Keeping The Benevolent Dictators Of Silicon Valley Honest

from the is-that-any-way-to-build-an-internet? dept

I don't think I've ever had more people send me a single blog post than a blog post from earlier this week by Rebecca MacKinnon discussing her worries about "Silicon Valley's benevolent dictators." It's an interesting read that brings up some excellent points. It starts off pointing out the rather insular view many folks have in Silicon Valley about "the rest of the world" and the sort of hubris that comes out of the Valley on a regular basis. That, of course, is nothing new, and is a criticism that has been leveled at Valley inhabitants for many, many years. And, indeed, there is a "clubby" nature to Silicon Valley at times, that has both good and bad sides to it.

MacKinnon points out, correctly, that Silicon Valley-ites also tend to put blind faith into the idea that technology = freedom, and freedom = good, in a rather libertarian sense. Again, that's been said before. But then she points out something of a contradiction in all of this libertarianism, by noting that in fighting against any government regulation while putting all our faith in technology, we actually end up with a system of "benevolent dictators" made up of the folks who control the technology we put our faith in. That is, she worries that in rejecting government regulation, we've approved a defacto dictatorship in the form of the companies we put our trust in. In some sense, this is channelling Jonathan Zittrain's pessimism about what happens when those benevolent dictators turn away from benevolence.

Basically, what both MacKinnon and Zittrain are pointing out is that technology is just a tool. It can be used for good or for bad purposes, and it's part of Silicon Valley's hubris to assume that good will automatically win out in the end. That is, we've been mostly blessed, because the people putting such tools into practice are doing it for good (benevolent) reasons, but there's always a risk that someone else will do something much worse with it. It's a fantastic point, and one well worth thinking about, but I think the assumptions are a little bit wrong.

It's not necessarily a blind faith that "technology" and "capitalism" are flat out "good," but more a recognition that an expanding market tends to open more opportunities for everyone, and the end result of that expansion is good at a macro level. Capitalism tends to remove the barriers for growth, while technology (or, more specifically following Paul Romer's thesis, "ideas") are what then creates that growth. Capitalism is about removing the barriers, and technology and ideas are about enabling that growth. That doesn't mean that there aren't downsides to both -- but the net gain does appear. And, one thing that has become incredibly clear throughout history is that it's nearly impossible to take away that net gain once it appears. And, conversely, asking the government to create those net gains instead almost always fails, due to the difficulty in accurately regulating a market.

In other words, by removing the barriers and enabling the potential, you've almost guaranteed that when someone tries to use the tools for less-than-benevolent reasons, it only opens up strong demand for someone else to provide the equivalent (or better) in a benevolent way again. And, at the same time, in asking the gov't to manage the benevolence, you almost guarantee less opportunities to actually provide good tools, because you've added hurdles they need to jump through. Yes, there can be bumps in the road -- and, no, it's not always a fun process along the way. But enabling for growth is not blind faith. And, there are plenty of checks and balances in place that should these "benevolent dictators" turn authoritarian instead, the end result (or "revolt" as the case may be) can often be strong enough to deal with it.

So, yes, there may be some benevolent dictators in Silicon Valley -- but they'd be hard pressed to successfully ditch that benevolence without paying a huge price.

Related to this, I've recently been doing a presentation for various corporate execs (almost all from outside the US) on "What Makes Silicon Valley Silicon Valley." It's probably my favorite presentation, because it's fun and it usually challenges a lot of the assumptions many people have about why Silicon Valley has been so successful for so long -- that is, while it discusses some of the "common" reasons, it focuses more attention on the hidden, unexpected and accidental reasons for why Silicon Valley became what it did.

The last time I gave it, I ended up getting into a huge discussion with some European execs who pointed out that many of the explanations seem to run almost entirely counter to what many countries who try to set up their "own" Silicon Valley think. That is, many folks look at Silicon Valley and try to replicate the outward manifestations (a good university, some venture capitalists) and miss the underlying details that create the real culture of Silicon Valley, because they almost seem counterintuitive. And the most basic element of this is enabling the free exchange of ideas (that engine for growth). Instead of doing that, most focus on protecting ideas and limiting that free exchange, falsely believing that hoarding information beats sharing information (even with competitors).

