I agree and it's happening. I co-founded Outpost Publishers Cooperative as a member services co-op to provide enterprise-level subscription services to publishers on Ghost (which is a non-profit).
I'm biased but I think the model of member-service co-ops (like Ace Hardware) providing tailored software services to particular industries is fertile ground. Free of VC incentives, reasonably profitable, aligned incentives, and the state of software tooling makes this doable.
And since this model doesn't require capturing as much value as a VC funded venture, it's more sustainable.
But the hard thing is figuring out how to get to decent product without upfront investment, in lieu of investment models that don't require outsize returns.
I can think of ways to create early capital but I've yet to see an industry think through how to fund smart suppliers without falling into the trap of thinking they need to be VCs.
> how to get to decent product without upfront investment
Yeah, this is the hard part.
I work in the small “ERP-like” business market and I’ve come up with some good ideas (based on the reaction of the people I talk to). But the problem is that even a small team of about five genuinely solid developers can cost around US $300,000–500,000 per year — and that’s even factoring in that I’m in LATAM!.
That’s a lot.
To make something like this happen, you need to convince fairly big players — the ones who have the capital and the patience, but more importantly the vision. And that’s the part that’s rare. At least in theory, that’s what VCs are supposed to bring.
That is fantastic to hear, kudos to you and best of luck! The funding is definitely an issue I'm chewing over in my mind as I think about these issues.
Exactly. Regulations without suitable punishments and investigatory powers are essentially only barriers to new entrants, not deterrents of bad behavior.
There's a big difference between a company making that decision (an edge provider) vs a country doing that at the network level.
The rub comes in that nations, including the U.S., have laws about what they seem illegal content or services and reserve the right to force those to be blocked.
In Thailand that might be criticism of the king; in the U.S., pirated TV streams; in another country, that could be gambling sites.
Cloudflare seems to be trying to stop blocking that is trade protectionism, but is blocking overseas gambling sites trade protection or a legit state interest in protecting its citizens?
Cloudflare has a significant enough marketshare it doesn’t seem to make a meaningful difference whether it’s blocked at this or that level, for the vast majority of end users.
COVID is a nasty virus. I need my brain way to much to FAFO.
COVID-19 may Enduringly Impact Cognitive Performance and Brain Haemodynamics in Undergraduate Students - ScienceDirect https://share.google/49ER4VjJUwipGotZO
Exactly. I also wonder what the end game is. If creating content becomes a loss-making exercise, people will logically stop and the LLMs will have less and less to content to 'train on.' And as even large news corps are increasingly deploying internal LLMs, the deadening banal style of LLMs, A.I. over-view etc will inevitably drive readers away. I use Perplexity for search in place of Google and it surfaces good links most of the time. But what do tech and media companies - even spotify - think they will do when the artists, reporters and creatives stop feeding them? Or readers don't want to read banal summaries of everything?
Close but the Obama 2015 reclassification was actually upheld. Law of the land from 2015 to 2018.
Ajit Pai undid it, a court said reverting was fine because DNS.
Biden FCC took forever to reclassify and then lost in a Trumpy circuit court. Advocates didn't appeal largely because the courts are so screwed now and don't want an awful Supreme Court ruling.
But it's very clear for the law that internet communications actually are telecom, and I suspect we'll see this revisited in the future
Given that in practice voice is now just data, it should be revised. But that's expecting the law to match technical reality, which may be overoptimistic...
I'm biased but I think the model of member-service co-ops (like Ace Hardware) providing tailored software services to particular industries is fertile ground. Free of VC incentives, reasonably profitable, aligned incentives, and the state of software tooling makes this doable.
And since this model doesn't require capturing as much value as a VC funded venture, it's more sustainable.
But the hard thing is figuring out how to get to decent product without upfront investment, in lieu of investment models that don't require outsize returns.
I can think of ways to create early capital but I've yet to see an industry think through how to fund smart suppliers without falling into the trap of thinking they need to be VCs.
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