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> these big companies operate what amounts to mini-surveillance states and face little to no scrutiny about it

Cynically, the reason for this is that their mini-surveillance states are contributors to a larger, more literal surveillance state; their would-be regulator is benefitting from this part of their behavior.

Some (Yahoo, Verizon, possibly Amazon) look to be actively complicit. But even 'resisters' like Apple are better for surveillance than a decline in online communication or a move to decentralized, E2EE approaches. And in the apocalyptic case, it's useful to encourage reliance on a primary communication channel that can be disabled on demand. The 'kill switch' power is another one that can be borrowed by the actual state.

I agree that rethinking this power distribution is an important move, but it's worth at least retaining an awareness of the cynical narrative: that regulation efforts against tech giants won't touch the areas where these companies are government proxies.

Apple appears to have sold out to the China government and at least Google chose instead to leave.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/10/technology/apple-china-iclou... Apple: iCloud in China will be run by a state-owned company - Jan ...

So did AWS: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/13/aws-exits-china/

If you want to have any technology business in china, that is your only option. Facebook, Google, Uber and many more have all failed because china won't let a foreign company win own huge technological market/data.

>>if , e.g. Apple or Google actually _were_evil

Sean Parker on Facebook (and other Social Media giants) exploiting dopamine triggers and psychological drives for social validation: "[We're] exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology ... [The inventors] understood this, consciously, and we did it anyway." [0]

https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-on...

Isn't that a fancy way of saying they are making their product do things that people enjoy, so that people will use the product?

This reminds me of the time I once had a chance encounter with Richard Feynman and was able to solve right there for him a particular instance of the local labeling problem in applied chronometrics that had stumped him.

(Less fancy version: Feynman asked what time it was. I looked at my watch and told him).

No it’s not.

Unless you think of a heroin addict as simply ‘enjoying a well designed product’.

sharing photos with your aunt is not like heroin

Facilitating mass consumerism in the face of ecological self-destruction by manipulating billions of people's emotions and consciousness using the most powerful advertising machine in history, is a little bit like the self-destruction caused by heroin

> sharing photos with your aunt is not like heroin

That's missing the point entirely. You can say heroin is a "well designed products" because it's users enjoy its immediate effects and keep coming back for more. That characterization is misleading because it leaves out all the downsides, including addiction. Similarly...

>> Isn't that a fancy way of saying they are making their product do things that people enjoy, so that people will use the product?

...is a misleading characterization for exactly the same reason.

Try flipping it; they could be trying to make their people enjoy things that their product does.

>Isn't that a fancy way of saying they are making their product do things that people enjoy

Humans have a tendency (called "hyperbolic discounting" in the literature) to choose a small immediate reward over a larger delayed reward. In this case, the small immediate reward is reading an interesting post on Facebook, and the delayed reward is... pretty much anything else.

If we're lucky, people will become aware of this bias and start making better decisions, by designing their life to align their available immediate rewards with their choice of distant rewards.

This is basically what things like Fitbits do -- provide small immediate rewards (number of steps going up!) that align with your desired larger distant reward (being in shape).

Or the very notion of "getting off Facebook" -- increasing the personal effort/mental distance required to claim a small reward that does not align with a more distant goal.

The reason this is particularly challenging is that "the Internet" is very useful for doing things that do align with our legitimate, long-term goals, but once the Internet is available, the distance to "Facebook rewards" is low.

It might be interesting if Facebook, as a response to this backlash, finds a way to offer short term rewards that do align with your long-term goals...

Not necessarily, no.

Dopamine is involved in much more than enjoyment; importantly it is also spiked in "near misses" (think a card away from a royal flush) and excessive amounts are seemingly related to paranoia. And this is only from one of the pathways that dopamine affects; it is also linked to other aspects of cognitive function that play a role in attention and addiction (and various other parts of the brain).

Thus, a product that triggers dopamine responses isn't necessarily nefarious in and of itself. Indeed, an application that triggers dopamine response initially does so through mostly positive things (connecting with friends, sharing a story people like, winning at a roulette wheel). However, it's questionable when you start leveraging the power of dopamine to enforce attention, feed paranoia, and drive addiction; things like making sure people win often enough that they don't realize how much they're losing.

>> Social Media giants) exploiting dopamine triggers and psychological drives for social validation

> Isn't that a fancy way of saying they are making their product do things that people enjoy, so that people will use the product?