So, what happens is that other countries set up their own Silicon Valleys by focusing on protectionism (greater intellectual property rules, non-competes, hugely funded labs), and ignore the power of the cross pollination of ideas and people throughout Silicon Valley, which make it that much more difficult for any single company to abuse the trust of the people they serve. Should any company turn away from benevolence, that openness almost guarantees a more open competitor shows up in return (sometimes with the same employees from the older company). That openness drives innovation, but also keeps these benevolent dictators honest.

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Is McCain Really Saying eBay Will Save The Economy?

from the not-quite... dept

First off, before we get into the details here, I'll state upfront that I have not yet decided who to support in this year's Presidential election. I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I've seen plans from both sides that I find problematic. Still, it bugs me when I see plans from either side mischaracterized, and I believe that's the case with this somewhat mocking criticism of McCain's "jobs plan" as being "the eBay model" (sent in by reader Rose M. Welch). At issue, is the fact that McCain has repeatedly referred to the 1.3 million people around the globe who "make a living off EBay."

As the article notes, the figure is clearly exaggerated. However, many of the other criticisms of what McCain says seems misguided. It seems like a stretch for anyone to think that McCain is suggesting that people will find jobs selling on eBay. Rather, he's using the example of eBay to note that innovation leads to new ways for people to make money -- using the rise of the ecosystem around eBay as an example -- not as the definitive method for creating jobs. And, on that, he's correct. Continued innovation does tend to lead to job growth.

The second part of the criticism that seems incredibly unfounded, is the assertion by a few economists that eBay is just a business model for moving junk around, and that it doesn't add anything to the GDP. This is simply incorrect, and it's really strange that prominent economists would make such an assertion. eBay is about making an efficient market. Plenty of people use it to sell new products, rather than just "junk." And, many of the people who use eBay to "make a living" do so by adding value to products which they then resell. That does add to GDP. eBay is about a lot more than just moving around junk. In fact, a rather large percentage of our GDP is based on taking already built goods, adding value to them and reselling them. To pretend this doesn't happen on eBay is simply incorrect.

Now, before anyone thinks that this means I support McCain's economic positions, I don't. I think his continued disdain for basic economics, and his seeming assumption that economics can be handled by someone else is problematic. And, of course, his proposed gas tax holiday is just downright nutty.

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Bill Gates Joins The Growing Social Network Exodus

from the nothing-lasts-forever dept

Extrapolation of what's happening "now" is one of the most dangerous things in trying to predict the future. If something is growing quickly today, it doesn't mean that will last. Take social networks for example. Historically, they have a pretty standard pattern. There's a huge rush of growth, as people think it's new and neat, and they sign up all their friends. Then there's a flat period where people are still using it, but some begin to question why. Then people start to realize that, beyond reconnecting with some old friends and acquaintances, there really isn't that much to do there -- and that realization may come even sooner if they're getting bombarded with advertisements. It happened way back in the '90s with Six Degrees. It happened with Friendster in the first half of the decade. Yet, some people and companies believed that MySpace and Facebook would be different. Certainly, both companies recognized this problem to some extent, and have worked to add more things that you can "do" on their sites. Both still get a ton of traffic and usage and aren't going anywhere soon. However, there are some worrying signs. Google recently noted that the ads it's put on MySpace don't perform very well (which is something of a problem, since Google has guaranteed at least $900 million in ad revenue to MySpace). And, now, reports are coming out that users are, on average, spending noticeably less time on both MySpace and Facebook, with some leaving it behind. And, what better way to amusingly drive that point home, than to point out that even Bill Gates has killed his Facebook page just a few months after Microsoft dumped $240 million into the company?

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Telcos Realizing Markets Don't Just Grow Forever

from the maturing-markets dept

It's always interesting to see stories worrying about high growth markets maturing. When a market is growing rapidly, there are always those who believe they'll grow forever. But markets mature and run out of growth potential. The telco industry is now coming to terms with that, as 80% of Americans have mobile phones, and 79% of homes with computers have broadband access. At that point, it's no surprise that telcos might not have the same growth opportunities as before, and might start scrambling to try to find new avenues for growth. That's why you see both Verizon and AT&T pushing into the television market, while poking around in some other areas as well. It's also why Sprint needs to kiss and make up with Clearwire, and get a nationwide WiMax system up and running. Also, start expecting to see attempts to create more innovative uses of the telecom systems already in place, such as non-phone equipment making use of mobile networks (the Kindle was just the beginning). Either way, the scramble is now on for telcos who are used to growing at a certain pace to start aggressively seeking new avenues for growth. While that's happening, don't be surprised to see more aggressive attempts to poach customers from each other as well. That's going to be good for customers, as it's likely to force the various telcos to become more open as a way of attracting more customers by doing more than just dropping prices. No matter what happens, the telco industry recognizes that it needs to change and change quickly if it wants to keep up some form of growth.

