An alternative to the corporation is the chaord. This is an idea that went nowhere. Except that Visa International was a chaord. A chaord is useful when you have a shared resource that's needed by competing entities. That's exactly what Visa International was set up to be. It's an operator of a data network and a standards body. It doesn't issue cards. It doesn't handle money. It just transmits transaction data between point of sale, merchant's bank, and card issuer's bank. It's in the interests of all the banks involved that it work well, be a neutral party, and not cost too much. A chaord is useful when you have something that's a natural monopoly, but the customers don't want it charging monopoly rents. It's not idealistic. It's a practical solution to that class of problems.
Dee Hock, an executive of a minor bank, set this up. The big banks wanted someone relatively neutral in charge of the Visa system. (He died just two weeks ago, I just found out.)
His optimistic book, "Birth of the Chaordic Age", is still available.
There used to be a "chaord" article on Wikipedia, but it was merged into Dee Hock's article after Visa became an ordinary corporation.
There’s also the cooperative. Here in Switzerland they are rather popular - some of the biggest banks, insurances and property owners, and more notably, the two largest supermarket chains (making up >80% of food / non food market) are organised this way. Your customers could be part of the ownership structure of your company, which creates a strong loyalty effect and a focus on organic & vertical growth rather than growth just for the sake of beating quarterly numbers.
India also has quite a lot of notable cooperatives. One of the most famous one is Amul which is world's largest producer of milk. There are others that are pretty sizable too.
I‘m not aware of any software company organised this way though. Wouldn’t it make sense for a company like Red Hat or Cannonical - FOSS based service companies?
It's an interesting question. It'd certainly be an odd cooperative.
Most cooperatives have a large number of members with roughly equal economic power. So, ideas like one-member-one-vote and equal income distribution make sense.
However, in the case of companies requiring FOSS services, I imagine the most valuable customers would be large corporations working in highly risk averse industries like telecommunications and banking that feel the 'need' for a support contract to go along with their linux distribution.
But there would likely be a mix of large blue-chip companies, smaller service suppliers to the aforementioned companies, and other companies that want to leverage services beyond consulting like Red Hat's managed OpenShift offerings.
So our FOSS cooperative membership distribution would probably be heavily weighted towards smaller companies, but most of the revenue would come from the long tail.
I don't see how the small cadre contributing the majority of the revenue would be satisfied having effectively zero voting power. So you might have to mix up the model a bit to assign voting power on the basis of revenue contributed or some proxy like the number of contracts signed.
I think it's close to the way the Apache Foundation or the CNCF operate. In fact, at one point, US life insurers that operated as mutual organizations did make an argument they should be classified as non-profits and not have to pay income tax, but that didn't seem to work.
Other examples: UL, arguably AT&T before the breakup, the Queensland public bus system which does privatization "right": the government establishes common routes and a common fare system, private carriers drive the routes and compete on quality and price.
Chaordic entities are a good choice for government administration of public services without being too heavy-handed with state intervention.
Queenslander here. Are you referring to intercity routes? Because all the private operators under TransLink (or qconnect) just tender to run the rotes in a specific service region.
It's always interesting to me how little credit is given to GPS in Uber's story. The existence of space-based, free and ubiquitous semi-precise navigation was an enormous subsidy.
That's interesting! I think GPS falls in the category of "works so reliably that I don't perceive it as technology" for me. But yes, GPS an underrated piece of infrastructure, even more impressive as it's globally available (edit: as in, US tech infra made available beyond US).
If you want to appreciate GPS, check out this article and explanation of how it works. It's been posted to this website a few times now: https://ciechanow.ski/gps/
I don't think the programming language dependencies are comparable to tech like GPS.
Reddit was originally written in lisp. It was later rewritten in Python with a trivial amount of effort. And it could have be trivially rewritten in any other language as well. The languages are not that important. Having access to high level languages in general is important, but they are a dime a dozen.
could you imagine the expense of a FAANG having to pay Microsoft Windows licensing for every machine they use? how would that affect a startup's runway?
so instead of the languages, maybe open it up to Linux/FOSS in general
Startups I've worked at have struggled with various expenses but OS licenses weren't one of them. OTOH finding devs 100% comfortable working on pure linux machines would be a genuine blocker.
Maybe my perspective is different because I'm relatively young, but everywhere I worked every dev was using GNU/Linux at work and only a tiny minority expressed that they'd prefer macOS. Windows was always something that was used exclusively by non-dev departments (aside of testing machines for checking compatibility). I seem to remember only a single exception, and that was a WordPress developer who worked with and as part of the marketing team, so not sure if it really counts.