No, It's actually a fancy way of saying they design their products to be addictive, like slot machines are for many people. It's not true enjoyment, but mindless engagement exploited for profit.

It's not true enjoyment, but mindless engagement exploited for profit.

Slot machines are "enjoyment" for many millions.

It's a tightrope walk that doesn't really lead anywhere constructive to try and make a judgement between good, bad and "true" enjoyment. Unfortunately because it's so subjective and laden with judgement calls, you'll never settle on a definition for what is and is not a "true" form or enjoyment.

I don't really agree with that. Maybe that's true if you try to come up with a positive and universal definition of true enjoyment, but I think it's totally possible to rope off areas that are clearly not it. Those areas would include slot machines and much of social networking that resembles them.

I think arguments against drawing distinctions between good and bad (e.g. "who are you to say that slot machines aren't true enjoyment") often tend to just serve to distract people from confronting real problems. I'm sure they're well-liked by the gambling industry and others who profit from those problems. Not to say that was your indention or that you were approaching this in bad faith.

I'm really trying to get better with my discussion here, so what in my post could have been considered arguing in "bad faith?" I'm not trying to trick anyone into something here, I'm being pretty explicit about my POV.

I think it's totally possible to rope off areas that are clearly not it.

My point is that I think it might be locally possible for small enough groups, but for what we're talking about with whole swaths of industries like social media not only isn't it possible, it's likely misguided.

He said he didn’t believe you were arguing in bad faith.

If you want to know what _could_ be said to be arguing in bad faith was basically an assertion that was close to “we’ll never know what is truly good or evil because it’s so subjective”. It could be seen as attempting to escape hatch in to the “great unknowables” so you “win” the debate.

“we’ll never know what is truly good or evil because it’s so subjective”

That's my genuine philosophical position though. Existential nihilism is a valid and well thought out epistemic position.

So does that still count as bad faith? It's not rhetorical juke, it's a philosophy.

> I'm really trying to get better with my discussion here, so what in my post could have been considered arguing in "bad faith?" I'm not trying to trick anyone into something here, I'm being pretty explicit about my POV.

Just to be clear, I didn't think you were arguing in bad faith.

However, if I were a casino owner trying to answer criticism of slot machines, I'd go straight to the argument that "enjoyment is subjective" and "who is the critic to judge," whether I really believed it or not. That's because I'd be looking to deflect the true criticism, because I like making money from them and am unconcerned with the truth or good social policy. That would be bad faith.

Those arguments basically amount to "stop searching for the truth, no criticism allowed," so I think they're usually invalid at the current level of discussion, even though they have some truth at a different level.

Thanks for the response. I can see how it would seem to be a dodge type of a response.

Thoughtfully however, I argue that the statements you offer:

"enjoyment is subjective" and "who is the critic to judge,"

...are both valid positions and ones that I hold axiomatically true. So I'm genuinely saying that, although I personally find casinos irreducibly depressing from my subjective perspective, there exist people who find the same level of "happiness", "enjoyment" and "joy" - broadly defined - from slot machines as from any other activity.

>> "enjoyment is subjective" and "who is the critic to judge,"

> ...are both valid positions and ones that I hold axiomatically true.

Maybe in some cases, but I don't think it's correct axiomatically assume every repeated behavior labeled as "entertainment" is one that at least someone "enjoys."

> there exist people who find the same level of "happiness", "enjoyment" and "joy" - broadly defined - from slot machines as from any other activity.

I think that's an assumption, and I'm pretty skeptical of it, personally. I have not doubt there are people who genuinely enjoy other types of gambling (e.g. poker), but I doubt slot machines are anything better than an expensive distraction. They're just profitable Skinner boxes [1] that use variable-ratio positive reinforcement [2] to attempt to create a lasting habit that's resistant to "extinction" [3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber#C...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Simple_schedules

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)

There is a category error though I think that gets conflated in these types of evaluations. For example you say "genuinely enjoy" - which makes a distinction between something which is not "genuine." This is the same philosophical distinction between epicureanism and hedonism. The former is claimed to be long term and holistic, the latter claimed as short term and vapid.

However making such distinctions are laced with cultural and other value based backgrounds.

The idea that an "expensive distraction" in the form of a slot machine is not happiness in the same way as Poker typifies this conflation.

You can also try and evaluate it from a utilitarian perspective. Perhaps the enjoyment from hitting a huge jackpot is several magnitudes greater than winning a pot of poker. It's also possible that the sadness from consecutively losing at slots is greater than the sadness from losing a single pot of Poker. Also there is a utility calculation in there for people who like strategy vs people who don't etc...

