I have one more line of questions. I have, um, observed that "cam" sex workers use teledildonics as a kind of "proof of life". The idea is that paying customers send signals to a sex toy in use by the performer, whose reaction reassures the customer that he is paying for a live show. It affords a way of (apparently) "doing stuff" to the performer in spite of the virtualized nature of the show.
Two part question:
1. A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here. Is there any current research in the direction of possible authentication methods to prevent such fakery?
2. What are we to make of the way this form of remote dominance (simulated or real) has been commodified and put in service of capital accumulation? Are not the paying customers even engaging in a form of self-domination, helping to reproduce their roles as wage slaves, by participating in this system of production?
1. This is a topic that actually, seriously comes up often on cam model forums, and verification of authenticity is, to me, something that is just completely fucked in terms of even being an idea. Do these same customers get angry when they find out the movie they just paid to see was fiction?
2. Are you familiar with findom? Cause that's like, just straight up what findom is. Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish.
> verification of authenticity is, to me, something that is just completely fucked in terms of even being an idea. Do these same customers get angry when they find out the movie they just paid to see was fiction?
I mean, I think they would if they were told it was a live broadcast.
Of all the fetishes out there, I think wanting to view a person in real-time is one of the more easily understandable ones. I am positive that there are plenty of people out there who prefer watching a live cam over uploaded VODs, even if they never actually interact with the model.
I'm sure that cam models are exceptionally concerned about privacy for very good reasons, and I don't think anyone should be obligated to provide live verification if they don't want to. But it's not like it's an irrational request.
Ah, yeah, that's a better metaphor than what I gave there.
I'm also a bit divorced from the customer perspective in this situation because I've been working on the industry side for so long, so I have different expectations and views.
That said, as an implementer of technology of this type, my point was that I feel like live verification gets EXTREMELY INVASIVE in this context. Once you start bringing biometrics and really, hard numbers in general into the voyeurism of camming, it turns into this weird fractal of objectification that I haven't really had time to really unwrap in my head yet, which I'd kinda wanna do before even touching implementations of the tech itself.
Sure, that's reasonable. Your original comment sounded more like, "Why do people even care?" but I'm totally onboard with the idea that actually implementing something like that is very problematic.
From the customer point of view, though, "How do I know it's really them?" is a reasonable question because they don't really understand the implications of the answers.
> 1. If you buy a ticket to a live theatre show you don't expect to see a movie.
A live theater show doesn't seem comparable, since in the cam model's case they're being viewed through a screen regardless. Your sibling comment that compares it to finding out a live broadcast turns out to be a movie is more apt.
As I understand it, the concept refers to reifying relationships between humans as relationships between things. Is this an example of that? People use this kind of stuff for the most varied reasons: long distance partners buy one for their SO, people online hand remote controls to roleplay doms... Hardly what Marx had in mind when criticising commodity fetishism ;)
Leaving aside how to apply marxian analysis to household relations, non-professional sexual partners, and so forth - the case of how people conceive cam sex workers using these things is an unambiguous example of marxian fetish. Your "human relations disguised as a relation between things" is laid pretty bare, there. That it also puns as "fetish" in a more conventional vulgar sense is just icing on that cake.
Are people afraid of watching a recorded show? Or are they afraid of watching a "virtual" model who is the creation of an AI?
In the former case. wouldn't the "cam" worker be able to achieve the same "proof of life" by simply having a conversation with the customer? Eg, the customer types something in chat, and the worker responds on the live stream?
In the latter case, if it is all virtual, then its all virtual, and response to a toy could just be faked.
> A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here
I mean, if the tech reaches such heights that a customer can't tell it from a human, does it even matter for the customer?
(Actually I think that on an emotional level it does, but realistically it's a question of inputs to the brain, i.e. the whole Matrix mind-body thing. Anyway, I'm sure this is firmly in the AGI territory.)
How can tech employers use this technology to optimize workplaces for comfort and productivity?
