

Trickle‐down technology and why it doesn’t work - achalkley
http://aralbalkan.com/notes/trickle-down-technology/

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yummyfajitas
_Does trickle down economics work? Given that 1% of America has 40% of the
nation’s wealth, the answer is no, it doesn’t._

This is a fallacy based on a complete misunderstanding of trickle down
economics. The premise of trickle down economics is that a rising tide lifts
all boats, which has occurred. The poor today are considerably richer than
even the middle class of earlier eras.

The same applies to technology. Open source may not be directly used by
consumers in the same manner, but it does directly enable those who do target
consumers. For example, historically, a company building a product targeted
directly at end consumers based on ease of use would need to devote an entire
team to building their own webserver
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOLserver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOLserver)).
Nowadays that same organization just uses apache (built by enthusiasts) and
the team of engineers no longer devoted to building a webserver instead builds
something useful for the consumer.

~~~
engrenage
Richer because of a few consumer products that didn't exist in earlier eras?

~~~
hga
Richer because they by and large aren't worried about access to clean water,
where their next meal will come from, or having a roof over their head when
they sleep. Their transportation and entertainment options are essentially no
worse than those of "the rich", if they go to an emergency room they must get
treatment, etc. etc. etc.

(Please don't go into a riff about the homeless before you subtract the
mentally ill that have been dumped on the streets, plus addiction is a big,
but not at all new, problem.)

~~~
engrenage
The poor don't have to worry about where their next meal will come from
anymore?

~~~
hga
I said "by and large" they don't have to worry. At least worry about starving;
elsewhere I noted the concern today is about "food insecurity", and a bigger
concern is obesity.

The latter tells me things are qualitatively different. And that's in a very
short time, my parent's lifetime, for they were born during the Great
Depression. Probably even mine, e.g. the modern Food Stamp program began
shortly after I was born.

~~~
engrenage
Ubiquitous access to food that causes disease does not make 'The poor of today
better of than the middle class of the past'.

~~~
hga
Using the toxicologists' maxim " _" All things are poison and nothing is
without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison._" (normally " _The
dose makes the poison_ "), is there _any_ food that does not/can not cause
disease?

~~~
engrenage
So all food is equivalent! Following your maxim, we can replace food stamps
with an unlimited supply of strychnine and just let people choose a healthy
dose for themselves.

~~~
hga
You're welcome to show me (I'm from Missouri) where anyone has seriously
suggested strychnine or other "official" poisons are foods.

Which is very different from e.g. pointing out that while strychnine has an
human LD50 of 1-2 mg/kg, " _In low dosages, strychnine can act as a stimulant
and has been used by athletes to enhance their performance._ " followed by a
couple of Olympic examples in 1904 and 1992
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine)).

~~~
engrenage
That was an absurd comment, meant to illustrate how meaningless it is to say
'anything is poisonous in the right dose' in a thread about whether the poor
today are better off than the middle classes of some past era.

------
jeffdavis
This doesn't seem like a good analysis to me. How many consumers use Linux?
Let's see, how many Android devices are there? And what about Firefox?

And then he cites the internet as an example, but dismisses it for no apparent
reason.

The article reads as very condescending to engineers/technologists. It seems
like the author thinks that technologists are out-of-touch geeks and need his
e enlightened guidance to show them back to civilized society.

And the end makes no sense to me: "own our own data, tools, and derived
intelligence — what I call our digital selves — and avoid becoming a society
of digital serfs". So, he wants things to be so easy to use that you don't
have to know anything about how they work, but he also wants people to be in
control of their digital destiny? It doesn't work like that. Easy to use is
great, but without knowing something about how the technology works you will
always be a slave to it. No matter how rich you are, if you don't even _know
how_ to cook or clean, you will be a slave to your cooks and cleaners.

The only thing he has to offer is "Experience Driven Open-Source", which is
incredibly vague. I say, go for it, as long as you aren't asking for my money
to do it. I hope it produces some amazing things.

(I set aside the political garbage at the beginning of the article.)

~~~
xlayn
"So, he wants things to be so easy to use that you don't have to know anything
about how they work" That's half part of the flawed argument, even it happens
you should be able to use it for some purpose, so that's another part that
should magically happen.

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Tycho
The reason stated for why trickle down economics isn't working is a non-
sequitur, kind of undermines the credibility of the rest of the article. As to
the main premise, I mean, open source is obviously a huge bonus to all the
freelancers and startups and indie devs, not to mention the proliferation of
Android smart phones. I think it clearly is 'trickling down', maybe just not
as _totally_ as the author would like.

------
xlayn
So much to discuss here: 1) hard numbers; where do I confirm everything you
are saying, analogy to economy does not make it true (nor are you proving that
the first concept it's true) 2) if you create something specific to A,
expecting it to adapt to B magically is wrong, C has to adapt it bringing more
work to the flow 3) "Consumers, on the other hand, rarely care about the
technology itself but focus instead on what the technology enables them to
achieve." Sure, but that would also mean that they are not interested in the
enabled features by it so was it interested on the technology or whatever it
enabled or not? 4) " How many non‐enthusiasts do you know who use Linux (and
who don’t live with an enthusiast who set it up for them and fixes it for them
when something goes wrong?)" All android users

What if the problem it's actually that there is no goal, therefore tech is
irrelevant?

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bslatkin
"Experimentation by enthusiasts is of great value and usually results in the
creation of great infrastructure. However, we also need people and companies
focused on meeting the needs of consumers."

Nuanced argument.

