this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
42 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37724 readers
554 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Doctorow can write a great detective novel but he lives in absolute La La land. I'm glad he's open about the fact he's just distracting himself with this post, but the idea that these webs of laws or these models of "how things should work" mean anything tho the people with power are complete nonsense.
He has some understanding of that, I think? But like, buddy, your country just went full Nazi. You've been living in a total fantasy. You're not going to rethink the concept of fixers, get a grip.
The problem is, once the middlemen gain power, they’re never gonna give you up. Music producers are a great example of this, as are telecoms companies.
All the current SaaS stuff is similar; the offerings LOOK similar, but they’re explicitly designed not to be a 1:1 match, so you can’t just take your business elsewhere, just like the mattress companies of old.
We’re even seeing this play out in the streaming video market, where each player has its own differentiator, moreso than we ever saw with traditional cable TV.
Standards are great, but middlemen have no incentives to not subvert them.
You know I think he actually uses the music producer example in his 2nd novel (The Bezzle).