

Sharecropping: A Sucker’s Game Then — and Now - grey-area
http://www.mediaorchard.com/2013/02/sharecropping-a-suckers-game-then-and-now/

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jpdoctor
> _So the Freedmen were forced to be tenants of the white landowners —
> planting the cotton seed, tending the crop, being responsible for everything
> produced by their small patch of land. But after all the work was done, they
> had to hand over the proceeds of their labor to the landowners and receive
> just a “share” of the “crop” — usually no more than half._

Sounds like the VC model?

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niggler
It's exactly the VC model, except that in the VC model you still keep your
limbs and salary if the business fails. My understanding is that in
traditional share cropping and in other things related to it (like music), the
"freedmen" still bore "equity risk"

~~~
hyperpape
Not to mention that the system was propped up by organized violence and the
corruption of the legal system
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping#United_States>). This isn't a bad
post, but the sharecropper simile kinda stinks.

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raverbashing
This is very insightful, but see:

"Then Facebook announced that for all your best efforts to drive organic
engagement, the reality is that only about 15 percent of your content would
actually be visible to those people who had specifically requested (through
“liking” you) to see your updates."

From the perception of someone saying they "like" something, that (in the
origins of Facebook) was exactly that, and not a way to connect to a post
stream

So what FB is doing there is preventing a single (tenant) entity from ruining
the experience, and this is laudable.

FB don't want to die a death by a thousand cuts (or cat pictures, or 'reshare
if you want Jesus in your life', etc, etc)

So if they are showing it by relevance this is important.

Of course the opposite happens as well, like in G+, that is so feud like, only
_the most popular_ content ends up there, so you may have the long tail, the
most popular content and a gaping hole in the middle

~~~
notahacker
Exactly.

If the first argument for Facebook being evil you think of is "They filter
marketing messages I hoped to be able to bombard users with at no cost,
irrespective of whether they actually showed any interest beyond once clicking
a like button" you're probably worse than them...

~~~
codva
If you didn't want to actually see the updates from a page you liked it was
(is?) simple enough to mute it in your newsfeed. It's not different than
emails from a website where you bought something. If the emails are occasional
and even relevant, you'll probably let them be. If they spam you every 3rd
day, you'll unsubscribe. If anything, rate limiting the updates from pages
only encourages them to post more often, in hopes of getting through to more
people.

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octaveguin
App stores seem like an even bigger 'sharecropper'. Giving 30% for what?

The biggest point is advertisement - or was. Now that the app stores are
saturated, you absolutely need to market your app independently. Its as if you
have a website that has been given to you by apple/google and they allow you
to make money off of it if you pay them annually and cut them in for 30% of
revenue.

~~~
dageshi
I think you're paying 30% for someone else to handle all the payment
processing and delivery crud that you'd otherwise have to handle yourself.
That stuff isn't necessarily easy or cheap especially when you get fraud +
chargebacks involved.

So I do certainly think Apple and the other app stores are doing something for
their money.

~~~
vanderZwan
If blurb.com can make a profit selling your ebooks and keeping only 20%, I'm
pretty sure that we're being overcharged _at least_ 10%.

<http://www.blurb.com/sell-your-book>

 _"Earn money when people buy your book: you keep 100% of your markup for a
print book or PDF, or 80% of the price you set for an ebook"_

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leephillips
I guess it needed to be said, and was said very well here. But it always
seemed so clear to me - when I see a business trying to promote itself by
advertising its Facebook page, the mistake is so glaringly obvious. You're not
promoting your business, you're promoting Facebook. Get your own website.

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jwwest
The problem that we all face, especially when we're new is that of discovery.
Until you reach a certain level of notoreity online, creating your own little
sandbox doesn't make sense. I could create a little programming blog, host it
myself and revel in the twelve hits per day, or start a coderwall account and
start showing up in targeted searches right away. Is Coderwall taking
advantage of me in order to sell job listings? No, there's an equal trade of
exposure - at least to start.

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cybernomad99
The owner of a website can set whatever policies they please. But the users
can vote with their feet. They can always move to other places with a set of
more agreeable rules. Give it a couple of more years, you will see average joe
will be able to manage their own websites, and they can host their pictures
and writings on their own website, and grant access and set all sorts of
privacy levels with their lists of friends of different levels. They will not
need to join any social network. And they will have their full control of
their "40 acres". Until then, they have to subject themselves to the
restrictions of the site owner.

Someone will make a tool to make managing user's own digital asset and content
so easy as to disrupt the current social network business model. We already
see the trend with all the "cloud computing" thing...

I started a free classifieds website ( <http://www.houseofnothing.com> ) out
of similar frustration, and with similar goal that I will place as little as
possible restrictions on the content a user can post. I encourage my users to
be tolerant and open-minded, and respect the freedom of expression of others.
I even had the thought of placing it under public control. But I am not sure
how that will work.

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Hitchhiker
<http://www.jaronlanier.com/gadgetwebresources.html>

<http://futureoftheinternet.org>

[http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-
Reputation/...](http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-
Reputation/text.htm)

