"By accessing this file more than one time per second you agree to pay a fee of $0.1 per access plus an additional $0.1 for each previous access each day. This fee will be charged on a per access basis."
2. Run a program that logs the number for Facebook requests and prints a summary and bill.
2. Then get a stamp, envelope and write out a bill for the first day, call it a demand for payment and send it to:
Facebook, Inc. Attn: Security Department/Custodian of Records 1601 S. California Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94304 U.S.A.
You can optionally send this registered mail, where someone has to sign for it.
Corporations such as FaceBook are used to getting their way in court because they can afford lawyers and you cannot. So they have gotten lazy and do not worry about what is fair or legal.
So take them to court when you have a legitimate legal issue. The courts are there to provide redress when you are aggrieved. Right? Use the courts. You can file a small claims action easily. Just make sure you have 1) a legitimate case, 2) evidence 3) have sent them a demand for payment.
You can't just make a one sided contract agreement like that though. Just like I can't tell anyone that by reading this comment they agree to pay me (as another commenter pointed out).
Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people.
1. they are selling you as a target.
2. some people, governments, groups, whatever are willing to pay a lot of money to obtain information about you.
3. why would someone pay good money to target you unless they were going to profit from doing so. are they stupid? no.
4. where does that profit come from? If some one is willing to pay $100 to target you, how are they going to recoup that money?
5. From you.
There is simply no other way this can have worked for this long without this being true.
It is a long causal change, so it is fair to ask whether there is any empirical evidence. If this is true we would expect to see ...? Well how about prices going up? Well how about in general people are less able to afford housing, food, cars, etc.
I'm speculating here, but perhaps it is predictability. There is a common time warp fantasy about being able to go back and guess the future. You go back and bet on a sports game. If I can predict what you are going to do then I can place much more profitable bets.
Do the corporations that participate in this scheme provide mutual economic benefit? Do they contribute to the common wealth or are they parasitical?
No one likes to think they have parasites. But we all do these days.
Here’s the problem I have with your take (even if I agree): LinkedIn has a product to sell. You’re not supposed to be the product, because companies pay to advertise job postings, they sell career tools, sales tools, etc.
At what point is that not enough for them to stop doing data brokerage or sharing?
They want to be targeted by companies for jobs. Or when they’re applying for a job, they want to be easily found by people at that company so they can see more information.
If you don’t want those things, you don’t need a LinkedIn page.
> Do the corporations that participate in this scheme provide mutual economic benefit? Do they contribute to the common wealth or are they parasitical?
You wrote a long hand wavey post but you stopped short of answering your own question.
The corporations who pay LinkedIn are doing so to recruit people for jobs. I’ve purchased LinkedIn premium for this purpose at different times.
After “targeting” those LinkedIn users, I eventually hired some of them for jobs. There’s your mutual economic benefit. This is why people use LinkedIn.
> It is a long causal change, so it is fair to ask whether there is any empirical evidence. If this is true we would expect to see ...? Well how about prices going up? Well how about in general people are less able to afford housing, food, cars, etc.
You think the root cause of inflation is… social media companies? This is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. You’re just observing two different things and convinced they’re correlated, while ignoring the obvious rebuttal that inflation existed and affordability changes happened before social media.
> Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people.
I think most people understand the fundamentals of LinkedIn better than you do, to be honest. It’s not a mystery why people sign up and maintain profiles.
I’m not assuming anything. It’s a job market. Like all markets they operate on supply and demand.
In your example, so what if they give the job to the most desperate worker instead of a different one at a higher price? Are we supposed to prefer that the desperate worker does not get the job and instead it goes to someone else at a higher rate?
If someone is desperate for a job because they really need work, I’d prefer that a platform help them get matched with jobs. Wouldn’t you? I think you’re so focused on penalizing corporations that you’re missing the obvious.
Like all markets they can be monopolized. You are assuming quite a bit by presuming that the market works perfectly according to rather basic economic principles.
There are all kinds of reasons someone could be more desperate. Perhaps they have a significant skills gap. Perhaps they don't have citizenship. Perhaps their health care options are artificially limited. You invoke supply and demand but you narrow your focus to a single interface when it's obvious that wouldn't be appropriate.
It's not about "penalizing corporations" it's about "being honest about their motives." Unlike many on HN I refuse to handwave away this thorny and uncomfortable process.
Beautifully written, I saved your post to send the next friend or relative who asks me why I am so hard-over on privacy. I enjoyed working at Google hears ago as a contractor, and they are my ‘favorite’ tech company - the only mega-tech company who’s services I regularly use, but I am constantly mindful of their business model as I use YouTube, GCP, and their various dev APIs.
Except, I only use services I pay for and set tight privacy settings.
