www-fromjason-xyz-37bvry.txt (17724B)
1 [1]Back button double caret [2][coffee-cup] [graphic-22] 2 12 March 2024 3 essay 4 5 Any Technology Indistinguishable From Magic is Hiding Something 6 7 Somewhere between the [3]death of our favorite aggregator websites and the 8 world surviving a pandemic, the modern internet was reduced to four companies 9 in a trench coat. On the breast pocket of that trenchcoat is a name tag that 10 reads “The Cloud.” Under that name tag is an older name tag that reads “The 11 Internet.” And under that name tag is a frayed embroidery that reads, “ARPANET 12 (non-commercial use only, motherfuckers),” in a lovely script typeface and 13 craftsmanship you just don’t see nowadays. 14 15 Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta (GAMM) now own most of the steel and glass 16 that makes the internet go vroom. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft control 17 seventy-five percent of the cloud computing market^[4][1]. Meta and Google own 18 half of the fiber optic cables supplying internet services across continents^ 19 [5][2]. Most of our favorite productivity apps, retail websites, and social 20 media platforms are beholden to proprietary infrastructure controlled by these 21 four corporations. They own the most heavily trafficked server networks, all 22 the GPUs, and gigawatts, and whatever. 23 24 They call it the cloud, but really, that’s just the internet. 25 26 So, what we know as the cloud doesn’t actually exist. It’s a euphemism that 27 obfuscates the consolidation of critical infrastructure. The cloud is 28 metaphysical porn for wild-eyed technocrats in Allbirds who say things like, 29 “I’m making a dent in the universe” without a whisper of irony. It’s bullshit. 30 It’s fugazi. There is no spoon, Neo. 31 32 The cloud is a lie. 33 34 So, now that GAMM owns all this infrastructure, but no one really knows they 35 own it all, or even that there's an "all” to own, they're doing what American 36 corporations do best— selling us the biggest truck we're willing to drive off 37 the lot. But instead of F-250s, it's raw computing power manifested into 38 virtual reality conference rooms. 39 40 The future of the web is consumption [6]# 41 42 Web 3.0 probably won’t involve the blockchain or NFTs in any meaningful way. We 43 all may or may not one day join the metaverse and wear clunky goggles on our 44 faces for the rest of our lives. And it feels increasingly unlikely that our 45 graphic designers, artists, and illustrators will suddenly change their job 46 titles to "prompt artist” anytime soon. 47 48 But none of that really matters. We keep waiting for the next iteration of the 49 web, or the internet, but the future is now, baby. We’re living it at this very 50 moment. It snuck through the backdoor when no one was looking. 51 52 Over a decade or more, while our politicians were busy sub-tweeting fascists 53 for clout, GAMM was buying up all the infrastructure it could carry. The old 54 sync-and-share business model wasn’t working for them anymore, so they turned 55 the internet into a network of expensive, gas-guzzling computing power. 56 57 It makes sense. The production cost of data storage plummeted by 94% in just 58 ten years^[7][3]. You can't sell 50GB plans to college kids who own M2 Macbook 59 Pros with a terabyte of solid-state storage. That's not how you build 60 hundred-year empires. 61 62 So what did GAMM do? They convinced us that our notetaking apps require an 63 internet connection and forty thousand dollar GPUs located on a server three 64 hundred miles away. That's the future they've made for us. 65 66 It’s consumption. Its monopolistic control. It’s computing-hungry magic tricks 67 thrown at the wall, hoping something sticks. The next iteration of the web by 68 way of the internet is just one long infomercial of fifty-dollar solutions to 69 fifty-cent problems. 70 71 I can’t stress this point enough. The reason why GAMM and all its little 72 digirati minions on social media are pushing things like crypto, then the 73 blockchain, and now virtual reality and artificial intelligence is because 74 those technologies require a metric fuckton of computing power to operate. That 75 fact may be devastating for the earth, indeed it is for our mental health, but 76 it’s wonderful news for the four storefronts selling all the juice. 