#1
The chickens always come home
Post rating: ~
Gonna make a short post and leave it to the responses. It's about tech as business, and business models. A bunch of us (techie types but Marxists) were discussing how everyone - those who make tech, those who fund tech, use tech, write about it (reporters and academics) are constantly discussing how the features of Uber/reddit/whatever do things: make labor casual and unprotected, encourage shitposting, abuse etc. Relatively less talk happens (except our beloved Jacobinistas) about the kind of tech possibilities that business models create and recreate.
Like, is Reddit or Twitter's real problem anonymity and abuse or is it actually the pressure to make money off heavily textual platforms (conversations)? I honestly think that there is something about the limited ways to make money (either ads or metrics like user growth) that in fact take good "services" or "products" to evil places. I was especially thinking about how reddit makes money and how twitter isn't making money but how Wikipedia doesn't *have* to make money (grants are easier) and that generates different motivations among posters, moderators about maintaining forums, allowing abuse or cleaning it. Does Quora make any money?
#2
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spectralmarx posted:

either ads or metrics like user growth



You forgot to mention analytics/datamining, which is a more fundamental design consideration/business model for a lot of these textual conversation platforms than ad revenue.

#3
"Jpg." - Hank Hill
Post rating: ~
places of internet commentary tend libertarian for two reasons: one, they're usually run by libertarians. two, more generally, it's less work. these guys usually aren't getting paid so they don't give a fuck, or the pool of potentially objectionable content is so vast and inexhaustible (twitter, reddit) that dealing with it would take a lot of unprofitable work. caveat: in smaller communities, this lack of giving a fuck can instead manifest in banning people who upset local status quo opinion, as dealing with the people who are mad takes literally a small amount of effort
#4
[account deactivated]
#5
[account deactivated]
#6
Post rating: +
cyborgs, witches, ghosts, a talking cat...the rhizzones got it all
#7
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
i like the thread and your threads in general but the term "tech" for me is one of those bourgeois popular mechanics things where engineers try to sound like they land somewhere between secret agents and comic book superheroes, even in the business as you know it's all "tools" and "solutions" and "systems" which are nice ins for marxists since their own supposed business is to provide all of those. even the undead term "cyber" is a jumping on point since again only marxists ever made anything substantial of it, however briefly
#8
UNUSUALY COOL
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tears posted:

cyborgs, witches, ghosts, a talking cat...the rhizzones got it all



Zombie Jesus

#9
Post rating: ~

roseweird posted:

spectralmarx posted:

Gonna make a short post and leave it to the responses

basically a lot of these things are like... really obvious questions whose answers require a ton of research and work (describe in real functional detail the relationship between imperialism, forms of media and propaganda, and the interests of the populations who use them)


this is true but its cool to have a place to piece some small part of an answer together

#10
[account deactivated]
#11
take a shit on the floor
Post rating: +

roseweird posted:

so capitalism takes a perfectly good computer network and turns it into twitter



capitalism turns project cybersyn into a button that orders more toilet paper from amazon

#12
Post rating: +

spectralmarx posted:

Gonna make a short post and leave it to the responses. It's about tech as business, and business models. A bunch of us (techie types but Marxists) were discussing how everyone - those who make tech, those who fund tech, use tech, write about it (reporters and academics) are constantly discussing how the features of Uber/reddit/whatever do things: make labor casual and unprotected, encourage shitposting, abuse etc.



does it? i'm not disagreeing, but maybe a bit more specificity would help, since the two examples of uber and reddit seem pretty different in the spaces and functions they occupy. i also don't think the tech behind uber makes erodes labour, it's that their entire model is to take massive losses while they try to break down regulations, construct a monopoly, and then hike up prices afterwards. as far as i know, uber offers no real increases in efficiency. they have a massive flock of drivers under their wing which offers convenience to uber users, but that's because their model is actually inefficient.

Relatively less talk happens (except our beloved Jacobinistas) about the kind of tech possibilities that business models create and recreate.



what does this exactly mean? are you asking how different business models encourage different technologies to be created? what you really seem to be asking in your next paragraph is how business realities affect management of technology.

