Internet

There is some current buzz about Apple copying Tile and various and sundry other predations that have been perpetrated against smaller rivals through the platform power they wield in the App Store. This power is an inevitable byproduct of having a successful platform. Important digital platforms tend to capture much of the value in a market. In some cases, they capture almost all the value. This naturally leads to claims of monopoly by rivals who are subjected to what they consider to be unfair play by the platform owner and calls for legal sanction.

This article on The Register about NFT was great in their usual cheeky way. NFT is extremely interesting from a number of perspectives. Like currency (and Bitcoin), NFTs are worth something because a large enough group of people think they are worth something. At present, they are valuable only because they make the owner feel good and might have some sort of financial return. Think of a painting. We have some nice art in our house which might be worth something (I honestly don’t know), but I would never sell it because I’d rather look at it on the wall.

Although I’m in the minority, my go-to browser is Firefox. One of the chief reasons is privacy. Firefox is usually the leader in introducing privacy features into their browser. The recent introduction of SmartBlock is an example of that. Basically, it short-circuits third-party tracking scripts. This allows pages to use those scripts to work properly without actually passing information. One of the arguments against Firefox is that it is slow (which isn’t really true).

I’m glad to see that there is strong effort underway to restore net neutrality in the US. Where we live, there is only one Internet provider and they should not have the power to interfere with content that was associated with other providers. I never quite understood the argument against. Why should a utility be able to discrimiate on what goes down the pipes? If providers need some more incentive to improve the woeful state of Internet infrastructure in the hinterlands, let’s give that directly.