EDIT: sorry for the initial short reply, your comment deserved a more reasoned response: I build my digital life on two primary service providers:
Proton: mail, cloud storage, and Luma private LLM chat (integrated web search tool with a strong Mistral model: my default tool that replaces plain web searches, 90% of my routine ‘LLM chat’ use)
Google: Gemini APIs, occasional use of Gemini for deep research, very occasional use of AntiGravity for coding using Claude and Gemini models, YouTube Plus for entertainment (philosophy talks, nature videos, Qi Gong exercise, etc. etc.)
Also some use of:
DuckDuckGo: when I still do web search, DDG is my default.
> Somehow the fundamentals of places like linkedin, gmail, google, facebook, etc have eluded people.
LinkedIn is slightly different, as it's fundamentally framed as a job board and recruiting platform. The paying customers are recruiters, and the product is access to the prospective candidates. Hence, LinkedIn offering for free services such as employee verification, work history verificarion, employee vouching, etc.
The fundamental issue is that our public school system turned into a training ground to serve corporations. To teach us all to be followers. Raise you hand. Sit still all day. Now there are fewer and fewer corporate jobs so that purpose is outmoded. Why train every American young person to be a drone when there is no need for drones?
Why do we still have schools then? Why do people still fund these outmoded institutions? Because now both parents need to work in order to earn enough live. As a result schools (junior and high) are simply glorified day care or prisons. And yes they serve some purpose and do some good for some, maybe even many people. But for many of our young they simply instill unproductive ideas and behaviors.
If we are interested in our children having good productive lives, our high school are for many kids of zero value or negative value.
We do not need more followers/drones. We need doers.
A science fair can be one of the few opportunities a young person has to do, as opposed to follow. Lets enhance that and provide more.
When we think about communities we need an effective model of what they are and how they operate.
What then is an effective model for a community? In "Twitter And Teargas", Zeynep Tufecki argued that the community afforded by Twitter was unable to effect long term, substantial change and therefore Arab Spring is now a footnote. Twitter affords flash mobs.
That concept - affordance - provides a hint for a model of communities. The obvious question to a hacker is "what kind of social system would afford long term substantial change?".
Another insight is that the afforded mechanisms determine the community. This is really a restatement of the Sapir-Whorf hyptothesis. From "your language determines what you can think" to "your social mechanisms determine your community". Roughly.
Another insight (corollary?) for Sapir-Whorf is that your language prevents you from thinking some things. So one could try to understand what "following" as a social mechanism prevents prevents?
Out of this kind of analysis emerges a different take on communities all together. For the hacker in us, John Holland's "Hidden Order" provides a generalized model that can be used to at least create a pseudo model for creating a simulation of the community mechanism.
Although John Holland talks about Complex Adaptive Systems, I personally find "Gestalt" a less cumbersome and effective term. A gestalt is something greater than the sum of it's parts and that can only be true(ish) when the parts interact. So entities + rules + message bus => Gestalt. For ants this is {ants + ant behavior + pheromone trails } => ant colonies. One could conjecture that for humans this could be {people + behavior + money } => economies. Or more cynically => corporations.
The complexity and emergent behavior of the {rules + message/bus part} part is probably best revealed by Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science".
This is an incredibly important talking for our time. What is the most effective way to get rid of ants? To destroy their ability to use a pheromone trail. Perhaps we could just put advertising in it?
[edit: forgot the Wolfram reference. Apologies to SW for missing this wonderful work.]
> Another insight (corollary?) for Sapir-Whorf is that your language prevents you from thinking some things
Last time I looked, Sapir-Whorf is almost universally discredited among linguists and cognitive scientists.
The wikipedia summary:
"The hypothesis is in dispute, with many different variations throughout its history. The strong hypothesis of linguistic relativity, now referred to as linguistic determinism, is that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and restrict cognitive categories. This was a claim by some earlier linguists pre-World War II since then it has fallen out of acceptance by contemporary linguists. Nevertheless, research has produced positive empirical evidence supporting a weaker version of linguistic relativity that a language's structures influence a speaker's perceptions, without strictly limiting or obstructing them. "
It does not matter if a hypothesis is discredited if it helps you build an effective model that works. If you use a discredited hypothesis to make bread and make a great tasting and edible bread, then the hypothesis has value. Even if it is "wrong". Because it works.
Here are some question for you: can you think of any things you cannot think of in your language? Hints. Beethoven, Van Gogh, 7. Can a democracy evolve from FaceBook? What kind of political system can evolve from FaceBook? Is there a language for Democracies? The important thing is not the answer, but the thinking.
No, it doesn't work. Humans (at least) are very powerful metaphor users, and it is typically possible to discuss things for which there is no direct language in terms of metaphors (and analogies). We do this all the time, and it pretty much removes all bounds on what we can talk (and think) about with language.