Also, can teledildonics be applied to improve online shopping experiences and social media? I am thinking that buttplug scripts could be the new emojis or css dazzle.
Lastly, there seems to be some asymmetry in the development of these technologies: Passive reception of dildonic signals is emphasized, active transmission of signals that originate as muscle contractions (and such) gets the short shrift. Is this simply a reflection of the generally submissive tendencies of tech workers or is there a larger force at work here?
On the tracking of muscle contractions, I'd recommend checking out the Nogasm project, an open source orgasm denial system that uses air pressure changes to track pelvic floor contractions, which are indicative of arousal levels. These could be tracked against, say, bug rates in code to monitor affective states in developers.
>Passive reception of dildonic signals is emphasized, active transmission of signals that originate as muscle contractions (and such) gets the short shrift.
Just want to make sure I understand what you're asking here; because it sounds to me like you're asking something along the lines of "Hey, the vibrating device is neat, but I'd actually like a device that can directly stimulate movement of the device wearer's muscle groups on reception of a remote signal. Can you do that?"
...because if that is what you're asking, the very idea horrified me at the prospect of the new forms of abuse that technology would enable. And I don't mean "abuse" in a good connotation either.
I'm not saying that anyone here would intend to go that far, but that's the first spit take I've had in response to something I read in a while. Ranks right up there with Neuralink in terms of cans of worms I do not wish to see opened by the unscrupulous.
>Is this simply a reflection of the generally submissive tendencies of tech workers or is there a larger force at work here?
That's an odd lens to look at the tech industry through... What exactly about the art of crafting, building, manipulating, and operating some of the most complex, sprawling in their capacity to influence people's lives/behaviors, and difficult to understand machines on the planet strikes you as submissive? Just because there may be a tendency toward expending energy in a direction someone else is willing to pay for doesn't make the academic exercise an overall act of submission. For that matter, look at how difficult it is to reign in the profession ethically. You have an entire industry worth of movers and doers who collectively have made possible some of the most outstanding advances in the field that is the application of computing machinery, while at the same time completely eviscerating some of the most basic and fundamental principles that have hitherto been nigh unchallenged in the history of the classical western democracy/republic. To program is not to submit; to program is to inflict one's wills and desires on others in the shape of the end product. Assumption of existing mores and the outcome of thoroughly deliberated, collective decisions in regards to the means and ends of any non-trivial project is a necessary thing to enable coordination. Is there some study correlating being a programmer with submissiveness, or is this one of those "introverts are all subs" stereotypes? Tendencies toward conflict aversion or social reservation do not accurately correlate to to submissive/dominant preferences by a long shot from what I've heard/experienced.
Then again, maybe you have a point, and you're referring to another facet of the industry I've never really meshed that well with. I just wish more people understood and looked at the Art the way I do... I don't think I'm very special or out there in the grand scheme of things. I've heard so much "Well, that's just the way it has to be" encouraged and even cultivated in the trenches it makes me sick. Sometimes to the point that I can even entertain there is an adverse selection pressure employment/career-wiseforthe self-direct(ed|ing) professional programmer. There is more disincentive to the practice of the adversarial duties of the engineer in the context of software I cannot help but be shocked it's taken as long as it has for a counterculture against Tech to form.
>These could be tracked against, say, bug rates in code to monitor affective states in developers.
Um... No. I think that is one set of data points better left uncollected/analyzed if only for the safety of laborers in all walks of life. Why are we so enthusiastic about making data like this exploitable? This reminds me of a project someone was working on at an NFJS a few years ago where They were collecting as much information as possible about the meta-state of the programmer at work. All through the presentation I couldn't help shaking the feeling that if managers ever caught wind of it, and decided to integrate it into their performance eval techniques, life as a working programmer would rapidly degenerate.
I apologize if I'm coming off as a complete buzzkill. It isn't like I've not been stimulated by the attraction and appeal of similar contemplation before mind. A lot of fun could be had between two consenting adults. I just hope we spare some time to consider what other uses could come from what we enable.