So I think it's impossible to say that poker (or whatever) is objectively better than slots (or whatever) because it scratches certain itches more or less.

It's also true that you can try and analyze second third etc... order effects of these things and evaluate the impact positively or negatively. Again though, it's a value trap and there is context that may tip the scales one way or another for a given scenario.

One way I think of this is with drug addicts. For a large percentage of hard drug addicts, they will substitute doing eg. Heroin, for being addicted to Caffeine, Cigarettes and support group meetings. Socially we view this as a positive substitution because the user is now using socially acceptable forms of addiction and have lowered their support of an illicit market, are less likely to die from an overdose etc... again though "dying of an overdose" isn't objectively a bad thing, it's a socially and contextually bad thing. Doug Stanhope's mom famously died of a controlled overdose at a "goodbye party" as her way of committing suicide. Everyone at the party knew it was happening and supported it, so the context was different and thus it was acceptable.

I think it's fine to add a value judgment onto how you interpret certain behaviors in the context of your personal code. However we as a species don't have a collectively agreed upon code of ethics. We are generally groomed and forced into the social code that we're brought up in. So to mandate morality is just reinforcing an arbitrary social code. You can try and get evolutionary biology on things, in terms of social codes driving "fitness" etc...however I feel the fitness argument seems to have diverged long ago from a social structure perspective. The most intelligent and "woke" people are having the least amount of babies.

but than Sean Parker never gave back the millions he earned via past Facebook impl's...so his point is somewhat entirely hollow.. Its like a gun manufacturer saying automatics are bad but still making them

Instead of giving back, I'd agree if he paid (even some of) it forward and created an anti-FB/Goog/etc group that fought and lobbied for changes.

FB can withstand occasional bad press, but they can't withstand divestiture. I imagine Zuck's knives would come out in full force if Parker announced he was engaging your suggestion.

Interesting. So what would the "knives coming out" look like?

Likely a PR campaign, which wouldn't have his name on the byline, natch.

What's even more hypocritical is how the psychological foundations of their business model are never mentioned at launch, but out they come when FB has to justify something or are being criticized (as in Parker's instance). It's always after the fact, even though they are undoubtedly employing experts in the field to develop their features.

> but than Sean Parker never gave back the millions he earned via past Facebook impl's...so his point is somewhat entirely hollow..

That's not true at all. His explicit confession makes what once could only be speculation something much closer to a believable truth, which means people can do more about it. Chiding him for not donning sack-cloth in penance just undermines what good his statements could do.

> Its like a gun manufacturer saying automatics are bad but still making them

Does he even still work for them?

Am I mistaken in my impression that the bulk of innovation actually happens outside of titans, which the titans then buy? So even hamstringing them wouldn't actually stifle innovation?

It would seem like it. In terms of innovative research, it doesn’t seem like, say, Google Research is so much more productive than your average prestigious research university (albeit possessing perhaps a different set of focus areas). Similarly, when it comes to improvements on technical infrastructure, it seems Google plays a large role, but not an exceptionally large one, which makes sense by virtue of their massive deployments and having the capital to hire good engineers. Still, this doesn’t seem so outsized—Meltdown/Spectre weren’t discovered solely by Google, for example.

On the other hand, when it comes to product innovation, it definitely seems like the bulk of it happens, as you said, outside titans. Again picking on Google (sorry), V8, Google Docs, Google Maps, YouTube, and Android were all acquisitions! And though Google acquiring them might certainly have given them large amounts of resources to expand (e.g. subsidizing YouTube), there is definitely the question of stifling innovation and competition. Consider TinEye, who first published reverse image search; later Google just poured engineers onto their own reverse image search platform and copied it.

I think you can see the same dynamic with Facebook copying Snapchat features. It doesn’t seem like a healthy market.

EDIT: V8 might be better characterized as the product of an acquihire, actually. It might not fit with the rest of the list, which were all literally acquisitions of products developed outside Google.

> Consider TinEye, who first published reverse image search; later Google just poured engineers onto their own reverse image search platform and copied it.

I occasionally need to reverse-look-up images (mostly album covers without names) and tineye, in my personal experience, is vastly better. It finds matches for the exact image, with good context, etc. Google usually does pretty OK at finding similar images, but is less fantastic on matches, and if so those are joined in the noise of other 'close images'.

