Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
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Thank you for an interesting show that got my mind racing and my blood boiling, again! Seriously, I love you guys for doing this. I am not all the way through yet, but if I don’t start typing, my head will explode. 
However, for long stretches of it, I found it hard to be more opposed to the ideas that your guest Cathy and Jeff proudly brought forward. I felt like I had something wrong with my ears or something. To me, their position sounded just like a lovely extension of Jeff (“Biiingooo!”) Protector-of-the-Internet’s customary big tech protectionism. So the only way of protecting free speech and democracy as such is that there is hardly any ownership on content, at least towards big tech? What copyright was never really intended to protect anyhow?
What?
So the MPAA and the RIAA got it all wrong when they sued the living daylights out of copyright infringing customers all over the world in the hey days of sharing networks? Still do with their copy right protection schemes? Completely baseless because content cannot and should not - first ammendment! freedom! democracy! soaring eagles! - be treated as sellable assets? And now that Google helps themselves to ample access and use of other’s content it’s A-ok. Cause of freedom. Democracy. And so on.
The line sounded a little like I had tuned into the Chinese Industrial Radio Network in which two experts perfectly reasonably argued that infringing patents is a thoroughly misunderstood act of freedom, democracy, and particularly freedom of speech because patent law has been thoroughly misunderstood since it was not meant to make money out of engineering ideas, but… … uhm … making systems and industries work together more freely and “increase public discourse” on that technology. Freedom! Democracy!
Certainly, I may exaggerate - but only slightly.
I was more than glad when @Leo gradually introduced the “devil’s” (angel’s?) advocate position after 1:21:00. Felt to me like I was not going insane, for a bit. Thanks, Leo! The true highlight was this part at 1:21:32 (loosely transcribed to make sure I did not miss key turns):
“Tech platforms are not parasites to publishers, but symbionts!” - - - “But why do the publishers do not understand that?” - - - “Because they never adapted to that. It’s all about the conversation in the public sphere.” - - - “No, the point is that you drive traffic to our site to have them see our ads.” - - - “But this [kind of thinking] chills the environment. You need an audience facilitating service.” - - - “But we did not need it before Google! We were doing just fine before Google!” - - - “Well, we’re not in the old days, so that’s not helpful to think this way.”
I don’t use these letters lightly: O M G
That’s a perfect description of rationalising an abusive relationship right there. “I am here to help. - - - But I don’t want your help. I was fine before you. - - - Well, now I am here, and I’ll help ya. Thinking differently helps neither me nor you. - - - Nooooooo! - - - Give me your stuff for free!”
It is high time that someone makes a sequel to “Thank you for smoking”, just for the tech industry. Much of the humor could measure up. Thank you for bringing the discussion back onto the road of reason with one kind, friendly, playful, well-measured but decisive whack, Leo!
I wonder how you managed to keep your mind and views so impressively centered and balanced between marvelling at the opportunities and keeping out a very watchful and critical eye on the several overreachings of the industry and a strong voice for users and necessity to keep the industry competitive and not just more and more centralistic in terms of power. That’s TWiT, right there. Thank you to Cathy and Jeff as well to bring the pendulum so far out of its resting position that it makes for a great and entertaining two hours. Imagine it would have been an all-balanced discussion. Would have been horribly boring.
Wait a minute. Are you just playing with my mind?
Imagine Google without content. Google is nothing without content. Content is still everything without google.
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Google is nothing without content, you say? Interesting. Didn’t think about that. All those “free” Google accounts are still profitable for them, I bet.
Then this below. Hmmmm…
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Thank you very much for the explanation of Ancillary Copyright. That was very helpful. I was getting lost in the discussion before that. And thanks for Jeff’s expertise in the history of publishing.
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Those free accounts are only profitable because of the information in those accounts and what Google can do with it. How they can profile the information to improve their advertising.
Don’t forget, Google is no longer a search company, they are an advertising company that runs auxiliary services that help improve their ability to target advertising. One of those auxiliary services is search, another is Gmail. Even Google Photos used to be free, so that they could improve their AI.
The information in Google might not be read by humans, but it is used to enhance their profiles of their users, so that they can target the advertising better and thus generate more revenue.
As long as their advertising model is based around targeting visitors to websites and not the websites themselves, they are very much reliant on the information they can collect.
Oh, and a very apt GIF from @carbonga , R.I.P. Sidney Poitier. I saw on the news earlier this week that he passed away. I was always a great fan of his, since I watched Lillies of the Field as a kid.
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