Matt Panhans @mpanhans@librem.one
Economist. Antitrust policy; industrial organization; history of economics
xmpp: mattp@sendero.snikket.chat
Joined Mar 2020
Matt Panhans
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The #GAFAM game plan
1. Build a garden
2. Lure people into the garden
3. Imprison the people inside by building a wall around the garden
4. Gradually destroy the garden and build a shopping mall in its place 🤑
Capitalism: 1
People: 0
@jeremiahlee Wait do you know MZ??
Matt Panhans
boosted
You know how the Curse of the Monkey's paw works: a cursed object grants all of your wishes, but in the worst way possible: "be careful what you wish for."
That's what we're living through with Big Tech right now.
I'm all for regulating Big Tech, but not all regulation is created equal. Some regulation can dampen the power of Big Tech, while other regulation can make it permanent, even creating powerful stakeholders for monopolies within government.
1/
@da@mastodon.technology @jeremiahlee Right about privacy issues limiting email exports. BUT, they could still use some API connectivity to allow some social graph portability. (Ideally a full protocol like AP, but that’s wishful thinking.) Or at least cross-post. Friendica at one point used an API to have a Facebook Connector; but FB made it impossibly unworkable to implement https://github.com/friendica/friendica/issues/4969
Matt Panhans
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Matt Panhans
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Making this video took me pretty long but I wanted to correctly underline how great and unique the design of this smartphone is :
https://puri.sm/posts/the-design-behind-a-modular-and-secure-mobile-phone/
Matt Panhans
boosted
Action precedes motivation, procrastination precedes frustration.
My recipe to getting shit done is breaking down tasks into smaller and smaller chunks, until they seem almost too trivial to accomplish. Take baby steps into the right direction instead of going for the big leaps! Persist and you will eventually get there. Believe in yourself!
@FediFollows I really like Friendica, it's quite a powerful tool, offering interconnection with the entire Fediverse, WordPress, Twitter, and RSS. I would love to see greater adoption of Friendica by people looking for an alternative to FB.
Matt Panhans
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Friendica is a free open source federated social network with a Facebook-style interface, and part of the Fediverse. You can follow the official blog at:
➡️ @news
The official site is at https://friendi.ca/
Some good up-to-date instances include https://libranet.de and https://squeet.me
Installation guide for self-hosting: https://friendi.ca/resources/installation/
The @fedilab app is compatible with Friendica accounts.
#Friendica #Fediverse #ActivityPub #Facebook #Alternatives #FOSS #FLOSS
Matt Panhans
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Matt Panhans
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I have some great news about Boston Public Schools and free software. You may know that my Co-op has been hosting some Boston Public School courses over the summer using free software.
Assessments of student progress shows that the teachers that stuck with BBB had better assessment scores for their students!! Especially the Math teachers. Scores were SIGNIFICANTLY higher by about 10-15 percentage points and it is believed that is because BBB allowed for student engagement more than Zoom did.
Matt Panhans
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Matt Panhans
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What's a good alternative to Google Forms?
Starting a new organisation called "Members For Cooperation Between Cooperatives".
The name explains it pretty well. The idea is especially to organise rank-and-file members of big and old consumer cooperatives to advocate for them to cooperate more with new, small worker cooperatives.
If you are interested in joining (it's free!) let me know :)
Experts with the Transition Integrity Project ran a simulation of Trump refusing to concede defeat in the 2020 election. Such a situation could get ugly. But one conclusion was the influence of Fox News and Facebook.
"These people [Murdoch and Zuckerberg] will hold the state of the republic in their hands, potentially."
This for me is the problem with FB. *No person* should have so much power. And that is why we need the Fediverse and a decentralized social web.
Matt Panhans
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I'm tired of social networks and want to read more through RSS.
So I suggest that we regularly share our favourite feeds with the tag #RSS. For each feed, we explain why we like it.
I start with https://hnrss.org/frontpage?points=100 which provides every news on HackerNews with more than 100 votes.
I like this feed because it allows me to have a quick glance at what is trendy in the tech world. I also sometimes found interesting read I would not have found otherwise.
@lightweight The connection I see is that the implication is the same: we need policies that go beyond antitrust, because breaking up big firms might only be a temporary reprieve. We ultimately need policies or movements that encourage innovation of new organizational forms.
@lightweight Thanks for sharing your blog! In short, I think it's spot on in characterizing a problem with corporations. The FSF article focuses on tech platforms, where issues of market dominance are especially pronounced bc of network effects and data barriers to entry. Breaking up with antitrust, however, doesn't really help. The market might just tip again to another platform. What is needed is a change in business model, and that's the connection to your post.
@nightpool@cybre.space @1br0wn @doctorow @cwebber@octodon.social But even if this happened, FB wouldn't play nice. If open social protocols had been established earlier, we could be in the equilibrium described in the article, with people on whatever social platforms they liked best. Instead we're stuck in this inferior equilibrium. But I think the transition cannot involve FB w/ its business model. We need to start from scratch. And I think the Fediverse is the most promising path to realizing that superior equilibrium.
@nightpool@cybre.space @1br0wn @doctorow @cwebber@octodon.social I've seen interoperability as a compelling tool to inject competition into tech platforms for a while. FB beat the competition in the early 2010s and was rewarded with profits; but today it is profiting because users are locked in. Interoperability would give users more ability to switch and multi-home to try new services. If this had been in place, I'm sure people would have switched from FB during #StopHateForProfit. But it's hard to coordinate that move.
Economist. Antitrust policy; industrial organization; history of economics
xmpp: mattp@sendero.snikket.chat
Joined Mar 2020
