interoperability. we take it forgranted everywhere else in life: when you have to replace a fridge it’s easy because they all have the same electrical/water hookups. replace a door, same thing: standardized size, hinges, and knobs. going further, i’ve been upgrading the cabinets/drawers in my kitchen: they’re standard size so i can buy 3rd party silverware inserts, or even inserts made specifically to organize anything that’s k-cup shaped. i replaced the casters on my office chair with oversized carpet-friendly wheels: standardized attachments. so many things in the physical world are made to be interoperable because it facilitates mass production and allows for any company to innovate in any sliver they see. it’s cheaper for producers, and improves the consumer experience.
i assure you those causes and benefits aren’t restricted to the physical world. i read this post in my RSS client, even as my roommate was fiddling with the router because all my RSS feeds get saved for offline reading in the background, before i even decide to read them. simultaneously that RSS standard allows LessWrong to get more reach.
i confront the crux of your post differently: “how do i navigate adversarial relationships (with a business)”? increasingly my approach is to just not engage (or engage less). when it comes to mid-size group stuff, it’s usually pretty easy: LW is just better than Facebook, reddit, or anything that sees its users as a resource to extract from.
for smaller groups or1-to-1 things i choose SMS over Discord; for the people where that’s too low-bandwidth and IRL hangouts aren’t practical, treat any monopoly replacement (signal, telegram, etc) as explicitly ephemeral: as these services switch to value capture we hop ship without losing anything. the world is large enough that there are plenty of substitute activities even if you disengage from Facebook, say. but it’s easier to adopt a policy of “don’t engage” a priori, rather than integrate them into your life and then decide to cut back on them..
interoperability. we take it forgranted everywhere else in life: when you have to replace a fridge it’s easy because they all have the same electrical/water hookups. replace a door, same thing: standardized size, hinges, and knobs. going further, i’ve been upgrading the cabinets/drawers in my kitchen: they’re standard size so i can buy 3rd party silverware inserts, or even inserts made specifically to organize anything that’s k-cup shaped. i replaced the casters on my office chair with oversized carpet-friendly wheels: standardized attachments. so many things in the physical world are made to be interoperable because it facilitates mass production and allows for any company to innovate in any sliver they see. it’s cheaper for producers, and improves the consumer experience.
i assure you those causes and benefits aren’t restricted to the physical world. i read this post in my RSS client, even as my roommate was fiddling with the router because all my RSS feeds get saved for offline reading in the background, before i even decide to read them. simultaneously that RSS standard allows LessWrong to get more reach.
i confront the crux of your post differently: “how do i navigate adversarial relationships (with a business)”? increasingly my approach is to just not engage (or engage less). when it comes to mid-size group stuff, it’s usually pretty easy: LW is just better than Facebook, reddit, or anything that sees its users as a resource to extract from.
for smaller groups or1-to-1 things i choose SMS over Discord; for the people where that’s too low-bandwidth and IRL hangouts aren’t practical, treat any monopoly replacement (signal, telegram, etc) as explicitly ephemeral: as these services switch to value capture we hop ship without losing anything. the world is large enough that there are plenty of substitute activities even if you disengage from Facebook, say. but it’s easier to adopt a policy of “don’t engage” a priori, rather than integrate them into your life and then decide to cut back on them..