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82 lines
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3.7 KiB
Markdown
82 lines
No EOL
3.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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author: jeremy
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title: 'Every Major Internet Company Hates You (Protocols Not Platforms Pt. 1)'
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date: '2019-01-01 00:00:00'
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---
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Every major internet proactively _damages_ user experience to serve their own interests.
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In a competitive economy, this is exceedingly unusual. But we'll discuss the why later. First, let's define the problem.
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## The Problem
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Claim: All of the largest consumer internet company actively spend their time and resources engineering degradations in user-experience.
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Below are examples from Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Reddit, and YouTube.
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This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of user hostility, but instead to provide an unambiguous example for each.
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### Facebook
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Facebook had (has!) a fully working, web-based version of their messaging platform.
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They actively disabled on mobile to force more downloads of the app.
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### Apple
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We could talk at length about Apple's hostility towards free software and the ability for users to own and control their own devices.
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But let's look at the most unambiguous example possible: Apple _actively slows down_ old phones to encourage more sales!
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See [this](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-battery-throttling-gives-customers-reason-to-distrust-2017-12) for the full details on this story.
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### Reddit
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Evidently, Reddit _really_ wants people to use their mobile app.
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It current takes five clicks to view a GIF hosted on a non-Reddit site on mobile. It used to take one.
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Not because there is anything wrong with the web experience, of course. But forcing people onto mobile means Reddit can collect a lot more information about you.
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### YouTube
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We could talk a lot about how YouTube's treatment of creators, as well as it's pro-censorship policies, constitute hostility.
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But here's an even clearer example:
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YouTube recently disabled all FireTV users from accessing YouTube for no reason other than to get back at Amazon.
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## How Unusual This Is
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Some people may read these examples and shrug. Companies are greedy. Is it really surprising they treat users this way?
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And this response is partially right. Companies _are_ greedy.
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But in a competitive economy, greed is typically satisfied by making your services _better_, not _worse_. When the local pizzaria offers free water, free bathrooms, clean tables, and sale prices, it does this not out avarice, not benevolence!
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So the question becomes: why is this possible? Why are large tech companies able to get away with such abusive behavior?
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And the answer is these platforms are not nearly as competitive as restaurants.
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If the pizza place jacks up prices, I go to another pizza place. When Facebook treats me like crap, I complain about it... on Facebook.
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But not all of our tech experiences are like this!
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If we look at other aspects of the internet, it's much more like restaurants than Facebook. And that's because a lot of the tech driving the web is a protocol, not a platform.
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My browser cannot treat me like crap, because HTTP is an open standard. Anyone else can make a browser, like anyone else can make a restaurant.
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The same is true for my email client or my BitTorrent client.
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The solution to this problem is to build protocols, not platforms.
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When we build protocols, people can leave. When we build protocols, it's the users, not the middlemen, who retain control.
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The innovation of blockchain is the most powerful development in over a decade in making this possible. We'll talk about this more in [Part 2](https://lbry.io/news/protocols-not-platforms-pt2). |