Cluetrain at 20

Re:Cluetrain at 20 by api on Thursday March 28, 2019 @01:44PM (#19514646)

All three of those notions failed because nobody yet understood the awesome power of network effects compounded by aspects of digital communication (incompatibility, fragility, performance benefits of hierarchical trees, security concerns) that encourage the formation of gravity wells in networks.

There's been a lot of work on non-hierarchical networks but it's still a little too early. Unfortunately the block chain bubble also sucked all the air out of the room by causing decentralization to be connected with financial scams in many laypeople's minds and redirecting everyone's attention toward cryptocurrency me-too projects.

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Re:Cluetrain at 20 by BrainInAJar on Thursday March 28, 2019 @01:48PM (#19514682)

All of them failed because they're all wrong. Markets aren't conversations, they're power relationships. Hyperlinks reinforce hierarchy (see: what news is surfaced vs. what is hidden,) And nobody is immune to advertising, behavioural science relies on this

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Re:Cluetrain at 20 by api on Thursday March 28, 2019 @01:50PM (#19514711)

Beware of the defeatism imported by pretending these problems are intractable.

Markets are conversations when the participants are relatively equal. Barter and informal commerce in voluntarist/anarchist communities would be somewhat close to a pure example. Power relationships can be thought of as external to markets but markets are certainly influenced by them very heavily.

Hyperlinks do create hierarchy but for the network effect reasons I discussed. I also think the hierarchical nature of the DNS system is a culprit. I prefer non-hierarchical cryptographic addressing for this reason, but it has yet to see a mainstream implementation.

I agree that nobody is immune to advertising. You're right about that one. I didn't highlight it as different from the others.

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