To get back on topic: google is best at pretending they're the best. in my experience there's better reverse lookups. ddg is less 'fuzzy', but offers a much better experience with !bangs, and because of the non-fuzziness they're quite good at finding things when you know more or less what text you're looking for. OSM is often better at local details, especially in smaller/rural areas.

Point being: google can throw whatever they want out there, and people will use it, and google says it's the best so people believe it. Because it's on their phones, because google suggests it, etc. I think the EU has a good point with their anti-trust/android business.

> Consider TinEye, who first published reverse image search; later Google just poured engineers onto their own reverse image search platform and copied it

If Google's product was better, wouldn't that mean it increased competition and innovation?

I think it’s a comparable situation to dumping[1]. Google can attract users from TinEye by virtue of their brand alone and subsidize their own product even if it is unprofitable. The result is that in the long term TinEye is unable to compete and disappears, after which point Google has no incentive to improve their service. The only entities left that can compete are other titans.

It also is a distortion in that it discourages investment into technical innovation if you are trying to make money as a non-titan—-why even bother if Google will just come along and copy your product then give it away for free (to drive traffic to Google search)?

There is still the potential of innovation in this case from academic researchers, who might not care about commercialization. But such a situation where individuals cannot hope to compete and where research just feeds into titans would be pretty awful.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

I think you're neglecting the effect corporate backing can have on encouraging research from people who are less startup-minded and more I-like-knowing-I'll-have-food-on-the-table-minded.

Depends, looking at Google specifically, Spanner is pretty cool, and Google Brain has been a huge source of innovation for a while. There's a thread about BeyondCorp on the frontpage right now. As far as I know, all of those things were not acquisitions.

I personally find the whole "companies don't innovate, they acquire" argument weak at its core. You hear about the acquisitions obviously, and can see them develop into products.

Sure, there are apparently 5 or 6 acquisitions involved with Google Docs, but the existence of an acquisition doesn't mean that the acquiring company wasn't able to innovate, or whatnot, it may mean that they had complimentary technology, or were working toward different goals, or its simply a buyout of a potential competitor.

Buying out competitors is anti-competetive

I made no comment on anything about competitiveness or lack-thereof. This is a non-sequitor.

I know, I am neither directly agreeing or disagreeing with anything you said - no need through the fallacy book at me. I just wanted to point out that the issue is deeper than just "innovate vs. acquire." The extra dimension is that we don't often get to see what the market would come up with in terms of competition because after a certain size, there is no competition.

If you hamstring them, they're less profitable, so they have less to spend on acquisitions, so the expected value of creating an innovative startup decreases.

In large part, those startups would never be profitable on their own, and so rely on the tech giants in order to pay back investors. The investors, in turn, only invest because they believe the startup will be bought out. The viability of the startup thereby relies on the giant.

> These entities don't need to be somehow (gently) "restrained", but as a civilization we need to rethink the power we've ceded to them at a very fundamental level, or we risk growing ever weaker and more dependent on them.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on all the points you made, but I'm a bit weary for this one, especially using the term 'ceded'. Have we really ceded power to Apple/Google/Amazon/Facebook or have they simply 'won' the capitalism game? If they won, do we penalize them for winning? Can we force a breakup of these Tech Titans into independent companies (something akin to the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932 [1] or the breakup of Standard oil in 1911 [2]) or would that stifle the amazing innovation these companies put out regularly?

If we have indeed ceded power, then what is our recourse? Legislation? By whom? Many of these companies are arguably working for the same government that is in the best place to enact such regulations, as shown in the Snowden leaks.

I don't know what the best answer is, perhaps we need to wait out a few generations to get policy makers that actually understand what the internet is and the implications of digital monopolies. Perhaps the answer is less pessimistic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_legisla... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller

This argument is misapplied to tech companies. Replace Google with Exxon or Coca Cola or Boeing and the actual threat is greatly magnified.

The point about cyber attack is a good example - in the real world, it is decidely non-tech companies and government institutions that suffer the most harmful cyber attacks.

Your central point about power is sound however. The reason we should be worried is these companies actually shape how we live in many ways, and we are not in control, or rather nobody is.

This is a great comment. I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusions, but I like the argument and I’m impressed it’s being presented dispassionately. It’s tiring to see breathless anti-big company rants or conspiracy theories about dystopian surveillance state involvement. But I find your point about power imbalances to be pretty compelling - both in principle and in your neutral presentation.