We need the equivalent of keeping the phone lines and phone numbers compatible though. So that all the vendors that are on amazon can use a commonly shared internet protocol to also sell on other platforms, otherwise the network effects are lost and make splitting them up and true competition impossible.

Yeah. I think social media should be seen as virtual worlds that created new types of “alternative nation” that are controlled by these “cloud capitalists”. They decide the rules of conduct and eCommerce and the shape of society.

Cloud serfs and cloud proles pick up your digital pitchforks and techno-rampage!!! 🤑

Interesting, it seems so, but the DMA isn’t “marketed” as such or explains the problem and doesn’t suggest plausible solutions. What is needed I think is a kind of federation for marketplaces, so they need to use some kind of open protocol that allows others to use the same network of vendors etc. But it seems you could build on top of the DMA.

I do think a new term makes sense because these platforms both scale ultra large so “explode” in market power, and also can’t just be broken up using anti-trust laws because then the network effects of large network effects vanish (this is true for amazon and social media). So it is something different because of those new properties. I think federation and open protocols might be the answer to this.

Federate Amazon! Imagine a kind of protocol / standard to exchange prices, descriptions, images, sale conditions, guarantees etc similar to activity pub. then you could use the same network of vendors as amazon.

But it probably needs more regulations because amazon is so huge and powerful to destroy competitors.

Maybe also federate / split up fulfillment warehouses.

Have you read his book? I’d be curious what he suggests. I’ve just thought that if you could legislate to make marketplaces use some kind of “activitypub” protocol, you could federate them similar to social media. A protocol and open standard to exchange prices, descriptions, order conditions etc. So people could use alternatives to amazon/ebay and still have access to the large network of vendors. That would break the digital fiefdom. Is that something he discusses?

The new EU payment directive also finally created instant wire transfers, so it’s now possible to directly and instantly pay vendors without having to pay a tax to paypal.

Maybe the next thing is going to be delivery services with drones or self driving “micro vans”.

I’d think that large countries and groups of countries (e.g. USA, the EU) could implement their own mega marketplaces, leaching off much less money

Exactly! I’ve been saying this for a while that certain market places like amazon and ebay should become more public utility. I think craig’s list is the rare example of something actually owned by a person that is not just optimizing for profit. Social media should similarly be federated, which now with e.g. lemmy and mastodon seems much more plausible.

Another example is that the recent payment service directive has finally created instant wire transfers - e.g. I can wire money instantly to a shop without having to wait a few days or needing a payment processor. It’s insane that it took 30 years for instant payments. So maybe the 1.5% to 3% tax that paypal sucks out of ecommerce economy can finally end.

So maybe marketplaces could be federated as well and supported by regulations. For example some kind of open standard to exchange price info and order conditions etc. so that different services can use the same network of vendors and the customer can easily move from amazon or ebay to other alternatives without loosing the market network.

So if there is techno-feudalism it definitely can be dismantled politically. Thanks for your comment, and thanks to Varoufakis - this is actually a very valuable insight I believe. I remember like 10 years ago people started talking about the monopolies rising out of the internet and how they should be broken up. But it was clear to me that classic anti-trust measures wouldn’t work, because there are network effects that are incredibly valuable. You don’t want to split up facebook because 10 separate social media are much less useful. But maybe now we’re at a point where we have the arguments (techno-feudalism) and the solutions (federation and regulations like a protocol like activitypub) to suggest actual policy! 🙂

I’m a progressive and think conservatism is a totally valid political viewpoint - to continue doing what worked. And that is the social systems that worked so well for many decades. Unfortunately the GOP has become more and more reactionary for decades now (“paleo conservative”). So social democrats should be seen as conservatives really. And capitalists have accumulated so much money and power that it isn’t working any more.

The problem isn’t capitalism but human nature. We see it in every type of government or economic system. People get greedy and jack crap up.

I’d say the problem is that we don’t account for human nature in systems. We’ve elevated infinite greed as a totally valid and natural viewpoint, when it’s just not. In an environment with the right rules and basic fairness and decency you can absolutely tell most people to do something not for their own benefit because it’s for the public good, for your country, for your patients, and most people will be quite happy doing that.

That gives cover to the few percent of people who are eternally greedy, see nothing but materialism, the “sociopaths” and narcissists and narrow minded ideologues. That really requires a kind of reconstruction.