To sum up, I leave you with a cautionary snippet of wisdom it's taken me a while to come to appreciate:
"There is no greater downer, than the Supreme Square empowered by the Totally Rad;" [and the odds of this happening approach unity as social acceptance, Radness, and time approach infinity].
> "Just want to make sure I understand what you're asking here;"
You really don't.
The main thrust (sorry) of teledildonics as commonly pursued is that subject A presses remote buttons or whatever, and subject B experiences some vibration from the sex toy they are using. A has remotely caused the vibration.
A reverse is also conceivable: subject A is using a teledildonic sex toy, and subject B gets some signal (like a ring-tone or whatever) whenever subject A's erogenous zone muscles contract.
In other words, reversing the direction of the signal. Instead of remotely "doing something" to the sex toy user, one would get some information about what the sex toy user is doing on their own. This is what I asked about. You projected something really strange onto it.
> "That's an odd lens to look at the tech industry through... What exactly about the art of crafting, building, manipulating, and operating some of the most complex, sprawling in their capacity to influence people's lives/behaviors, and difficult to understand machines on the planet strikes you as submissive?"
You do it because some jackass told you to do it and gives you some cash to go be rude in bars and restaurants, and to overbid for apartments. Total bdsm degeneracy. Totally undignified. Totally degrading. You're a slave who takes solace in being slightly above the worst off slaves. Nobody in a cooperative society would do what tech workers do and if they tried, they'd be treated as people suffering some kind of cognitive illness.
> I just hope we spare some time to consider what other uses could come from what we enable.
Not to make you feel like you overreacted at all, because this is a fantastic reply and I desperately wish I saw more awesome thinking like this around tech and ethics, but I read the OP as a shitpost, and was replying in kind.
The only reason I can give stark commentary like that is because I've done a lot of ethics work on this field (first hire at my startup with an ethicist who helped craft our project mission statement and philosophies), and yeah, it could get REALLY, REALLY bad in terms of labor, privacy, and many other contexts.
If you'd like my full perspective on how/why I build this stuff, I gave a lecture at CMU last year that goes over a lot of it:
Specifically on the affective state in technical development, I do think biometrics is interesting there, but absolutely not in a way that could be harnessed like I was joking about above (even though it would be because who are we even kidding these days). I did some work on this stuff around 8-9 years ago, a project I called the "Quantified Coder" (I was involved in the whole QuantifiedSelf thing for a while):
Please note that this talk happened before the current ML craze of "your face can tell us if you're a bad human" shit. It sounds FAR different now than I did then. There's neuroscience researching doing really great work on affective state of developers these days (like Chris Parnin, who came up here a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23046429) that I think will be legit helpful.
Anyways, my reply was just riffing evilly on those ideas as a joke.
Apologies though, forgot I was in an setting where that reply DEFINITELY might not have come off as (extremely stark) humor.
> Just want to make sure I understand what you're asking here; because it sounds to me like you're asking something along the lines of "Hey, the vibrating device is neat, but I'd actually like a device that can directly stimulate movement of the device wearer's muscle groups on reception of a remote signal. Can you do that?"
> ...because if that is what you're asking, the very idea horrified me at the prospect of the new forms of abuse that technology would enable. And I don't mean "abuse" in a good connotation either.
E-stim is already a thing, it just lacks (so far) the remote aspect.
Remote estim has been around for decades actually, it's just all developed in very small, private (and sometimes extremely hostile, yes I'm looking at you Smartstim) communities so the info doesn't really get out much.
Profit margins are very high compared to historic trends. Why?
GS notes that costs of production have been going down. Firms move jobs from parts of the world with higher wages, to parts with lower. Firms eliminate jobs through mergers.
GS notes that some commodity demand has been strong as places like China develop.
Lowering costs and keeping demand strong has kept profits high, says GS.
