Beware of geeks bearing gifts

http://aralbalkan.com/notes/beware-of-geeks-bearing-gifts/

by achalkley • 13 years ago

152 73 13 years ago

aralbalkan.com

rasur• 13 years ago

You've read "Who Owns The Future" too then?

tlarkworthy• 13 years ago

Yeah Microsoft gives windows to schools. Generous bastards.

lignuist• 13 years ago

Did they ever give free copies to a retirement home?

GotAnyMegadeth• 13 years ago

There might be more than one reason for that...

kintamanimatt• 13 years ago

They do that so students grow up knowing one operating system: Windows. Such students grow up, graduate, and then feel more comfortable using it in the workplace (and at home); it ends up being a net positive for Microsoft. If schools didn't receive free Windows licenses, such schools might end up using Ubuntu! Imagine how that would affect Microsoft's future profits and product adoption if the next generation of workers (especially those potential .NET programmers, CTOs, etc) were more familiar and comfortable with Linux!

pjmlp• 13 years ago

No different than the program Apple had for American schools, if I am not mistaken.

axelfreeman2• 13 years ago

I am pretty sure my internet service provider is already doing that. I don't see the difference. Did i miss something? They didn't say it's free.

annnnd• 13 years ago

What, your ISP already mines data about you and sells it? If I knew that about mine I would leave it ASAP.

GFischer• 13 years ago

Good luck if it's a state monopoly (mine is). Between bad internet and no internet, I chose bad internet.

axelfreeman2• 13 years ago

They sell statistic data and have a "DNS failed" page with there "search engine". They also sell my phonenumber if i don't opt-out.

alexfarran• 13 years ago

Help! My digital self has been enslaved by corporate missionaries and forced to drink coke. Can we calm down on the emotive metaphors a little so I can see the actual point?

inthewind• 13 years ago

The take home I got was to question Facebook and Google's motives.

Loon and Android (or a free alternative) could make for a pretty sweet peer to peer alternative Internet.

Perhaps an alternative would be to bounce signals off of other satellites.

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4404759/Pro...

TeMPOraL• 13 years ago

I'd argue that Google-sponsored Internet is better than no Internet. Also I don't see any "digital enslavement" plans embedded in Google or Facebook initiative. Just giving those people Internet will be enough to benefit Google and Facebook hugely, as probably significant percent of newly connected will start using their services. They don't need to capture every single person, therefore they don't need to conspire to "enslave" anyone.

pearkes4• 13 years ago

What Facebook and Google have done is discovered a village with no water and they plan to bring them cheap Coke to buy when—if their motives were truly honorable—there is another glaringly obvious option: you could teach them to build a well.

Funny you should mention Coke. It turns out that these businesses desiring profits can pretty efficiently solve or make improvement to problems, like distribution, in places like Africa.[1]

Regardless of their motivation, either with balloons or wires, the deep pockets and ingenuity of Google and Facebook will connect people who aren't. And, they'll do it faster and more efficiently then government, charity.

Their "evil" desire for profits will benefit us, as Coke has, apparently.[2]

[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/25/coke-applie... (2012)

[2] It's obviously not all roses, with the health concerns, etc. Point is that they solved a problem motivated by profit, and now health organizations, etc. are able to learn from that, directly or just by watching. They're moving us in generally the right direction.

drcongo• 13 years ago

Funnily enough, Coke are already draining the wells of villages that do have them. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/mar/19/business.india1

pearkes4• 13 years ago

Yea, let me clear – I'm not saying a huge multi-national corporation is squeaky clean because of one positive thing they've done.

The point I was trying to make is that the motivation of said company may not be to "save the world", but the results (and the impressive efficiency of attaining them) may do a lot of good, even if indirectly.

at-fates-hands• 13 years ago

It's the same thing Pepsi is accused of as well:

http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2011/pepsipositivewater.ht...

"Pepsico, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, has begun claiming that it has achieved "positive water balance" in India, that it is "Giving Back MORE WATER Than We Take".