We need to specifically start thinking and talking about politics and business as systems that must be safeguarded against excess, and actively prevent people who care about nothing but money or power from advancing.

And specifically because of climate change we need to start thinking about a plan. Because it’s an emergency similar to a war “all or nothing” economy we need to create a “limited planned economy” for certain sectors and allow for eminent domain to transfer sectors into public hands - at least for sectors that you can’t reasonably assume they can be induced with market regulations and things like carbon taxes. Because capitalists will always game the system and maximize profit. That has to be understood and CEOs put in charge that understand that besides profit, they are not to oppose regulations or rules of the game set by society.

I’d be very curious if you think conservatives in the GOP could be convinced by any of this?

Not sure if I understand this correctly:

Cloud capital is fundamentally different because it can be copied infinitely like a digital copy and requires exponentially less labor. This is different from owning and operating a factory (requires labor) or owning or renting land (limited). There might still be labor but it’s insignificant and it scales almost infinitely. That is why it’s rent on capitalism. It’s this infinite scalability that is the difference.

You could develop a perfect alternative to amazon, ebay, paypal, facebook or google, messaging apps, app stores: The cloud capital isn’t in the software or the servers, it’s in the account network. Everyone can theoretically move services but that incurs costs by loosing your connections in the network. And marketing makes it so that the majority of people won’t do it. So once the network is established it extracts wealth without being productive.

Another example would be paypal - they take something like 1.5% to 3% of all online transactions, practically a tax on all consumer transactions.

And you use digital services all the time and are increasingly dependent on them. And they extract wealth without them having to produce content or advertising, they just rent their ad spaces.

AI generation and robotics will become much more advanced in the coming decades. This too could become cloud capital and wealth extraction without requiring significant labor. Especially once we reach “robots building robots”.

I’m also seeing a power grab for the means of generation coming. If public learning data has to be licensed especially for AI to learn from them, it will mean that the cloud capitalists will own the generative AIs. In their anger about big AI “stealing muh data”, people will help that IP law will change so that serfs will not be able to use generative AI freely. Maybe LLMs and generative AI are over hyped but they’ve come a long way in just a few years, in one or two decades it could be incredible cloud capital that extracts wealth to no end, without any labor involved at all.

The feudalism bit I’m not sure about - presumably the scale of social media creates not just cloud capital and massive rents, it also creates political power. By subtly shaping how algorithms present content, we are being ruled by algorithms. The content we see makes us think certain things, argue about this and that and distracts us. MAGA is an example of a sub population mostly disconnected from reality and trapped in a prison for the mind. This is political power similar to a serf under a lord. Not sure how well that relates.

He also mentions the global financial system, I imagine that globalization and increasing refinement of “financial products” also serve as a form of cloud capital that is no longer really tethered to real labor. It’s more and more speculative. The central bank constantly prints money and injects it and somehow it ends up in the hands of the cloud capitalists? But that existed before.

Not sure if patents or IP fit into this. And again, not sure if I understand any of this correctly or if I buy any of this. But it’s certainly possible that the scale of certain forms of capital create completely different emergent structures. Even if it’s fundamentally the same mechanisms, technology might turn it into a completely different beast.

He definitely didn’t do a great job explaining this - presumably Yanis Varoufakis wants us to buy his book. That old capitalist trick!

Cheers, didn’t know that something like a usable “open images dataset” existed. Awesome.

The last bit isn’t really relevant for your app, just a general rant really. It’s just that I’d like better image viewing support all around. Like in browsers there is an image and you can click on it but then a new tab opens. I have imagus but it’s not ideal and restricts the image to the smaller browser window. In the explorer I have quicklook now that opens images with space but the zoom feature is half assed too. Then many images apps have long startup times (>0.2 secs) or are bloaty. It’s just a bit annoying that it’s 2024 and PCs still can’t handle images really well.

Sorry if these are stupid questions.

Does this only show these foss_photo_libraries and your local photos?

Does it support jpegXL?

I’d love a seamless zoom feature for images in the browser. I use imagus but I’d love if the popup window could zoom to be bigger than the browser window.

It’s a power grab. They’ll justify control over the training data with intellectual property which keeps it out of the hands of everyday people but they stole the “intellectual property” from us in the first place. Then they’ll control the “means of generation”.