After a time, that should end. Beyond a certain point, mergers are less likely to pay off. Beyond a certain point, there aren't many jobs left to ship to low-wage regions. At the same time, global demand for commodities is weakening.
Those trends should cause immediate drops in revenue, hence profit margins. As these drops take hold, the price of capital assets like factories or tankers of oil or silos of wheat should fall. This should result in job losses, wage reductions, and generally a spiral that further reduces demand, increases deflation, and shrinks profit margins.
Many would argue that deflation and collapse in the corporate profit rate should already be going on, yet it hasn't been. Why? (There are good explanations but this article doesn't talk about them.)
GS quipped, roughly, that if the profit margins don't fall, maybe that means capitalism is broken and doesn't work anymore.
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Not in that article but just FYI: A marxian argument can be made that the real rate of profit is, on average, already negative. If so, that is a sign that capitalism is, as GS suggests, maybe self-destructing at long last. The GS quip is, I think, kind of a wry nod to the marxian view.
Thanks for the explanation. Can we expect to see large financial firms throughout the US economy begin questioning the basis of capitalism? I am also interested in the explanations as to why deflation and collapse in profit rate is not occurring. Any resources you could point to would be appreciated!
It is still valuable to ask people not to use the term "open source", and to explain why.
The free software movement is a liberation movement. As we have seen in the ~30 years since the movement started, when users are not allowed examine, modify, and share the software runs on their computers that software is used against them. Proprietary software is all about gaining power over users. It is not a theory anymore. It is an overwhelming, proved fact.
The "open source" brand was created to combat the liberation movement. The people who devised the "open source" name and promoted it oppose the free software movement. The "open source" founders set out to advance the cause of gaining power over users.
The free software movement fights for freedom. The "open source" instigators wanted to interfere with that fight, to distract people from it, and above all, to make it harder for the libre software movement to gain technical advantages over proprietary software.
> founders set out to advance the cause of gaining power over users
I'd argue that GNU set out to advance the cause of gaining power over developers. Specifically, to place arbitrary legal restrictions on software so devs who use it are forced to buy into the ideology of GNU.
The ironic thing about FLOSS is that it acts counter to the ideals of libre. There's no freedom in restricting how open source code is developed. In short, it enforces exclusivity.
It's intended for developers who want to maintain ownership of any/all development of the code they produce. To remain the de-facto benevolent dictators for life whether or not that is good for the health of a project.
RMS didn't create GPL out of some greater sense of altruism. Watch his talks about the early days before GPL. He created it in spite of the developers he worked with who moved on to industry. Stallman never moved on to industry and has spent a lifetime hiding away in academia and/or making a living off of awards and public speaking appearances where he preaches his ideology as canon.
You know who doesn't make a living from FLOSS? the thousands of contributors who helped make his projects the success they are today. Funny how RMS never acknowledges their effort.
Hurd will never deliver on it's promises and instead GPL piggy-backed on the success of linux to the point where (from a legal standpoint) both are essentially inseparable.
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As for 'open source'...
True freedom is allowing others to extend/improve the code for their own uses. I prefer 'open source' because it fosters the degree of freedom that the GPL only superficially claims to promote.
If others find value in my contributions and leadership then they'll support my projects and the direction I take. If somebody comes along that does a better job, so be it. That just means I probably have more room for improvement.
Removing one's ego from the process creates something much more valuable. An inclusive environment where others can join in, grow together, and move on to better things in life if they find the opportunity.
> I'd argue that GNU set out to advance the cause of gaining power over developers
Power that is shared equally is not held "over" anyone. Share-and-share alike is not power, its equality.
> The ironic thing about FLOSS is that it acts counter to the ideals of libre
According to which philosophy? John Locke (1632–1704) rejected several hundred years ago the notion that liberty should have no restrictions.