77 78 Open(ness) for business [8]# 79 80 The presumptive beneficiaries of this new land of milk and honey are so drunk 81 with speculative power that they'll promise us anything to win our hearts and 82 minds. That anything includes magical virtual reality universes and robots with 83 human-like intelligence. It's the same faux-passionate anything that proclaimed 84 crypto as the savior of the marginalized. The utter bullshit anything that 85 would have us believe that the meek shall inherit the earth, and the powerful 86 won't do anything to stop it. 87 88 Right now, there's a four-way chess match in which each competitor will take a 89 position of openness or security depending on which ideology helps them gain 90 more market share. 91 92 Amazon controls 35% of the cloud computing market and has created a tight seal 93 around its customer base. So, Meta and Google started preaching the importance 94 of data portability. The [9]Data Transfer Initiative is a red herring protocol 95 that does little more than allow Meta and Google to compare notes on the data 96 they have on us. But the message is, of course, "user empowerment.” [10]El oh 97 fucking el. 98 99 If either Google or Meta's market positions change, you better believe they 100 will pivot to security fearmongering while lifting that drawbridge. 101 102 Amazon is mostly quiet as the frontrunner in the cloud computing market. 103 Microsoft, however, may've earned itself a hundred-year reign with OpenAI. So, 104 its job is just to scare us into believing that AI has the power to bring about 105 the apocalypse and that Microsoft is the only company that can control it. 106 There's no way OpenAI survives any of this, by the way—not as an independent 107 company anyway. Without Microsoft running ChatGPT on its servers, OpenAI has no 108 product. 109 110 Google and Meta want the tech world to believe that building a sufficient moat 111 for its respective AI businesses is impossible. Google went so far as to leak a 112 [11]frantic internal memo. In it, an employee claims that open-source AI is 113 "eating its lunch” and that they might as well release their code to the 114 public. 115 116 This framing is a half-truth, and it's purposefully deceptive. Yes, if everyone 117 open-sources its AI models, they cannot build a moat on proprietary software. 118 However, Google's memo fails to mention that it already has the infrastructure 119 to run computing-hungry AI models and that infrastructure is wildly expensive 120 to build. That's why four companies own most of it. The real moat is the fields 121 of data centers, specialized GPUs, and hundreds of miles of deep-sea fiber 122 optic cables. 123 124 And then there's Zuck [12]# 125 126 No one has a more grandiose vision for the internet than Mark Zuckerberg. The 127 dude read a 1980s dystopian sci-fi novel where the world was so shitty, people 128 spent all of their time in a virtual reality universe, and he thought— yeah, 129 humans will love this beep boop beep (or whatever sound he makes when he has an 130 idea). And you know what? There’s a sporting chance that the son of a bitch 131 pulls it off. 132 133 Whatever. The metaverse is not the story here. And whether or not Zuck actually 134 believes the bullshit he preaches about his virtual reality hellscape isn’t 135 relevant. 136 137 What matters is that Meta is likely the most sophisticated cloud computing 138 company on the planet. Facebook cut its teeth on a barebones web before the 139 cloud market even existed. Zuck has open-sourced more cloud architecture than 140 most companies could ever hope to develop in a lifetime. Amazon Web Services 141 doesn’t gain a third of the cloud computing market without Facebook’s 142 contributions. 143 144 So, I think it’s a mistake to write off Zuck as some tech-bro idiot chasing his 145 tail. He’s not Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg is a capable businessman who 146 understands the industry better than most tech founders. 147 148 I don’t know the guy personally, but look at the facts. Half of the world is on 149 his suite of apps. He’s been the king of social media for twenty years. You can 150 count on one hand the number of competing social media platforms that have 151 survived his reign. His anti-competitive strategies are so effective that 152 universities [13]have studied it. 153 154 Psychopath? Probably. Should you hate him? Sure. But don’t underestimate him. 155 He’s shrewd and cunning and will rip your fucking head off if you hit the App 156 Store’s top 100. 