Like, is Reddit or Twitter's real problem anonymity and abuse or is it actually the pressure to make money off heavily textual platforms (conversations)? I honestly think that there is something about the limited ways to make money (either ads or metrics like user growth) that in fact take good "services" or "products" to evil places. I was especially thinking about how reddit makes money and how twitter isn't making money but how Wikipedia doesn't *have* to make money (grants are easier) and that generates different motivations among posters, moderators about maintaining forums, allowing abuse or cleaning it. Does Quora make any money?



i mean, i think this has been written about a good amount actually. anyone who grew up with the internet before the mid two thousands has seen a very big shift in the culture of the internet as it fully commercialized, e.g. part of youtubes initial success was that it had large amounts of pirated content before it had to legitimize. you're also really kind of comparing apples with oranges, since the functions of wikipedia and twitter are completely different. more elaboration would probably help us engage with your questions better.

#13
mt.real
Post rating: +
i don't know anything about anything but i feel ok about turning off all the analytics and logs on the zzone. we don't know what anyone is looking at anymore or what Numbers we're Pulling and that's cool with me. it's really tempting though and even easily justifiable to oneself -- oh it's ok, i'll just send all the IP addresses and minute details of browsing habits to google and let it tell me specifically what words and articles people read and how long and how much and how often, and that will help me Get Messages Out and Gain Audience, and then you quickly find yourself thinking in terms of how to readjust your Content so that you're gaining more views and ad campaigns and blah blah.

and is it even better to resist the pull of all these things? or should you completely immerse yourself in all of it and blublublublublub that's how you become the jacobin guy
#14
[account deactivated]
#15
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~

elemennop posted:

i also don't think the tech behind uber makes erodes labour, it's that their entire model is to take massive losses while they try to break down regulations, construct a monopoly, and then hike up prices afterwards.



that's interesting, i don't know a lot about uber but i know that wal-mart expanded by doing something similar to discipline suppliers

#16
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~

AZ_IZ_OT posted:

their overall approach is indistinguishable from what left-liberals were posting on LF in 2009 save the exclusion of the :smug: emoticon



Maoists call this "tailing the forums"

#17
Post rating: +

cars posted:

elemennop posted:
i also don't think the tech behind uber makes erodes labour, it's that their entire model is to take massive losses while they try to break down regulations, construct a monopoly, and then hike up prices afterwards.



that's interesting, i don't know a lot about uber but i know that wal-mart expanded by doing something similar to discipline suppliers





ubers billions in venture capital underwrites them losing a tremendous amount of money on every single ride (by some calculations investors are footing the bill for about 1/2-2/3 of the ride cost). theres a decent series at 1) http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html 2) http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-two-understanding-ubers-uncompetitive-costs.html 3) http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-three-understanding-false-claims-about-ubers-innovation-and-competitive-advantages.html 4) http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-four-understanding-that-unregulated-monopoly-was-always-ubers-central-objective.html

#18
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
ty i'll check it out.
#19
The chickens always come home
Post rating: ~
there's so much existing literature that I don't feel like being specific here. My point was that finance is not talked about as much even within labor theory discussing affective and cognitive labor on platforms. Re Wikipedia, twitter - it is certainly not apples and oranges because it repeats in forms - such as Medium again. Revenue models in conversational spaces need more discussion and imagination. Uber certainly erodes labor if we mean the same kind of erosion of labor (accumulation, social wage etc). It doesn't matter whether their own model is inefficient because the whole point is that VC funding allows for this kind of destruction and monopolization by accumulation and because technologists aren't forced be accountable for revenue since day one, it comes as a kind of add-on later and assumes its most perverse ruthless forms.

elemennop posted:

spectralmarx posted:

Gonna make a short post and leave it to the responses. It's about tech as business, and business models. A bunch of us (techie types but Marxists) were discussing how everyone - those who make tech, those who fund tech, use tech, write about it (reporters and academics) are constantly discussing how the features of Uber/reddit/whatever do things: make labor casual and unprotected, encourage shitposting, abuse etc.

does it? i'm not disagreeing, but maybe a bit more specificity would help, since the two examples of uber and reddit seem pretty different in the spaces and functions they occupy. i also don't think the tech behind uber makes erodes labour, it's that their entire model is to take massive losses while they try to break down regulations, construct a monopoly, and then hike up prices afterwards. as far as i know, uber offers no real increases in efficiency. they have a massive flock of drivers under their wing which offers convenience to uber users, but that's because their model is actually inefficient.

