Reply All: The Crime Machine, Part I

New York City cops are in a fight against their own police department. They say it’s under the control of a broken computer system that punishes cops who refuse to engage in racist, corrupt policing. The story of their fight, and the story of the grouchy idealist who originally built the machine they’re fighting.

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#128 The Crime Machine, Part II

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Epsilon Theory Podcast: Bitcoin: Is That All There Is?

In this kick-off Epsilon Theory webcast, I’m joined by renowned cryptocurrency miner and trader @notsofast for a wide-ranging conversation on Bitcoin and crypto.

To put it in crypto and Epsilon Theory lingo, we talk about talk about DeFi, the “Saylorization” of Bitcoin, and brainstorm about how to keep the animal control officers focused on the huckster raccoons rather than us too-clever-by-half coyotes.

To put it more simply, we’re talking about this:

Can Bitcoin preserve its revolutionary potential after a Wall Street bear hug?
I’m highly skeptical, but @notsofast has some ideas on how to make this work. The end result of this conversation is a challenge and a research project for both of us … and for you!

The Word Has Changed (Exponent Podcast #5)

(32 min) Before, the monopoly was in production, but now it is in ranking a huge supply.

Need a word for Power through Network Effects, even though there are alternatives

People would see and react if you were a monopoly that jacked up the price of oil, but if you are Google and Amazon, you could reduce someone’s ranking and only a minority will notice.

Antitrust was designed to deal with scarcity, but that makes current antitrust that deals with abundance worse.

(57 min) What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  If Silicon Valley wants net neutrality, they should be open to regulation too.

 

This episode surprised us; through a discussion of who is at fault in the latest series of new vs old-world spats, we realized that not only has the Internet fundamentally changed winners-and-losers, but also the very nature of economic competition and the type of regulation that is required.

Topics & Links

  • Mathew Ingram: Giants Behaving Badly – GigaOm

Google v MetaFilter

  • Matt Haughey: On the Future of MetaFilter – Medium

Journalism v Facebook

  • Mike Hudack: A Rant About the State of Media – Facebook
  • Ben Thompson: Newspapers are Dead; Long Live Journalism – Stratechery

Amazon v Publishers

  • Ben Thompson: Publishers’ Deal With the Devil – Stratechery
  • George Packer: Cheap Words – New Yorker

Antitrust, Network Effects, and the Age of Abundance

Do Tech Companies Have a Responsibility to Society?

On how the Internet has fundamentally changed the world, and how government regulation is hopelessly behind