For Us and from Us

in LeoFinance3 years ago

I don't know if other people have been watching this, but the Australian government has been working on legislation that will force Google and Facebook to pay for news content that appears on their sites. Google's response so far has been to threaten a removal of services to the Australian users, with the latest supposedly having them pull Google Search out of Australia all together.

That would be a shame.

I think that this trend is going to continue, where original content is going to demand to be rewarded for appearing on other platforms, where it is used to generate clicks and therefore profits, with none being returned back to the source. This is of course a large problem for media outlets as a whole and they themselves have been forced into creating paywalls in order generate income, whereas the "free" services can effectively steal content and use it as a hook to hang their advertising revenues upon.

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While I am not overly sympathetic toward media outlets themselves, this does further raise the profile of the pushback against the "free internet", which generates a massive amount of wealth, but doesn't actually distribute much of it back to the people who create the content itself. The web 2.0 model of digital content is highly flawed and it has given rise to the likes of Google and Facebook, giving them a great deal more power than any handful of companies should have. their power not only comes through their ability to generate advertising revenue, it also comes through their ability to finely slice market segments and drive content that makes them more revenue.

It is not that we are just the product, it is that we are also the tool of dissemination and spread, a tool that they do not have to pay for in any way, other than to provide a platform to create and share. While we are encouraged to build our base and share our lives and the content we consider important to us (often suggested content), we are not encouraged to actually take ownership of our experience.

Some people have in the past not fully grasped what "owning experience" on Hive is, but it means more than just having some stake or choosing which frontend is used, it is about unique account ownership, the ability to build what one wants, full access to the blockchain data and of course, the ability to move "freely" in many ways without having to fear losing content or followership to an authority. The centralized platforms encourage content to be created, but as soon as that content encroaches on their potential to earn, it will be unceremoniously buried, removed and replaced. A user has no recourse because they have no rights, as they do not own their account, therefore, they do not own their experience.

Essentially however, we are all micro media outlets that are generating some level of activity through our content, which means that if the media outlets get paid for their content, we all should be paid for ours. Of course, this doesn't work for the centralized platforms because their entire business model hinges on getting the majority of their content for free. If they did have to pay even fractions of cents for the content, their model collapses - not because they can't do it, but they lose their ability to generate the kinds of profits that attract investors.

Profit sharing is great for distribution and far better for a more balanced economy, but it isn't attractive for a passive investment model, when that profit predominantly goes to active participants. If you imagine that a publicly listed company chooses to take 50% of its profits and distribute them to employees, would it provide a high enough ROI for an investor, or will they go elsewhere.

If you consider that when a company restructures and fires people (with the reasoning of underperformance), the share price actually goes up, it is obvious that most investors do not care for health of the people and economy, they care for ROI for themselves. While sometimes those things are aligned, often they are not, as the incentive for profit outweighs the incentive to generate profit sustainably. If the disincentives were strong enough in what was seen as harmful, the incentive that offered the better ROI will attract the activity. We saw this with the introduction of downvotes and 50/50 curation on Hive, where the disincentive to buy and sell votes, made the incentive to vote content more attractive for ROI.

Google's move to "ban" access to Google Search is essentially the same thing that a state like Chine might do - "Do what we say, or we will punish you". It is fast becoming a negotiation with informational terrorists, but it has to happen and the more countries that start to change legislation to improve the reward model for creators, the better. Of course, this is not the end of the conversation, it is just the beginning.

Eventually, the discussion has to keep shifting to the point where all content creators have "free access" to earning potential on the internet, rather than a handful of companies being the gateway for all others. The handful of companies will never want to give up that level of control, so the only way to remove their power is to demonetize them by cutting off their supply of free content and then, their ability to attract investments. Once this starts, the ROI for investors decreases and they will naturally look for the best alternatives.

those alternatives are investing into decentralized networks that empower communities to build and share content, as well as share the wealth generated. The return might not be as high as a centralized platform was in the past, but that is no longer available as they now have to pay for content, but are still top-heavy organizational structures that are constantly under the pressure of government legislation and lawsuits, was they are themselves trying to attract wealth.

Google has claimed the legislation would make its Google Search unviable, despite paying just $59m in corporate tax last year while reporting revenues over $4b.

And this is what it all comes down to. A huge part of the profit model of these platforms is the ability to avoid tax, but as the countries start finding ways to better account, they begin to lose their havens. While they can remove service from Australia, a country of only 25 million people, they might be able wear the cost, but how many cuts in profit can they themselves take and, once they do start pulling out of countries, what is going to take their place?

From so many directions now, the big data collectors extracting information and transferring wealth from a million APIs are coming under attack. There is a rebellion taking place and it is only in its infancy, as it gathers momentum and velocity, it starts to increasingly disrupt the solid model they have been able to create and that provides, opportunity.

The opportunity for us and from us.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]

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I discussed this topic in my own post here.
For me, I'm more concerned about the ripple effect and precedent that this conflict will set. If google and Facebook actually walk away from Australia, what would her allies think? What will the cancel culture brigade think? What precedence will it set afterwards?

Both parties(Big tech and news agencies) will take some damage, but I suspect the big tech platforms will have it the worst. News agencies will lose some revenue that came from views generated on FB and google but the big tech loses an entire country's population.

PS: I added my referral link for Presearch, just in case you feel like changing search engine.

I use duckduckgo on Brave,

These groups will tear at each other in ways that will get more and more aggressive and public. It is going to be interesting to see how users react.