157 158 With that in mind, let’s examine some of Zuck’s recent moves with fresh eyes. 159 160 Mark Zuckerberg didn’t spend ten billion dollars on GPUs to achieve augmented 161 general intelligence, a pursuit no one can even confirm is possible, just so he 162 can then give away the technology for free. That doesn’t make sense. He is a 163 chief executive with a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. 164 165 He’s made these moves because raw computing power is the business model. So, 166 who gives a shit if Meta put Llama on Github for free? How will anyone ship 167 their resulting AI-featured app without Meta’s cloud infrastructure? Read the 168 terms and conditions. [14]Llama is not open-source. 169 170 Zuck isn’t the mad scientist his PR team wants us to think he is. He’s selling 171 us printers at cost so that later he can fuck us on the price of ink. 172 173 One layer up, one step ahead. [15]# 174 175 This post has been a stone-cold bummer, huh? I know, I know. I put you through 176 some shit just now. I’m sorry about that. 177 178 Listen, I know we want to believe that things are changing for the better. For 179 the first time in a long while, there’s hope for the future of the web. There’s 180 something in the air, something that feels like meaningful change. Things are 181 happening. It’s lovely, actually. 182 183 When corporate social media platforms began to crumble a few years ago, we 184 looked for alternatives. Some of us, like myself, rediscovered the open web. We 185 reminisced about a time when the web was more than just search engine 186 optimization and key performance indicators. Before an algorithm made us dance 187 for our dinners. And it just felt right. So, we made blogs and personal 188 websites and put little pixelated badges on the footers like we used to. We 189 then moved to decentralized social media and joined [16]small forums. 190 191 We carved out a space on the web that wasn’t for sale. 192 193 But don’t you see, you beautiful idiot? (Pretend like I’m shaking you by the 194 shoulders frantically.) Our existence on this unincorporated web threatens 195 those who have made their fortunes off our digital lives. The four largest 196 corporations in the world won’t just roll over and let us have the quirky indie 197 web we all want. They’ve moved one layer up so that they remain our gatekeepers 198 no matter where we go. 199 200 There are no easy answers. Entire books exist on how to take back the internet 201 they’ve stolen from us. [17]Internet For The People by Ben Tarnoff is one of my 202 favorites. It’s an inspiring exploration of the untold history of the internet, 203 and it has some great calls to action. 204 205 Today, we can start by giving each other some grace. Let’s move away from the 206 trappings of the morality Olympics we’re playing with the social media 207 platforms we participate in. The factions created by that behavior don’t 208 benefit us. It benefits them. They love to see it. Some people are on Twitter, 209 some are on Threads. What the fuck ever. It doesn’t matter. Under the hood, 210 Twitter is just the company that removed “Don’t Be Evil” from its mission 211 statement. Threads is run by the company responsible for [18]cultivating a 212 genocide. None of our hands are clean. 213 214 And if you’re on Mastodon or some other decentralized social media, that’s 215 great! Don’t be a dick about it. For some people, TikTok is their livelihood. 216 For others, Instagram is the difference between speaking to someone that day or 217 not. We’re all just doing the best we can. But we’re fighting each other when 218 we could be working together to take these motherfuckers down a peg. 219 220 The internet doesn’t run on scattered clouds and rushing streams. It takes 221 heaps of fibered glass and twisted steel to send a DM to that cute French boy 222 from your year abroad. And it takes thousands of miles of laid cable, traveling 223 at impossible speeds through the depths of our oceans, for him to leave you on 224 read. I’m not judging. We’ve all been there, mon cheri. 225 226 But someone must own all that infrastructure. And with ownership comes control. 227 This fact is worth stating out loud. It’s worth communicating in our preferred 228 typeface. Even if some of us are more aware of it than others. Otherwise, we 229 get lost in the magic of it all. We become more beholden to our Internet 230 overlords. 231 232 Who’s to say how a cloud computing oligopoly will affect our everyday lives? 