[__MatrixMan__]

If a buyer has access to the stored knowledge of trusted peers--peers who have knowledge of trustworthy sellers--supply can meet demand without involving an arms race between predatory middlemen.

The modern web was designed by predatory middlemen who want a cut of transactions they otherwise have no business being involved in. It's a textbook case of rentier capitalism.

So what needs to change is that we need to identify the design decisions made by those middlemen, rip them out root and branch, and fix the gaps with something that takes as an input the trust graph of the users so that the only way the middlemen can stay relevant is to personally gain the trust of each user whose transaction they've gotten in the middle of, and we need to publish the result as a protocol, not a platform, so it can be used without us (the authors of the protocol) being at risk of becoming the problem we're trying to solve.

[gruez]

>It's a textbook case of rentier capitalism.

I don't get it, is google blocking people from making or requesting word of mouth referrals? Or are people switching to google ads because it's more convenient? It just sounds like you're using "rentier capitalism" to describe companies you don't like.

[__MatrixMan__]

Well yes, that is my main reason for disliking companies. And yes, google weighs in on browser standards in myriad ways which gives themseves and companies like them the ability to elevate the preferences of their customers above the preferences of their users.

It would be nice to block them from doing so, but the real fix is to give those users something better to use. Not much has gone into using technology to amplify the innate peer-to-peer trust/distrust mechanisms that we've spent millenia evolving such that they scale to the demands of our times, and quite a lot (thanks to google and friends) has gone into suppressing them.

[gruez]

>Well yes, that is my main reason for disliking companies. And yes, google weighs in on browser standards in myriad ways which gives themseves and companies like them the ability to elevate the preferences of their customers above the preferences of their users.

What does google's control over web standards have to do with the death of word of mouth referrals? You might not like FLoC or webusb but those aren't the reasons why everyone doesn't bother with word of mouth referrals to hire cleaners.

[__MatrixMan__]

I'm watching a video sent to me by somebody I trust, and it stops to show me a video about the same topic made by somebody I don't trust, an interference which was targeted by--and an interference that I'm discouraged from preventing by--those standards. The connection is quite direct.

Now I don't know if there are any home cleaners that attempt to reach a wider audience on YouTube. Maybe there's a different medium that might suit their business better. But whatever it is, if it tries to be faster than meatspace gossip, there's some advertising platform selling the ability to interfere with it.

[nextaccountic]

Google ads is a local optima for companies but not for consumers. The trouble is, for Google, the customers are the companies buying ads, not the people browsing the web. It's a classic example of not paying for your externalities

That Google isn't blocking a better model doesn't mean they aren't at fault. Ads are like pollution for our minds, we need a better web

[gruez]

>Google ads is a local optima for companies but not for consumers.

Are you sure you don't have it reversed? Companies would be quite happy if they could enter into some sort of no advertising pact so they don't have to spend any money on ads at all.

>The trouble is, for Google, the customers are the companies buying ads, not the people browsing the web. It's a classic example of not paying for your externalities

No, it's fully internalized, because consumers are getting free content (ie. sites where the ads are placed) and services (eg. gmail) in exchange. I'd be far more sympathetic to your claims of "externalities" if google stuffed its ads into your computer like junk mail makes its way into your mailbox.

[nextaccountic]

> Are you sure you don't have it reversed? Companies would be quite happy if they could enter into some sort of no advertising pact so they don't have to spend any money on ads at all.

That's why it's a local optimum. Any company that try to unilaterally leave advertising will be punished. The global optimum would be no advertising at all, of course.

Anyway the people are already fighting back. I block ads everywhere, at least.