Do you also get paid tokens for using it?

Don't think so. There was something in Brave about getting paid BAT to watch ads, but I am not so interested in those kinds of things.

Okay. Presearch is seamless on Brave and you receive PRE tokens for your searches. No clue what the value of each token is worth but it feels nice to get something in return for searching

Eventually, the discussion has to keep shifting to the point where all content creators have "free access" to earning potential on the internet, rather than a handful of companies being the gateway for all others

I kind of feel like it's going back to how it was intended to be from the get go, but I could also not know what it was supposed to be from the get go XD

yeah, I get that feeling too. The internet, the way it was meant to be.

ROI is beginning and end of most corporate companies today, start out with great good intention then you find out why.

Many are starting to question, I know our government said they will be looking into it due to privacy law, unfortunately many small Mom and Pop stores do make a living via Facebook and the likes, hopefully they too are looking to or starting to look into Web 3 and moving away.

Interesting times we are living through, if Australia pull away from Google there will always be other countries to follow.

@tipu curate

Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 84/112) Liquid rewards.

unfortunately many small Mom and Pop stores do make a living via Facebook and the likes, hopefully they too are looking to or starting to look into Web 3 and moving away.

it has to happen at some point. I see it kind of like when a large company fails. In Finland, Nokia (phones division) essentially disappeared overnight, leaving a massive gap in the market and many unemployed. A few years later, the same corporate offices don't have enough rental space due to all the startups expanding. I think similar would happen, though it isn't a comfortable transition.

I think that if Google pulls out of Australia, other countries will put pressure on them, if they compromise, other countries will make demands. Either way, things are going to change for Google.

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As always our government is looking for money and all of the state owned enterprises are going belly up.
There are millions of people here that don't pay TV licenses and a new plan was thumbsucked.
Get all of the service providers to collect the TV license fees from their customers.
Netflix, FB, Google and all of the others must be forced to collect license fees for the government.

Oh! And it will not be called TV licences anymore, as it now includes any device that can receive internet. Mobile phones, laptops etcetera.

Everyone wants their pound of flesh and what ends up happening is that it all gets consumed until it is unsustainable for life.

True and the more middlemen, the higher the prices.
I have the habit of going directly to the manufacturer, or the source and invariably I get things much cheaper.

it is good to get it straight if possible - not mush is available here though.

Yeah and in the past it was much better, as most everything was manufactured here, but then with the new government they allowed China access and they swamped the country with cheap imports.
Thousands of our factories had to close down because they could not compete on price.

This is a great opportunity indeed. While I appreciate Google's fantastic search engine and services like Google Maps, I do think their near monopoly is harmful and that the world would be better served by a more diverse market.

Google is very good at what it does - to the point it is detrimental. I also think that the largest data companies and their advertising revenues needs to change. There are other ways to generate income online than ads, but the model takes all the air from the room.

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Subscriptions and paywalls, I guess. Under high inflation speculation like on HIVE could manage to keep the lights on. But under normal conditions, the justification of investing in HIVE will come down to an income stream generated from services rendered. You only need very little HIVE to use the chain and once you've bought your Hive Power, you're set for life. Chains that have fees like Ethereum are different because you have to pay for each transaction, which means that ETH is an honest utility coin in the sense that the longer you use Ethereum, the more you have to pay and without an upper limit when it comes to the total you pay over a long time. In contrast, without growth of one kind or another, once the speculation on HIVE stops, the token price will enter a death spiral.

The RC model can be adjusted too.

Subscriptions and paywalls, tuition fees and online service management. When it comes down to the applications on Hive, thsmey have to be able to offer something worth paying for.

Exactly.

I think the RC model could work on a pay-as-you-go basis. You wouldn't have to buy and stake HIVE but you'd rent RC's instead.

I think that will be through the RC delegation pools that have been planned. I thpught they were almost ready.

If there did happen to be 100M users in a short time frame, it would only give the average of less than 5 HP each. Obviously, most people with stake aren't going to give theirs up, but they would likely happily rent a little RC out.

I have the feeling crypto will change many traditional web2 digital business models. People will be more conscious about leaving their private information and being "surveyed" by big companies like Google or Facebook. Just a few days ago Fb had to stop its intentions to change WhatsApp policy because many users started migrating into other messaging platforms like Telegram or Signal.

I keep moving away from big company services little by little. Closed my Fb account, switched the browser to Duckduckgo with no surveillance, started using other email services..

I'd recommend anyone to watch The Great Hack documentary to find out how our data is being used and how big digital corporations can influence everything with it.

Just a few days ago Fb had to stop its intentions to change WhatsApp policy because many users started migrating into other messaging platforms like Telegram or Signal.

And this will continue, so hopefully the ones they migrate too don't deliver more of the same under a different name.

I have started the migration, mostly through disue - but I need to close some accounts too.

It was a pretty good documentary overall - nothing new for those who have been paying attention. The Social Dilemma was good for mainstreaming too.

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having them pull Google Search out of Australia all together.

Sounds like I should long presearch.

I am yet to use it, but it doesn't sound like a bad plan. I think this process is going to be long though.

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Where do you trade PRE? I've accumulated a small amount from my searches

Since I discovered Hive and LeoFinance, I noticed I use Google and news even less than before.

I was amazed about the wealth sharing economy behind it, so something in my head clicked and I thought “this is the way to go”.

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It will require an expansion of usecase, as well as an improvement in UX, but it should slowly start making inroads into the current models.