233 But it feels big—bigger than even the telecommunications and cable TV 234 monopolies of the 1990s or Bezos’s ownership of the Washington Post. The 235 internet is how we’ve been able to disperse information and organize with each 236 other. Good people on the web have stepped up when our news organizations and 237 politicians failed us. 238 239 Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta already control so much of what we see and 240 don’t see. If they can suppress an active genocide on the platform layer, 241 imagine what they can do when they control the whole kit and kaboodle. 242 243 So, if we want a true indie web, we must be prepared to fight for it. Hope is 244 not enough. 245 246 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 247 248 1. [19]Cloud Market Gets its Mojo Back; AI Helps Push Q4 Increase in Cloud 249 Spending to New Highs [20]↩︎ 250 251 2. [21]Internet For The People [22]↩︎ 252 253 3. [23]Historical cost of computer memory and storage [24]↩︎ 254 255 Metadata 256 257 label name 258 Plot [26]notebook 259 Published 12 March 2024 260 261 Type essay 262 Phase sorting 263 Tags [27]technocrats, [28]the web 264 Assumed audience everyone 265 266 caffeinate me 267 If you have ever found my writing valuable and you want to help me continue 268 avoiding doing my laundry, you can [29]buy me a coffee. It would mean a lot. 269 † Article's assumed audience (AAA) 270 Sometimes, I identify who I'm writing for as a way to provide contextIt's like 271 saying, "I'm using a lot of technical terms because I wrote this post for 272 frontend developers,” or "Sorry if I'm getting too symmetrical, this one's for 273 my Wes Anderson fans." But, all are welcomed, always. If you're not in this 274 article's intended audience, but you find this article interesting, wonderful! 275 Please stick around, read the post, and feel free to ask me questions. 276 Referrals & affiliates 277 I do not receive commission for anything I share, endorse, or discuss, anywhere 278 on From Jason. I have no sponsorships, or advertiser agreements. If that ever 279 changes, I will let you know. 280 Ornamentation with the word Finis in a banner. 281 2086© (so I don't forget to change the year) From Jason [30]2.3.0 282 This site is dedicated to the old web, the weird web, the web that screamed in 283 horror when summoned through a land line. 284 [31]Don't click here 285 286 References: 287 288 [1] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/ 289 [2] https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fromjason 290 [3] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/where-have-all-the-websites-gone/ 291 [4] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#fn1 292 [5] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#fn2 293 [6] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#the-future-of-the-web-is-consumption 294 [7] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#fn3 295 [8] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#open-ness-for-business 296 [9] https://dtinit.org/ 297 [10] https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/01/13/threads-now-lets.html 298 [11] https://micro.fromjason.xyz/2024/01/17/a-quick-rant.html 299 [12] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#and-then-there-s-zuck 300 [13] https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/BFI_WP_202019.pdf 301 [14] https://spectrum.ieee.org/open-source-llm-not-open 302 [15] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#one-layer-up-one-step-ahead 303 [16] https://32bit.cafe/ 304 [17] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667898/internet-for-the-people-by-ben-tarnoff/ 305 [18] https://erinkissane.com/meta-in-myanmar-full-series 306 [19] https://www.srgresearch.com/articles/cloud-market-gets-its-mojo-back-q4-increase-in-cloud-spending-reaches-new-highs 307 [20] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#fnref1 308 [21] https://www.versobooks.com/products/2674-internet-for-the-people 309 [22] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#fnref2 310 [23] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-computer-memory-and-storage?tab=table&time=2002..latest 311 [24] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#fnref3 312 [26] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook 313 [27] https://www.fromjason.xyz/tags/technocrats/ 314 [28] https://www.fromjason.xyz/tags/the-web/ 315 [29] https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fromjason 316 [30] https://fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/from-jason-2-0-is-an-11ty-powered-digital-garden-with-multiple-plots/ 317 [31] https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/#