newfound power.
One of the most maddening things we have yet to use technology to solve is eliminating all the middle men in the banking industry. Banks borrow at ridiculously low rates, but tack on a significant amount of interest when lending to final consumers. I don't see why we couldn't reasonably automate lending directly from the government at a few percentage points above the risk-free rate. Obviously, such lending would have to begin with the lowest risk loans with land as collateral.
A large chunk of that is governed by risk. That's to say you need to make up for defaults.
“The economics of the internet favor natural monopolies, the absence of a competitive business environment can result in more concentrated markets, benefiting incumbent firms. Not surprisingly, the better educated, well connected, and more capable have received most of the benefits – circumscribing the gains from the digital revolution.”
My assertion is that this is actually due to the nature of the TCP/IP protocol. IP addresses are assigned hierarchically and packets have a hop limit. Together, this makes a mesh network impossible. The TCP/IP Internet is an engine that centralizes power. I'm working on a side-project to create a (free and open) scalable (wired) mesh network protocol.
I'm really glad I saw this, it'll make a perfect citation for my requirements doc. Anyone disagree with the above? I'm looking to try to strengthen my arguments.
To look at the larger historical perspective, we're still headed in the right direction. How much did it cost to copy a book by hand? How much did it cost to print a copy with Gutenberg style printer? How much does it cost to distribute a book's worth if internet in the day and age of the Pony Express?
Even within the digital age, we have a lot of alternative methods when issues arise... just look at the growth of community owned ISPs or network end points. And things like P2P transfers, Tor network, or the ad-hoc, informal cuban data sharing network.
My point is other factors seem to be significantly higher impact than cost to distribute, or technical limitations behind the access to information. Devices and access are getting cheaper (despite what most of those monopolies would wish) and with that comes expansion. Will pure access to the internet solve all of the problems? Of course not, but I think we'd all agree it will help. And if TCP/IP isn't cost effective (or has another issue) in serving the 3rd world, something else will pop up to fill the gap.
Regarding your assertion:
I'm not sure that follows. TCP/IP's primary design point was avoiding centralized network failure in a nuclear war, so you can't strongly claim that it is responsible for heirarchies (i.e. Star) we see in modern topology -- that's likely due to other forces like cost optimization (eg branching structure is a common feature of such optimizations).
Now this isn't to say that TCP/IP is efficient for all decentralized networks. And I think there are quite a few points that make mesh networks challenging... But you could also argue that for the interplanetary network protocols as well, so I think it's not so much the concept of decentralization, it's more the specific constraints of mesh or interplanetary that are unsuitable for TCP/IP.
Regarding the quote:
This argument seems to be partly based on economies of scale and how they are currently applied. But internet economies can be platforms as well as products.
Platforms have a strong tendency towards monopolies (i.e., Apple App Store, Uber, VISA). But even in platforms, they may centralize wealth by treating customers as resources, or they may distribute wealth by treating them as partners.
As we race towards the so-called "gig" economy, I think a key differentiator in platform providers will be the extent to which they grant power to their users as partners in creating value.
This changes the classical idea of monopoly quite a bit as the old concept merely controlled a market for maximum exploitation of its consumers. If consumers are given back some power in terms of profit sharing, content creation, value creation, the Internet could be an extremely vitalizing force.
You see this in spates: Etsy, Steam, Heroku.
Maybe greater collaboration will be necessary to drive increasing efficiencies. The key point might be "central management" vs "empowerment" rather than platform, product, monopoly etc.