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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Cory Doctorow #BLM (AFK until Jan 4 2021)

      This is what in the tech-managerial world is usually called the “commoditize your complement” strategy. The farmers in this case have been reduced to interchangeable learning-loop probes.https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1312080925946048512 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Cory Doctorow #BLM (AFK until Jan 4 2021)Verified account @doctorow
      If you only learn one technical term from labor economics, make it "chickenization" - @CLeonardNews's term for the way that the Big Three poultry processors have structured the chicken-farming industry (I learned it from @ZephyrTeachout). https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up … 1/ pic.twitter.com/ImyIKMk2P5
      Show this thread
      5 replies 10 retweets 128 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      I think Cory has the causality backwards in this case. Monopoly is the effect, not the cause. If you focus relentlessly on cost and efficiency, the advantage goes to a centralized learner aggregating all the data and deciding how to run the DoE (design of experiments) matrix.

      2 replies 3 retweets 35 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      Having the farmers compete by (for example) exiting the contract and cooperating by swapping notes etc. will not learn as fast, or as much, even ignoring the legal hurdles to forming a rebel alliance (I imagine they might be in a capex debt trap?)

      2 replies 1 retweet 11 likes
      Show this thread
    4. muddletoes‏ @muddletoes Nov 14
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      Replying to @vgr

      I think you're missing one forest for the other. Competition may inevitably trend towards monopoly, but the legal control of information prevents the development of any collective bargaining or action that might resist optimal exploitation. That's what this is about.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      Replying to @muddletoes

      Collective bargaining is a red herring and a mark of reactionary labor politics that assumes interchangeable people as a given. Thar be regressive backsliding.

      1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
    6. muddletoes‏ @muddletoes Nov 14
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      Replying to @vgr

      I don't understand this comment unless you have an effective alternative to present. The fungibility of labour — in this case the fungibility of suppliers — is the entire point of the scheme. The suppliers have been constructed to be fungible. What alternative do they have?

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      Replying to @muddletoes

      Go indie and build your own farm to table indie distribution channel for a premium product or leave the industry. Monopoly (monopsony rather) dynamics are limited to the low-cost leader market segment. You don’t have to plat there.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    8. muddletoes‏ @muddletoes Nov 14
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      Replying to @vgr

      Sounds easy to say, to me, to be honest.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      Replying to @muddletoes

      Of course. I didn’t claim it was easy.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    10. muddletoes‏ @muddletoes Nov 14
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      Replying to @vgr

      Well, I think the problem is more categorical than that. It's a response to an individual that neither eliminates nor solves a collective problem. "Differentiate yourself from the others, be exceptional, and succeed, albeit it's not easy" is not really any answer at all.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Nov 14
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      Replying to @muddletoes

      neither is 'take collective action'

      1:30 PM - 14 Nov 2020
      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        1. muddletoes‏ @muddletoes Nov 14
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          Replying to @vgr

          Well, but I was more pointing out how much effort had gone into preventing such a thing. A credible threat of unacceptable harm to productivity is probably the only leverage they have if they want to change their relationship to the monosopy into something other than thralldom.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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