I don't doubt such shops exist but based on job ads I've seen and interviews I've done they're very much the minority at least in my part of the world. Why a non-iOS developer would choose macOS I don't quite get but each to their own. I'm willing to bet a significant percentage of developers do typically use Windows, even if there is growing tendency to use WSL+Docker for core development activities.
Non-iOS developer that chooses to use macOS right here. Why? First, because it's not Windows. Second, it runs other software that I need that isn't available on nix. I can run nix style stuff with BSD flair. I can run things native, no VM or docker container. There's lots of reasons. Mainly, I abhor Windows.
I'm actually fine with basically any OS, I've used them all over the years to various degrees. But MacOS was always the one where I felt I was working with one hand tied behind my back, with various things I use all the time (extended keyboard with separate Del/Backspace, right mouse button/ scroll wheel, many software tools, ability to poke around "under the cover" etc.) either outright missing or compromised on MacOS/Apple hardware. Though it's Apple's whole approach to forced software upgrades that annoys me the most. The battery life is good though.
Unless you're only using built-in laptop keyboard/trackpad, why is that limiting. It's USB compatible with pretty much any 3rd party. I have a full size Mac keyboard with 10-key and home/end/del/pageUp/pageDown. I hate not having it. So I'm not sure why you're unable to use the same. I do agree on their mice being a bit lacking, but again, any mouse can be used. It's not like you have to have Dell mouse with your Dell comp. Gamers all use different mice, so why the hate on a peripherial?
If I really had no choice but to use a Mac for the majority of my work then, sure, I'd invest in better peripherals but the times I've worked with them that generally wasn't a readily available option or worth my while. And there's no hate - if I'd used mostly Macs for the last 35+ years I'd probably find various things missing on Wintel machines to be a drag on productivity too.
> Unless you're only using built-in laptop keyboard/trackpad
Well, I am. I find it too cumbersome otherwise. If I wanted to have a desktop workstation, I would have a desktop PC - with a laptop, I'm working on its keyboard and touchpad, so I can move with it anywhere I want and still be as comfortable using it as usual.
and what non-Apple laptop is available with a full sized keyboard that you'd be okay using? it just seems such a petty thing when no other laptop meets your "needs"
I'm using Dell XPS 13 9380 right now and it serves me well, although I'd prefer the keyboard layout of Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro that I used previously and which I find perfect. These days it's getting increasingly hard to find a 13" laptop with acceptable keyboard layout :(
I don't know how does the situation look like with larger laptops as I wasn't interested in them when I was looking around for a new computer the last time.
First, anything Adobe. I haven't run Wine in a really long time. Maybe it has progressed with Adobe software runs acceptably now? Don't know, but there have been other non-dev centric and mainly video centric type apps that never worked on Linux. After that, Windows v Apple. For me and what I need to do, Windows loses every. single. time.
Now, I'm an old dog not interested in learning new tricks unless it will absolutely postively without a doubt be money making for me. Doing for the sake of doing is no longer something I'm passionate about. I have other things to spend my time that is much more deserving of my passion. That's what the young kids are for, and then brag about their accomplisments on a Show HN. Then I can decide if it is worthy for me.
One thing I should probably add is that I was mostly talking about webdev circles (these days I work far from webdev on GNU/Linux-centered projects so you obviously don't see Windows there, but this wasn't always the case in my career). However, I'm also pretty close to gamedev circles and, indeed, Windows is still dominant there.
It could also be a way to better resist to jamming or (government mandated) data pollution by matching the data from the two receivers for significant differences.
I'm 100% pro-Ukraine but that looks a smart move to me.
Even then they might look different but someone would have had the idea for social media. Those exact companies might not exist or they might look different but it's not like the business model would go away.
Take away GPS and Uber is a fundamentally different product.
Honestly I'm half expecting the US government to offer an identity service at some point. I know it would probably be challenged on constitutional grounds but it would finally be a somewhat authoritative way to cut down on fake accounts.
Maybe this is apocryphal, but I think I remember hearing that Reddit was originally written in some kind of lisp. Not to say it doesn't owe its success to python.
Very early versions, but they were already using python before you could create your own subreddits, for example (which is around the time when it started becoming more mainstream)
Another element of the GPS story is the profound impact of the US flipping a veritable switch and turning off Selective Availability in 2000 (https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/), taking accuracy from perhaps 50m to a couple of meters.
I want something that doesn’t operate on scarcity (like the corporation), but can work at the velocity of a corporation.
Things like GPS and the internet would’ve been deployed much faster by a private corporation but then they would be dumb monopolies as opposed to the public good they are now.
Also we need a space to work on big dumb ideas and toys[1] and neither Unix, Uber or GPS fit in that category. What is that sweet spot?
> Things like GPS and the internet would’ve been deployed much faster by a private corporation but then they would be dumb monopolies as opposed to the public good they are now.