Thus, freedom is not as Sir Robert Filmer defines it: 'A liberty for everyone to do what he likes, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws.' ... Freedom of nature is to be under no other restraint but the law of nature. Freedom of people under government is to be under no restraint apart from standing rules to live by that are common to everyone in the society and made by the lawmaking power established in it. Persons have a right or liberty to (1) follow their own will in all things that the law has not prohibited and (2) not be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others
Rules that are common to everyone are not power, and its not counter to the ideals of libre. Shield me against the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others, and I will have liberty. Proprietary licenses and DRM are frameworks that arbitrary limits who can modify the software, who can read it, and who can use and share it.
"(2) not be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others"
If you want to put it to the test, try creating a legal derivative work of a GPL/LGPL licensed project.
The license has enough grey area that the only guarantee is that the legal system could one day be used to subject you to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and arbitrary wills of others. Via legal battles initiated by malicious actors and/or as a result of contributions by contributors who don't fully understand the depth of the GPL/LGPL restrictions.
I vote 'no confidence' in the GPL/LGPL license's purported guarantee of freedom. For the same reasons I wouldn't trust an enemy to always speak kindly of me behind my back.
The GPL/LGPL were bourne out of the desire to publicly spite others. They were initially accepted as canon because they were the first copyleft licenses.
I'll never feel safe or protected from legal recourse if I contribute to a GPL/LGPL project because I can never guarantee that the codebase is a completely original work. From a legal standpoint 'good faith' simply isn't good enough.
It's a personal choice. If you feel completely safe contributing under the terms, by all means, I'm not trying to stop you.
"Proprietary licenses and DRM are frameworks that arbitrary limits who can modify the software, who can read it, and who can use and share it."
By all means, I'm not advocating for proprietary licenses or DRM. I'm speaking strictly in terms of OSS (ex MIT) vs FLOSS (GPL/LGPL).
If a company or dev decides to use a proprietary license to protect their invested time/effort, that's their legal right.
DRM is... Well, I'm not going to touch that with a 20ft pole. Hopefully, one day we can find a means to make DRM completely irrelevant and/or unnecessary.
Regarding "True freedom is allowing others to extend/improve the code for their own uses."
Can I correctly conclude, then, that you are enthusiastically supportive of people who violate copyright by making and giving away gratis copies? A fan of people who violate EULAs by reverse engineering? Approving of anyone brave enough to defy trade secret laws?
I am always a little surprised at the earnestness with which the counter-libre "open source" propaganda embraces as freedom a handful of very artificially erected rights that rest on state brutality and nothing else.
Further, that in the "open source" view, to resist that state brutality in order to protect users, share, and study power -- these are supposedly acts against freedom.
re: "True freedom is allowing others to extend/improve the code for their own uses. I prefer 'open source' because it fosters the degree of freedom that the GPL only superficially claims to promote."
What is clear is that you promote your freedom to rob others of freedom, with the help of state violence.
The freedom you advocate is a negative freedom: a bondage you want to (or want your employer to) impose on others.
Wat? How did you manage infer such a terrible message from my comment?
I'm a library author. Not some hack who copies other's code at will. I have never, and never will violate the license of another project. GPL/LGPL or otherwise.
I license my libraries under MIT so there's a guarantee that my copy will always be free for others to use. If some malicious actor tries to overwrite my copyright and assert ownership I can always prove prior art. That's the whole purpose of copyrighting original works.
If they choose to reverse engineer and/or modify my source to produce something better, power to them. Maybe I can learn something from their implementation. Assuming that my implementation is the 'one true' best possible implementation that will ever exist is downright egomaniacal.
If I slack off on maintenance and somebody else creates a fork/derivative to continue development, awesome. I'd rather have my project live on and remain useful to others than deteriorate into obscurity. I won't live forever but the thought that something I created may one day live on beyond me as a legacy to my effort would be an honor.
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I'm not a fan of GPL/LGPL because it's a minefield of legal restrictions and once a project is licensed as GPL/LGPL with more than one contributor, it's impossible to change.
I'm not a lawyer, I've wasted more time than I care to admit researching the subversive effects of choosing the GPL/LGPL for a project.