Wonderful as it may sound, Pepsico's claims of achieving "positive water balance" simply do not add up."

Yzupnick• 13 years ago

Here is a TED talk from Melinda French Gates talking about exactly this: http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofit...

Dogamondo• 13 years ago

Hey pearkes, your reply was intelligent and thought provoking. You've made a valid point, provided sources and had a structurally well set out argument. But I just can't help myself to try and preserve the English language and point out the faux-pas I see when intelligent people comment. Please don't use 'then' when the correct word is 'than'. It shits me to no end. I really hope that was a typo and if it is, do excuse me. If not, don't take my comment as malice, please take it on board. I love to see a great comment become bulletproof/immutable, without dissenters picking holes in it because of bad grammar. Sorry if I've gone a bit overboard with your comment over one word! It really just is a compulsion of mine to keep 'then' and 'than' pure! Kudos to you otherwise though.

pearkes4• 13 years ago

HA! I literally caught myself doing this yesterday.[1] It's a terrible habit. My mother would agree and give you a high five. :)

[1] https://twitter.com/pearkes/status/369868903456862208

Theory5• 13 years ago

You cannot use Coke as an example. They have a strategy that can aptly be described as "profits before people". They've hired terrorist groups to kill workers who've done nothing but try to organize a union to have enough money to feed their children.

http://killercoke.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Coca-Cola http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm

It's like saying that the mining companies in Virgina have done nothing but help the people in that region, forgetting of course, the Battle of Blair Mountain, or the wages, or the treatment, or the pollution.

Some companies actually care. But Coke does not. It will never. You speak about the solution to a problem being motivated by profit and that is exactly what the unions were, a problem that was solved by the need to profit.

Some companies need to be stopped. To be taken down. Not because they produce a bad product, but because they are to far detached from "the human condition", and therefore see people as simply an obstacle to their profits.

saraid2162• 13 years ago

In other words, they have permission to make mistakes, because we have lower expectations of them? If that's the case, you're doing us all a disservice by telling us they're not evil after all.

pearkes4• 13 years ago

No, I think I may not be making myself clear.

Good regulatory structures, like we've been trying to develop alongside the emergence of the free market as "the way", are important, along with the consumer being keenly aware of where there product comes from, the morale implications of buying such a product, and so on.

However, it's hard to debate that the undeniable force of a humans desire to move _themselves_ forward (or their company, for the sake of themselves) has taken us up and to the right in situations like these.

gz5• 13 years ago

Even if a "neutral ISP" was providing the access, they could always partner with a Google or Facebook to produce the same result.

Arguably some Internet is better than no Internet but I don't think there is a complete solution until there is enough competition at the local access that a user can choose between a completely open pipe and Google like alternatives?

VMG2• 13 years ago

Life is not zero-sum. Just because big corporations gain, doesn't mean you have to lose.

And please, stop with the slavery metaphor. It's offensive. There are actual slaves in Africa that would love the serfdom of targeted ads.

achalkley5• 13 years ago

When the internet is being used as a "right" or commodity like food and your digital persona, which you don't "own", is being used to profit someone else, and your "right" to it is revoked if you choose to "own" it, the metaphor is apt.

dylangs1030• 13 years ago

No, it's not apt at all. When your digital self allows for your physical self to be whipped, starved, or forced to mate in the name of profit, it will be apt.

Sure, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. But let's not weaken our arguments with ludicrous hyperbole.

russellsprouts• 13 years ago

I think there are more slaves coming in through San Francisco and Seattle to the US.

StavrosK3• 13 years ago

Sorry, do we know that you'll only be able to get online if you only have a Google account? I haven't heard anything like that, and if, as I suspect, nothing hints that this will happen, then this is much gnashing of teeth about nothing.