Lots of poetry makes no sense if you consider it to be a series of words to be literally interpreted according to a grammar rules and a dictionary. But it can often hint at meanings and ideas that can't be expressed directly.
Of course, there are some things that always remain that are harder to get rid of. That's not "lack of language preventing you from thinking things", but rather "assumptions so deeply built into language that it is hard, though perhaps not impossible, to escape them".
Look, I thought the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was great when I learned about it, too. I love the movie Arrival (and the Ted Chiang story it's based on). But if you aren't a social scientist, it can be very appealing (and self-defeating) to latch onto a specific concept you heard about and try to create some grand theory of the world. This is fine, but it's sophistry, not deep thinking.
Twitter is organized around tags, which are all right, I suppose. It's greatest weakness that it is rooted in short messages -- sound bites -- which are not conducive to reasoned debate. Though they removed that technical limitation, the culture was solidified at that point.
> What is the most effective way to get rid of ants? To destroy their ability to use a pheromone trail. Perhaps we could just put advertising in it?
I'm taking this analogy for myself :)
> what kind of social system would afford long term substantial change?
In my experience over the last year, these things are true...
First, in-person interaction is strictly better than digital. You can meet lots of people digitally and talk to them in bed, but _interacting_ with a given person face-to-face means you can do any digital interaction, plus have very high-bandwidth communication, and also share papers. (I love paper. It's not obsolete if you know what a Pareto frontier is.) This is something that many people understand intuitively but it took me a while to quantify it.
Second, digital (text) communication affords bickering. In the best case, if I'm DMing a friend and we disagree about some political point, it will make the conversation awkward. If I'm in a big group chat, it can drag people into a dogpile. It's an emotional drain and nobody really likes it. And it doesn't happen nearly as much in person. Even with the exact same people. Even I am nicer and more patient in person. And being able to physically leave and see someone later is a nice option that digital spaces (even Signal) don't afford. They only understand permanent blocks and not just "Tell me your dumb take another time."
Third, you can just say "I'm trying to build community and make friends, can I introduce you to some people you might like?" and in the right context and framing, it can sort of work. I am still learning this skill.
Fourth, and I almost forgot - A _huge_ amount of nonverbal communication comes down to trust and respect, especially respecting other people's time. Did you call a 50-person meeting where 1 person is yammering about some bikeshed bullshit? Everyone hates that. Are you talking to someone one-on-one but they still won't give you a turn or ask you anything about yourself? They might be a good person but they're gonna be hard to get along with if they keep that up. Did you send someone a blog post that takes 5 minutes to read? And they didn't ask for it? They aren't gonna read it. I wouldn't read it. You would have more luck reading it out loud to them in person because it shows that you are both respecting each other's time. Otherwise you are assigning homework and asking their attention without paying your attention to them. I can't name a person who likes that.
The point about trust and respect is a good insight. Especially in the context of our current internet. A friend once said to me "trust is the one thing you can't get on then internet". So how would one bring that trust to the internet?
And the insight about meetings brought back memories of some horrendous meetings. At software companies. OMG. But very funny very long after the fact.
Good points all. Trust, respect, reputation.
I'm beginning to suspect HN also needs such a bill. Maybe it is not AI content, but so many prominent posts on HN feel like advertising. Perhaps that is the good thing about AI is that it decreases the trust level. Or is that really a good thing?
Yimby vs Nimby is yet another divisive jingoism - simply putting tags on things and then using them as if significant.
The situation is more complex. The forces about housing right now are incredibly destructive. Rich people want to make more money by building expensive homes. In this case NIMBY is the correct solution. In other cases Rich People want to prevent affordable housing. In this case YIMBY is the correct solution. But blindly applying these terms provides a cover for a complicated situation. We have cults of personality, and now we have cults of Jargonism. Neither helps us.
Being outraged because lawyers don't want you to speak is great. The issues legal and housing issues are far more complex and important.
Affordable housing itself is typically used as a poison pill because it makes it harder to turn a profit building. My biggest pet peeve is when some 5 over 1, 9 foot ceiling, crappy finishes, bound to be ghost-town ground level retail, apartment building is characterized as "luxury" by NIMBY who then proceed to say that it needs to have an affordable component. Guess what? It's going to be so clapped out in 15 years that the rent will have to have gone down (inflation adjusted).
> Rich people want to make more money by building expensive homes.
Rich people want to make more money by blocking homes from being built, thereby driving up their property values and making all housing in the area more expensive.
You present a very simplistic view that does not begin to capture the complexity of what's actually happening in practice:
> Rich people want to make more money by building expensive homes. In this case NIMBY is the correct solution.
