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Comment by TheAceOfHearts | Hacker News Reader

Long overdue, there should really be an open standard for wireless sharing of files. Windows? macOS? Linux? Android? iOS? Switch2? PS5? Doesn't matter, just open the wireless file transfer window and it should just work. Having to install third-party apps for such basic functionality is ridiculous.

If we had a functional government every major tech CEO would get called by congress, grilled about this bullshit, and told to sort it out unless they want to get some bullshit legislation shoved down their throat.

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I am with you. How is it that in the past we got major successes like TCP/IP, 802.3, HTTP and WiFi but somehow in the past decade big tech decided that was too much collaboration and it would be better for everyone to stop doing that?

> big tech

That's why.

TCP/IP was DARPA, so publicly (taxpayer) funded. The first HTTPd was public domain. WiFi was a bit of a combo of Vic Hayes & Bell Labs, IEEE and a research org so not exactly a public or public domain project.

Big tech and profit/rent seeking is literally the problem. Things don't interoperate because it's not profitable for them to interoperate.

We stopped undertaking large public works projects in tech and outsourced it all to private companies. Big tech is literally the problem.

This is why free and open source software is so important.

How different would things look if httpd wasn't public domain, and Tim instead started a tech company, made it proprietary, etc.

So does this constitute an example that the liberal ideal of companies competing for the best product -with no or minimal amount of public money forced to go this way for public development- ends up becoming basically a miserable and lacking experience for end users during decades? (admittedly it sounds to me like if private companies had invented TCP-IP, the consequences would basically be terrible connectivity products nowadays)

I don't necessarily think so. It doesn't have to be this way. The problem is big tech doesn't have any incentive to compete to make the best product because there's no market pressure to do so.

We've failed, over the past ~25+ years to do any meaningful trust busting and allowed monopolies and duopolies to abuse their market positions and destroy any potential competitors.

Seriously this should be a thing. Would be so much easier.

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