If Google does require a Google account to get online, then, okay, it's not as selfless as before, but it's still internet access where people had none before. The possibility of accessing Wikipedia and Khan Academy is worth an inactive Google account, at least.

achalkley5• 13 years ago

What is a "Google Account"? It's a fuzzy thing - they track you and sell you without a log in or not.

StavrosK3• 13 years ago

Great, so completely free internet, with exactly as many strings attached as everyone else gets, even though they don't get theirs from Google. I don't see why people are complaining. Getting tracked is an issue completely orthogonal to the internet access Google is trying to give people.

Tichy2• 13 years ago

Providing internet access is not the same as locking somebody into their cloud services.

There is such a thing as win win in business. Yes, Google benefits if more people are on the internet, because of the network effect - more people searching, more stuff to be found, and, yes, more potential advertising space. It's useful even without lock in.

jlees• 13 years ago

Depends on the implementation, though; if you need to create and sign in with a $foo account to use the sponsored-by-$foo internet connection, it's not lock-in per se, but has some of the same effects.

Tichy2• 13 years ago

That kind of thing would indeed be questionable, but it didn't sound to me as if Google wanted to implement it that way. From their history it also seems unlikely (ie giving away Android).

raverbashing• 13 years ago

Here's one thing about "complementary services".

"Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements." http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html

Yes, Google and Facebook have their agenda, but that's their object, to make an internet connection as a commodity as possible.

In the same way auto companies want a gas station in every corner (and the opposite, gas companies want cars to be popular)

jaegerpicker• 13 years ago

Bah! Who cares who if Facebook or Google makes money if it's a net win for everyone. They make money but those using the service learn how to use the internet and a few learn more then that. Those few then figure out how to build their own ISP. It's a conversation and a conservation has to have two sides. This provides a reason for FB and Google to start the conversation. It's a rising tide that lifts everyones boats. Sure it's optimistic of me and maybe those that use FB's internet never rise above that but I doubt it and it's better than nothing.

plg• 13 years ago

We shouldn't be relying on for-profit companies to provide a service as basic (in today's modern world) and powerful (education, health, etc) as internet access... because they have nefarious motives in mind.

Instead we should be relying on our governments, who have our interests in mind and whose primary job is to protect our rights. ... ..

um...

oops

never mind

daraul• 13 years ago

When you elect anarchists, it's hardly surprising that the government stops functioning.

icebraining2• 13 years ago

I agree, but we have never done so.

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

In Africa it's a hard proposition to find a government that definitively has less nefarious motives than Google...

r00fus• 13 years ago

So clearly the Internet (nee ARPANET) should live free of government interference.

Sounds about as logical as "get the government out of my medicare".

macspoofing• 13 years ago

Google wants to wire-up Africa because they know that a certain percentage will use their services (it's hard to completely avoid Google on the internet). So what? The entire argument rests on the premise that profit does not align with public good. That's just completely wrong.

hahainternet• 13 years ago

The attempt to compare being shown ads to being a slave is the most offensive thing I have read in months.

Aral should be ashamed of himself. He should publicly apologise.

mattschoch• 13 years ago

The last paragraph: "Yes, of course everyone deserves access to the Internet. But they deserve access to an open Internet where they can own their Digital Selves..."

Does everyone actually deserve internet access? Is that an inalienable human right? If people want something of value, they have to provide value in return. If Google and Facebook see value in the people's data, then they are willing to give them "free" internet. It is a choice to give those corporations your data in exchange for their services.

