Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

This is incorrect: the Government has let Google and Facebook opt out of the law because they have done secret side-deals wiht the local media companies. Even if you do think we should start paying to make links, that is a terrible model for regulation.

The whole purpose of the legislation was to force FB into making deals with publishing companies. If it’s widely adopted and common place, it’ll likely force more innovative smaller companies. I see it as a win. Likely creating a new industry.

The immediate effect is that no-one will now create any startup that lets people share links to news, for fear of getting hit with the same kinds of extortion. And there is absolutely no way this creates innovation. It locks in incumbency

Fear of competing with BigTech has been killing innovation. VCs aren’t likely to invest in a company if FB is a direct competitor. More people will create new publishing companies. ___ Could be a first step towards more concrete regulatory landscape and removal of paywalls.

Speaking as an actual VC, this is totally untrue.

i mean startups often move faster and break things faster and then fix them and then get acquired by the incumbent, which is a perfectly respectable outcome, right?

Getting acquired by the incumbent generally means you failed. If a startup pitches a VC and says ‘we want Google to buy us’ then that’s an instant pass

You'd have missed out on xensource 500M acquisition on that basis..or halfa dozen switch/photonics outfits bought by Cisco...