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Can Dropping Fees Revitalize eBay?

from the time-to-reinvent dept

Over the past few months, more and more people have been noticing that eBay seems to have stagnated. Sure, it's been making plenty of money and still gets a ton of traffic, but it's not growing as fast as people would like, and there are numerous signs that it's starting to plateau. With Meg Whitman stepping down and John Donahue stepping up to the CEO position, the company has now announced lower fees and "tightened" seller standards to try to cut down on the rampant fraud that has managed to scare off many potential eBay buyers. Amusingly, this lowered fee comes just a day after new research hyped up how much eBay was saving people. The researchers behind the report suggested that, if the economy does go into a real recession, eBay should benefit as people switch to eBay searching for bargains. If that were truly the case, though, then it would seem eBay wouldn't have to be cutting fees.

The real problem may simply be that eBay is too constrained by its own success. It's attempts at branching out with things like Skype and StumbleUpon certainly haven't done much to help eBay, as the eagerly prayed-for synergies turned out to not exist. eBay's own attempts at revitalizing its core business have been equally pointless. So, it seems like something of a desperation play to lower fees, but it's difficult to see it having much of an impact. Certainly, it will make eBay sellers happier, but the transaction fees aren't the barrier eBay is facing in staying relevant. In fact, eBay itself should know this. When Yahoo tried to compete with eBay, it's key selling point was lower transaction costs for sellers, and that didn't do much to attract users.

eBay finds itself in a tough position. If it changes anything in its core business too drastically, it risks alienating those who helped bring the company to its current position. But, not changing will continue the stagnation process and certainly make the hole it needs to dig itself out of that much deeper. In figuring out a new path, it may want to take a few lessons from Amazon, which has been successfully reinventing itself from the inside with its web services offerings, while still striving to keep its core userbase satisfied. Amazon recognized that it could expand into a non-competing business that leveraged its strengths. While some might say that's what eBay tried to do with Skype, that was an acquisition, rather than a ground up offering, and it's still never been clearly explained what synergies there are between the two. In contrast, Amazon's web services offering clearly builds on its experience managing large scale backend operations, as well as its ability to handle a massive number of transactions. eBay probably should be trying to become the "Kinkos" of the web -- a small business's ideal partner -- but has yet to figure out how to do so.

Update: As noted in the comments and elsewhere, this isn't so much a cut in rates as a change in rates. For many sellers, the fees will actually be higher.

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Can Someone Explain The Rationale For Capping Cable Growth?

from the capping-cable dept

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is looking to reinstate a national cap on cable ownership, which would bar any one firm from serving more than 30 percent of the U.S. subscriber base. (A similar rule was thrown out by the courts back in 2001.)

The rationale for a national cap has always been a bit opaque to me. Because cable is geographically constrained, from a consumer perspective, all that matters is the market power my provider can exercise locally. If I've got three regional cable providers to choose from, it makes no difference whether two of them each hold a 40 percent national share. If I've got only one serving my area, the fact that it only controls 3 percent of the national market is similarly irrelevant. And if I'm in the latter boat, declaring that the largest firms with the most resources are forbidden to expand their operations into my neighborhood scarcely seems calculated to increase my access to alternatives. The FCC cites regional consolidation as a motive for the cap, but if cable providers are gunning for such regional monopolies, then won't they divest first in the regions where they do face competition, and hold on to the areas where they're the lone option?

It also seems a little perverse to introduce such limits just as consumers are finally starting to experience more robust choice in premium video. According to The Wall Street Journal, satellite now holds 30 percent of the pay-TV market. And despite some rocky first steps, phone companies are ramping up to aggressively expand IPTV over the next few years. Racing in to rescue viewers from monopoly now is, if not technically "ironic," then at least close enough to meet the Alanis Morissette definition.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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