Relatively less talk happens (except our beloved Jacobinistas) about the kind of tech possibilities that business models create and recreate.



what does this exactly mean? are you asking how different business models encourage different technologies to be created? what you really seem to be asking in your next paragraph is how business realities affect management of technology.

Like, is Reddit or Twitter's real problem anonymity and abuse or is it actually the pressure to make money off heavily textual platforms (conversations)? I honestly think that there is something about the limited ways to make money (either ads or metrics like user growth) that in fact take good "services" or "products" to evil places. I was especially thinking about how reddit makes money and how twitter isn't making money but how Wikipedia doesn't *have* to make money (grants are easier) and that generates different motivations among posters, moderators about maintaining forums, allowing abuse or cleaning it. Does Quora make any money?



i mean, i think this has been written about a good amount actually. anyone who grew up with the internet before the mid two thousands has seen a very big shift in the culture of the internet as it fully commercialized, e.g. part of youtubes initial success was that it had large amounts of pirated content before it had to legitimize. you're also really kind of comparing apples with oranges, since the functions of wikipedia and twitter are completely different. more elaboration would probably help us engage with your questions better.


#20
The chickens always come home
Post rating: ~
Which I do for a living

roseweird posted:

spectralmarx posted:

Gonna make a short post and leave it to the responses

basically a lot of these things are like... really obvious questions whose answers require a ton of research and work (describe in real functional detail the relationship between imperialism, forms of media and propaganda, and the interests of the populations who use them)


#21
[account deactivated]
#22
YUNG JIRO AKA SHOWA STUNNA AKA
Post rating: ~
We accept Exposure Dollars as a valid form of payment
#23
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I still have a poor idea of what this thread is about :/
#24
YUNG JIRO AKA SHOWA STUNNA AKA
Post rating: +
I believe Techies are fans of Star Trek
#25
Post rating: +
replying to the quote above the quoted part is a bold new strategy
#26
Post rating: +
i see spectralmarx hasn't read the rhizzone style guide in our eula, here's the summary:

  • no capitalization, especially "I" (we are communists). exceptions include: "very serious posts" and non-native english speakers
  • afrika has one k, amerikkka has three
  • quotes go above replies
  • no embedding youtube videos
#27
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
it's also acceptable to start out using mostly lowercase for your first post in a thread and then elaborate through increasingly lengthy and pedantic follow-up posts that come closer and closer to some form of Standard English until your fully refined wisdom sears through readers' eye sockets into their brains and forces them to repeat your claims to anyone who will listen. totally fine
#28
Post rating: ~

cars posted:

it's also acceptable to start out using mostly lowercase for your first post in a thread and then elaborate through increasingly lengthy and pedantic follow-up posts that come closer and closer to some form of Standard English until your fully refined wisdom sears through readers' eye sockets into their brains and forces them to repeat your claims to anyone who will listen. totally fine

effin' this.

#29
Post rating: +
Our biochem corpus is far in advance of theirs, as is our electronic sentience, and their... ethical inflexibility has allowed us to make progress in areas they refuse to consider - Elon Musk, 2017
#30
Post rating: ~
such a great game. if that's a reference to alpha centauri. i was trying to get it again, but apparently pirate bay requires registration now? wth
#31
The chickens always come home
Post rating: ~
mmmmkkk

your_not_aleksandr posted:

cars posted:

it's also acceptable to start out using mostly lowercase for your first post in a thread and then elaborate through increasingly lengthy and pedantic follow-up posts that come closer and closer to some form of Standard English until your fully refined wisdom sears through readers' eye sockets into their brains and forces them to repeat your claims to anyone who will listen. totally fine

effin' this.