Do platforms work?
aeon.co
aeon.co
Thats definitely still true today, but 10-15 years ago we didnt have this convergence of platforms so much. Instead all these communities existed on sites of their own with closer control of their space. The problem today is that everyone is thrown into one bucket, and everyone in that bucket is looking at one another and obsessing over current events (poorly) and using their real names. Platforms are like monoculture farming, and the more decentralized internet of the recent past was more like smaller gardens tended by loving gardeners. Sure, the new internet is more productive, but we can't say its the same thing as the diverse, small garden.
Second hand shops, DIY car shops, allotment garden owner association
Main difference that IT provides is that it is now more practical to outsource core, everyday transactions that your life/business depend on, because somebody else can do the matchmaking and bookkeeping.
The author must be living on another planet. He's describing the present as if it were the future. The arguments used to oppose the present are to decentralize and disrupt the economic powers of today, as if some other kind of system is possible. These writers suffer from short-sightedness in their vision in that the solution they propose becomes that which is already here today.
Ironically enough, local governments used to be the platform of the past. Local businesses and houses would pay taxes so that roads and police would be maintained. Lives would be lived and business would be done.
Now the town just wants to overtax and overregulate certain things (speed cameras), just like how Amazon has a policy of usually siding with the buyer unless the stars allign
In my suburban town, the taxes mostly go towards teacher and police salaries. Not much go towards plowing, or etc.
I'm only here because my job is here. If I was able to work remotely, I would move to a patch of desert in Arizona where property taxes are like $200 a year, not $10,000 haha.
It's mostly a case of me not requiring these services. The only government service I've ever willingly used is unemployment insurance, which, I'd rather just not pay income tax instead like they do in New Hampshire.
From my perspective, it seems obvious that education is one of the best investments you can make in society, whether or not you have children. After all, it won't be long until those kids are running for office, managing corporations, etc etc. So it affects us all.
There are towns and counties in the US that have absolutely no services whatsoever, and no crime occurs there. This is because they are not densely populated at all. Sure there are no jobs and nothing fun to do at night, but they are quiet and peaceful, and property taxes are quite literally $200 a year or less. Think of the desert of Arizona or New Mexico.
Then you have your mid-tier towns and counties that have taxes of maybe $1,000 - $3,000 a year, theres some crime, some jobs, overall not a bad place to live for the price still. Think of South Carolina, Vermont, etc.
And then you have your ridiculously overpriced, dense suburbs and cities. Long Island and New Jersey come to mind, where taxes on nearly any kind of house are $10,000 and up. It's not necessarily easy to find a good job to pay the mortgage, and you're paying those taxes whether you have kids in school or not.
I'll take South Carolina or Arizona, please. My gf and I just simply don't want kids and aren't afraid to live without services.
Private fire services would be a thing in a governmentless society
Why should I be forced to pay someones salary?
"The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."
Twitter has proven itself untrustworthy, whereas Salesforce has created a thriving platform.
Dominant platforms can leverage their network effect to abuse customers for a little while. But they face competition and disruption if they keep it up, since users are generally more mobile between platforms than between governments.
Bring on the platforms-as-regulators! But, please also regulate the platforms so they don't externalize costs to the rest of society.
I wonder to what extent that's inherent, and to what extent it's accidental due to regulation making employees more expensive than they ought to be. Is what's happening to regular employment now akin to what happened to the household-service industry in the mid-20th century? Then, payroll taxes & regulatory compliance made it less & less efficient for individuals to hire their own service staff (at full- or part-time) than previously, and as a result relatively few folks have hired help nowadays.
It'd be pretty unfortunate if all industries, not just household service, were so impacted.