1) at least in the USA, access to the internet is not a public good, it is provided by an oligopoly (and in many circumstances a functional monopoly, where service at a given address is only available from a single ISP)
2) why do you believe that either GPS or the internet would have been deployed faster by a private corporation?
Isn’t that more to do with when GPS was deployed. Doing things early is harder and takes longer, even more so when you’re first. Comparatively Starlink has fewer novel problems to solve.
If you’re going to compare the two you need to control for confounding factors.
>Comparatively Starlink has fewer novel problems to solve.
Lol, this is worse than the infamous Dropbox comment. There are no LEO providers except for Starlink for a reason. Starlink required novel launch techniques, novel antennas, novel network management, and that’s just what we know about publicly.
The “infamous Dropbox comment” was technically valid - there’s no novel technology there. What the comment missed was the business part - Dropbox is technically inferior, but at the same time it’s superior business-wise, and that’s a common theme for the vast majority of web startups.
Sure but they had full
access to 20 years of launch technology from NASA at that point.
More generally, I don’t think “Government works slower then private corporations” is that controversial a conclusion. If we’re gonna try to improve it, we have to admit the problem first.
The Internet already got out so fast it beat the Big Government Solution, which was OSI, so comprehensively that people these days don't even know that there was an OSI protocol suite, let alone that it got beaten by the TCP/IP stack. Back in the early days, the ARPANET stuff was seen as a sideshow, whereas OSI was going to be the Serious Network for Serious Users, with X.500 directory services supporting X.400 email and nobody would remember toys like LDAP and SMTP and POP.
Of course, these days the idea that TCP/IP somehow implements a purely conceptual OSI is so ingrained that people get angry when you tell them the accurate history. So it goes.
I believe OSI was at least as much corporate as it was governmental. And, like most corporate solutions it ended like it ended, with design by committee.
IP on the other hand was neither, like much of successful technology.
As a side note, the OSI layers are useful as a mental model, but trying to maintain that separation in actual implementation is a poor idea; that’s one of the things IP got right: it doesn’t really match OSI layering, and does cut through layers when it makes sense.
> that’s one of the things IP got right: it doesn’t really match OSI layering, and does cut through layers when it makes sense.
It doesn't implement the OSI layering model, in other words, even if you can almost make that model fit if you ignore the top couple layers and handwave vigorously the rest of the time.
If you look, you can find a four-layer or five-layer TCP/IP model, but RFC 3439 has a section titled "Layering Considered Harmful" and it's clear that the IETF doesn't always think in terms of layers.
at the end of the day, it's just a stationary location with a permanent address. GPS just allows for turn-by-turn navigation so any body can find that location without being intimately familiar with an area.
so, yeah, it's nice that the rider can see the route the driver is taking to feel like they are not being "taken for a ride", but I've been in rides where the drive did not take the same route my app was showing.
however, is this the only thing that makes moder ride share apps a thing?
I think it should be feasible with combination of odometer, mapping and wifi/cell signal database. The traditional metering happens through the odometer only and the mapping is only needed for orientation and optimisation(i.e. which car should be redirected to the user).
At the risk of saying something dumb and meta... it's ideas all the way down (for a really long time now).
The individual corporations are ideas, and then of course there's the idea of the corporation itself. As the post notes, corporations only work because of other ideas about property rights and scarcity. But more fundamentally they only work because they're an idea quite a few people already believe in.
I'm a little fuzzy on the level at which the post means "autonomous ideas" will steer society--do they mean autonomous ideas like Unix? Or autonomous ideas like governments and corporations and pope-less religions?
I think the post helps draw a latent curiosity out of me that I probably wouldn't have put quite like this, but: can we better identify and allocate resources towards good ideas that don't make market sense?
I think this is incorrect framing. You have to shape the market, not the idea.
Capitalism’s fault is not accounting for externalized costs, like climate change.
The market allocates resources very effectively, but the costs the market uses to allocate resources are lies. They omit costs that producers can ignore or otherwise avoid paying for.
If these externalities were captured and embedded into the price of the good/service, the market could actually account these issues.
I agree that there are multiple roles here (making EVs for the market that exists vs. shaping the market for the EVs you make or want to make)
That said, I don't really mean products that don't make sense to the market as it exists--I mean that all good ideas are not necessarily products. There are good ideas that don't fit the logic of the market (regardless of what it thinks it is a good idea at the moment).
If I could make one change to popular parlance (or perhaps I should say technical jargon), it would be the usage of the word externality. While it is a technically correct description, the framing implied leads to analysis that I don’t think is fundamentally sound.
Markets optimize for products. If something can’t be made into a product wherein the full value and cost to society is express captured within the transaction itself, you generally end up with less than ideal outcomes.