Saying that people deserve something can be dangerous. Who provides these things that we all deserve? If there's no economic incentive, why would someone spend the money to provide goods and services for other people?

icebraining2• 13 years ago

There are hundreds (thousands?) of years of discussion on positive versus negative rights, and not everyone is convinced either way. It doesn't seem particularly fruitful to open that can of worms here.

jff2• 13 years ago

These days you can't hardly swing a "Coexist" bumper sticker without hitting someone claiming that X, Y, and/or Z are inalienable human rights.

digerata• 13 years ago

This could better be said as beware of Content Providers in control of the Pipes.

simonebrunozzi• 13 years ago

Timeo danaos et dona ferentes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeo_Danaos_et_dona_ferentes

pigscantfly• 13 years ago

Part of my favorite passage from the Aeneid :); the literal translation is a little different from the English phrase that's become popular, but I've always thought it amazing that people from that time period had the same insights we get from very modern situations. (see: quis custodiet ipsos custodes, Catullan love poetry, etc - it's a shame more Roman literature doesn't survive).

kisil_reboot• 13 years ago

Google and Facebook want to give everyone access to the Internet because they need more raw materials. More data. The first sentence seems basically true, but the second, and the general gist of the article, is off-base. Both companies make money, on aggregate, when there are more people using the internet. Google gets more searches, more youtube views. Facebook gets more, and more active, members. Both are monetizable eyeballs without needing any fancy data extraction.

Do we really need to posit some nefarious lust for "your data!!1" here? I don't see the need; the simpler hypothesis has enough explanatory power.

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

Even if Google restricts the access only to their products (and they don't), you are better off with "corporate-tainted" internet than without.

TheMagicHorsey• 13 years ago

I really hope nobody takes this guys post seriously. For the one situation that I am personally familiar with, Western companies taking an interest in Indian villages has been a great boon to the locals.

There are many idealists in the West that don't understand what the impact is of even simple things that they take for granted. If a man provides fresh drinking water to a remote Indian village, and if the water comes in bottles with advertisements for products, it might seem evil to this guy, but actually, from the point of view of the villager, its still an unambiguously good thing.

Nobody at the bottom of the Pyramid cares whether or not they have to log into Google in order to access their free online classes from EdX, Udacity, Khan academy etc. They are just thankful to have that access, which they did not have in the past.

And beyond that, its not like they cannot create a profile with Google and then ignore it, and connect to the Internet outside of Google products. Its not like Google blocks access to other search engines, or to other competing services. You still have access to the Internet.

Also, its not even clear that you HAVE to make a Google ID to access Loon internet.

This poster should try some other mechanism ... some non-corporate mechanism, and try to bring some benefits to India. If he succeeds, then I will support his model.

I certainly won't withdraw support from Google over his bullshit blog post which has zero touch with reality.

notahacker• 13 years ago

People who assume that the developing world is some kind of ad-free utopia are also in for a rude shock if they actually visit it for long enough to realize the only painted buildings in many villages are decorated with the branding of a mobile phone service provider, the fridges are all supplied by beverage companies and even the crummiest of market stalls are decorated with sponsored bunting. I don't think they'll be too upset if Bollywood banners follow them round the web and some analyst working with anonymised data sees an surge in searches for Hinduism.

Frankly, if anyone loses from adequate speed internet in remote locations in the underdeveloped world, it's Western corporations that aren't very good at targeting their ad spend...

j_baker2• 13 years ago

Remember that both Google and Facebook are publicly‐traded transnational corporations that are legally mandated to act in the best interests of their shareholders.

This is a huge misconception. The idea that corporations should maximize shareholder value above all else is very modern and likely came from Jack Welch. The truth is that there is no enforceable legal mandate for corporations or their officers to maximize profits.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2012/06/26/the-sharehol...

mindcrime2• 13 years ago

That was an excellent article, thanks for sharing. I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the author's book - it sounds fascinating.

pkteison• 13 years ago

That blog is an extremely shallow ad for a book. Is there some new development that invalidates Dodge v Ford Motor?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Company

j_baker2• 13 years ago

From the linked wikipedia article:

Dodge is often misread or mistaught as setting a legal rule of shareholder wealth maximization. This was not and is not the law. Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard. This is one reading of Dodge. If this is all the case is about, however, it isn’t that interesting.

lmartel• 13 years ago

TL;DR: trading Africa's third world problems for first world problems is a bad thing because targeted advertising.

Beware of geeks bearing gifts

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