> as tech platforms eliminated competition, captured their regulators and expanded their IP rights so that interoperability was no longer a threat, they became too big to care whether any of their stakeholders were happy. First they came for the users, sure, but then they turned on the publishers, the advertisers, and finally, even their once-pampered tech workers
I take this to be the crucial and correct part of the article. Customers don't have much leverage over corporations when there's little or no competition. The Apple/Google/Microsoft triopoly controls nearly 100% of the consumer computer operating system market on both mobile and desktop.
Unfortunately, a lot of this article seems exaggerated and cartoonish to me, much like Doctorow's straw man:
> "If you're not paying for the product" is grounded in a cartoonish vision of markets in which "the customer is king" and successful businesses are those who cater to their customers – even at the expense of their workers and suppliers – will succeed.
I think what Doctorow is missing, fundamentally, with the distinction between paying with money and paying with attention is that your attention is strictly limited by the number of hours in a day, can never be recovered when lost, and can never be increased in total amount available. By spending more money, you can increase your economic power in the market, whereas spending more attention is more a sign of weakness than of strength. I'm willing to pay more money for higher quality products with good customer service, but I'm not willing to pay more attention than I already spend. In fact, I'd rather pay more money so that I don't have to waste more time. Money can save you a lot of time in a way that attention spending cannot. I don't deny that attention is a form of market power, but it's the worst, poorest form of market power. Attention (on advertising, for example) is what you spend when you're either too poor to spend money on a product or you feel that a product is not even worth spending money on, which doesn't speak well for that product.
Think in terms of monetary ranges. I can spend 4 figures on a computer, 5 figures on a car, 6 figures on a house. But how much attention can I spend on anything? The range of individual attention is extremely limited. It's not a good market. As another commenter astutely observed, "Getting stuff for free kills markets." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114432 The attention economy should be the exact opposite of what Doctorow wants, because it actually favors the monopolistic BigCos.
> The platforms used to treat us well and now treat us badly. That's not because they were setting a patient trap, luring us in with good treatment in the expectation of locking us in and turning on us. Tech bosses do not have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years.
This is just silly. Yes, tech bosses do in fact have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years. That's literally the business model of most startups. It's so well known and explicit that I'm not sure how Doctorow can even say this with a straight face.
I take this to be the crucial and correct part of the article. Customers don't have much leverage over corporations when there's little or no competition. The Apple/Google/Microsoft triopoly controls nearly 100% of the consumer computer operating system market on both mobile and desktop.
Unfortunately, a lot of this article seems exaggerated and cartoonish to me, much like Doctorow's straw man:
> "If you're not paying for the product" is grounded in a cartoonish vision of markets in which "the customer is king" and successful businesses are those who cater to their customers – even at the expense of their workers and suppliers – will succeed.
I think what Doctorow is missing, fundamentally, with the distinction between paying with money and paying with attention is that your attention is strictly limited by the number of hours in a day, can never be recovered when lost, and can never be increased in total amount available. By spending more money, you can increase your economic power in the market, whereas spending more attention is more a sign of weakness than of strength. I'm willing to pay more money for higher quality products with good customer service, but I'm not willing to pay more attention than I already spend. In fact, I'd rather pay more money so that I don't have to waste more time. Money can save you a lot of time in a way that attention spending cannot. I don't deny that attention is a form of market power, but it's the worst, poorest form of market power. Attention (on advertising, for example) is what you spend when you're either too poor to spend money on a product or you feel that a product is not even worth spending money on, which doesn't speak well for that product.
Think in terms of monetary ranges. I can spend 4 figures on a computer, 5 figures on a car, 6 figures on a house. But how much attention can I spend on anything? The range of individual attention is extremely limited. It's not a good market. As another commenter astutely observed, "Getting stuff for free kills markets." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40114432 The attention economy should be the exact opposite of what Doctorow wants, because it actually favors the monopolistic BigCos.
> The platforms used to treat us well and now treat us badly. That's not because they were setting a patient trap, luring us in with good treatment in the expectation of locking us in and turning on us. Tech bosses do not have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years.
This is just silly. Yes, tech bosses do in fact have the executive function to lie in wait for years and years. That's literally the business model of most startups. It's so well known and explicit that I'm not sure how Doctorow can even say this with a straight face.