Capitalism is the best system for optimizing for productive efficiency, but creating an abundance of material wealth isn’t quite the same thing as making society as a whole the best that is can be.
I guess you could also have “Tragedy of the commons” good idea. Those could be adapted to capitalism with subsidies or other government funding, or VC funding
Not much of an expert in any of this, just openly postulating to invite conversation
The concentration of big tech has become so intense it feels like a terrible defeat of the free software principles espoused in this post. Freedom is the main casualty of the current computing environment, which consists of a phone, which legally prohibits its owner from controlling it, and a cloud which is always coaxing programmers to its most proprietary solutions.
> UNIX was a good idea. It was free to spread widely across the tech ecosystem, and eventually some corporate players like Apple and Sun captured a lot of the value, but Linux stands out as the UNIX “winner” in 2022. Neither the core ideas of UNIX-style operating systems nor the Linux open-source project grew solely because of corporate stewardship. They spread and won because they were good ideas.
The author neglects to mention that before POSIX[0], the "core ideas of UNIX-style operating systems" were very much proprietary. For example, there was no easy way to get arbitrary System V[1] or BSD source to easily compile on the other, let alone lesser known Unix variants.
So I posit that the ideas spread not due to the merit of each version of *nix, but instead because a standard which allowed (reasonable) portability was agreed upon and largely supported.
Rather convolution article. First mentioning economic scarcity then moving onto 'good ideas' like Unix. I'm missing the central thread that ties it all together.
If anything it was the antithesis of Unix, namely GNU with its specific license that protects the users freedom, that was really the revolutionary idea, thank you RMS. Of course Unix, the work by Thompson, Ritchie etc brought extensibility and endless creativity to the development/app space. Ie write programs that do one thing well and able to connect those through pipes and ultimately through networks. The cli interface is ancient, but its here to stay for a very long time indeed.
Not sure of the point that my comment is making. Meh. Happy Friday.
I don’t love this conclusion, but looking around it seems that people generally keep competitions after their lives have become post-scarcity because the related concepts of status and preferential mating are determined by relative rather than absolute abundance.
When a mega-yacht doesn’t stand out in your social/sexual set? Build a fucking rocket ship that we all know damned well isn’t going to colonize Mars.
does the author know that Unix was a private software made by AT&T bell lab (a big company) with clear intentions of making revenue, although I agree it was and it is still a great idea, it was created because it would generate value to people and we appreciate value and we pay for it.
it's obvious the author made a good reflexions with good intentions, but poetic/utopic futures are not the solution and are dangerous in fact.
Unix was created by two rogue engineers as a side project at a time AT&T were operating under a 1956 US DoJ consent decree which forbad the firm from entering into the computer market. (There was no independent software market as such.) AT&T Unix as a commercial product did not become a possibility until after the 1983 break-up settlement, which lifted that restriction. But at the time of Unix's creation, there was absolutely no possible route to commercialisation, which is a chief reason the operating system was freely distributed (for cost of media, in most cases), often with the note "Love, from Ken" (Thompson).
System V appeared shortly after, as well as a set of legal disputes known as "the Unix Wars" beginning around 1988, most especially against BSDi (1-800-ITS-UNIX).
On January 14, 1949, the government filed an action in the District Court for the District of New Jersey against the Western Electric Company, Inc.[3] and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Inc. (Civil Action No. 17-49).[4] The complaint alleged that the defendants had monopolized and conspired to restrain trade in the manufacture, distribution, sale, and installation of telephones, telephone apparatus, equipment, materials, and supplies, in violation 136136 of sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2, and 3.[5] The relief sought included the divestiture by AT & T of its stock ownership in Western Electric; termination of exclusive relationships between AT & T and Western Electric; divestiture by Western Electric of its fifty percent interest in Bell Telephone Laboratories;[6] separation of telephone manufacturing from the provision of telephone service; and the compulsory licensing of patents owned by AT & T on a non-discriminatory basis.*
Unix was a terrible idea that probably set us back multiple decades not to mention fueling the computer security circus and the trillion dollar cybercrime industry it spawned. But yes, we need more ideas like it <s>
I’d prescribe the author multiple courses of The Unix Hater’s Handbook but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a cure.
Yeah, maybe we optimistically speculate that Smalltalk or Lisp Machines would have won instead, but it may have been the poorer alternatives that would have won if not UNIX
Dee Hock, an executive of a minor bank, set this up. The big banks wanted someone relatively neutral in charge of the Visa system. (He died just two weeks ago, I just found out.) His optimistic book, "Birth of the Chaordic Age", is still available.
There used to be a "chaord" article on Wikipedia, but it was merged into Dee Hock's article after Visa became an ordinary corporation.