Why would NIMBYism ever be the answer here? What values does it represent? Allowing rich people to build housing for rich people means that the rich in need of housing don't take away more affordable housing. And when rich people are forced to pay for more affordable hosuing, what used to be affordable becomes unaffordable.
Ensuring that rich people's money goes to new building that doesn't hurt less rich people is the correct solution, if one values keeping housing affordable. One should only block that rich housing if one wants the existing housing to become more expensive.
As far as I can tell, you responded to someone literally saying "The situation is more complex." and attempting a refutation of your absolutist view, by accusing that this is a "very simplistic view" — and then generalizing "rich people" as a group without considering strata of wealth at all nor considering more than one possible strategy for accumulating real estate wealth.
The "refutation" is the common view tha has been repeated for years and years, and is not complex at all. It in fact misses the dominant trends that have made US housing situation so unaffordable, and is only a tenable view if one has an overly simplistic and narrow view of the players in housing, specifically from the viewpoint of a home owner that does not struggle with the current high costs, and in fact implicitly benefits from those high costs that increase their wealth while locking the next generation out of the opportunity they had.
I don't think my views are absolutist at all, but please do point out wha you think is absolutist if you believe that is a fair criticism instead of a passing swipe.
> generalizing "rich people" as a group without considering strata of wealth at all
I did nothing of the sort, but I did point out that if the basis of opposing something is because rich people benefit, well, that is an argument to support more housing. If somebody is saying that only certain slices or classes should not benefit but that other rich people should benefit, then let that person make that argument, rather than the overly simplistic "rich person" argument. And let them add enough complexity to concretely state the profits: a homeowner is making 5% a year on their home due to scarcity by locking others out of opportunity, while the developer makes their investors 10%-15% over 2-3 years by adding productively to society and benefiting lots of new people with access to economic opportunity and housing.
Yes, different people are profiting, but one strata is doing it by making others wealthy at the same time, and their profits are to a REIT, and one times. Whereas the landlord and homeowner getting compounded annual returns at a high rate by increasing economic inequality and segregation, through rentierism and exclusion. When developers build an apartment building, investors profit but so does labor and the new residents and city coffers through new taxation.
The comment I was replying to did not present a single shred of complexity, and their petite bourgeois naïveté presents themselves as the only people in the world deserving of profit or consideration or agency or influence. They did not refute my world view at all, and my entire worldview on housing has come about from their same overly simplistic starting point and then learning that there's a vast world out there beyond it.
AI is the poison pill for corporations. They cannot resist the idea that with no people to pay they will make even more profit. If you think about that, and understand that AI is about search, then you see that there will be enormous opportunity to build software that is built to help people not make profit.
Even if you don't really like programming, the takeover by Artificiality will mean that the value of Actuality will increase dramatically. So go for actual value in what you do.
Enough already. The way to determine what kind of manager a person is, is to listen for the context they use. For an extreme hypothetical example, if you hear a manager talk about locking their team in their cells every night, you will know something about their context.
If the manager says "They look to you for leadership and clarity", you know something.
It they quote Jeff Bezo, that provides more definition.
The lesson to learn from this article is not the words, but the context. What is the context you find in this article? How does this person talk about other people? What assumptions are inherent in this article? If you find this normal, what does this say about your assumptions?
What I have learned from my years of being an engineering manager is that the corporate model of software development is fubar.
I find myself referring to my contractors as: Workers.
What does that mean about me?
I can't call them employees. I read the communist stuff a while ago and decided I didn't want to be exploited, so I thought this was just the proper terminology.
But people on the internet loath being called a worker and have called me out on this.
Meanwhile I yoyo between to nice and too hard... I think I'm naturally too nice to the point of failure. I seem to only be 'too hard' for a few months before I go back.
Thank god my industry is high demand, I think even with bad management we will survive. (I got a masters in Engineering Management + read 10 books, but management/supervision orthodoxy is diverse and contradictory.)
"By accessing this file more than one time per second you agree to pay a fee of $0.1 per access plus an additional $0.1 for each previous access each day. This fee will be charged on a per access basis."
2. Run a program that logs the number for Facebook requests and prints a summary and bill.
2. Then get a stamp, envelope and write out a bill for the first day, call it a demand for payment and send it to:
Facebook, Inc. Attn: Security Department/Custodian of Records 1601 S. California Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94304 U.S.A.
You can optionally send this registered mail, where someone has to sign for it.
Corporations such as FaceBook are used to getting their way in court because they can afford lawyers and you cannot. So they have gotten lazy and do not worry about what is fair or legal.
So take them to court when you have a legitimate legal issue. The courts are there to provide redress when you are aggrieved. Right? Use the courts. You can file a small claims action easily. Just make sure you have 1) a legitimate case, 2) evidence 3) have sent them a demand for payment.
reply