It idea that code I produce may some day be used to subvert future users and/or a creators of derivative works just feels ethically unsound.
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"What is clear is that you promote your freedom to rob others of freedom, with the help of state violence."
Not sure how you can justify making such terrible and base assumptions about my character. Launching a barrage of 'ad hominem' attacks doesn't lend strength to whatever cause you think you're fighting here.
From my experiences, the world isn't out to get you. At best it's made up of people trying to make the best with what they have. At worst it's universally indifferent.
I'm just taking you at your word. You advocate not to use GPL but to instead use licenses that permit proprietary derivatives. You describe proprietary derivatives as "a right". You therefore advocate for using the coercive power of the state to deny people the freedom to run, study, modify, and share software. Your version of "freedom" involves taking away vital freedoms from others.
re: "Launching a barrage of 'ad hominem' attacks"
Do you mean like your assertion that RMS created the GPL out of spite?
mkempe has written a very false description of Marx's work. It is a poor basis for a discussion of basic income programs in relation to Marxian thought.
Furthermore, mkempe has pointed to six historic nations as example of "basic income" gone wrong. None of the six examples he chose offered a basic income guarantee.
I won't dwell on this much but take for example this falsehood:
"This "research" proposal is merely a technocratic rehash of Marxism: the inexorable forces of materialism and technological improvements entail endless progress driven by a Hegelian spirit."
Marx made fun of the idea that history was driven by something like a "Hegelian spirit" (see Critique of the German Ideology).
Although Marx did use the word "materialism" in the phrase "historic materialism", it has no real relation to what mkempe describes here. (See Socialism: Utopian and Scientific)
Marx argued that competition among capitalists, not "spirit" was driving technological improvement in the productivity of labor. (Many places but Capital for example.)
One might say that "Marxism" is not "Marx" and that's fair enough. But Marxist thought, though it often wanders away from Marx, does not involve "Hegelian spirit" or "inexorable forces of materialism". The opposite, actually.
Realizing that the "forces of materialism" DID NOT entail "endless progress", both the Soviet Union and China set out to raise their level of development from agrarian to industrial. Both did so, and quickly.
Slightly off topic. The article doesn't call it out but there's a lovely assembly hack here. In:
bec 1f / branch if no error
jsr r5,error / error in file name
<Input not found\n\0>; .even
sys exit
jsr calls a subroutine passing the return address in register 5. The routine error interprets the return address as a pointer to the string.
r5 is incremented in a loop, outputing one character at a time. When the null is found, it's time to return.
The instructions used to return from "error:" aren't shown but there is a subtlety here, I think.
".even" after the string constant assures that the next instruction, "sys exit", to which "error:" is supposed to return, is aligned on an even address.
By implication, the return sequence in "error:" just be sure to increment r5, if r5 is odd. I am guessing something like the pseudo-code:
During the Great Depression most people were smart enough to know that reducing hours, without reducing pay, was a good strategy for lowering unemployment.
Of course, capitalists tend to dislike the idea of lowering hours this way. For them, it amounts to a reduction in profit.
If hours are lowered, capitalists will presumably then invest to improve productivity so that the same output can be produced in fewer hours. When they succeed, their rate of profit improves.
Increased productivity without vast new markets opening up means that, in turn, unemployment will again rise.
So there is a virtuous cycle: Cut the work week without cutting wages. Wait for productivity to catch up. Cut the work week again.
If we had an aggressive policy of cutting hours whenever unemployment is too high, and we do this across the board for all sectors, perhaps before long farms will be more fully worked by robots, and so on.
The author of the article wrote: "John Maynard Keynes predicted in the 1930s that by about now, we would all be working a mere 15 hours a week."
Keynes did but it was Marx and Engels who predicted in the 19th century that we'd have to fight for hours reduction every step of the way.
A lot of this essay seems pretty fast and loose with history to me. I hope nobody passively accepts this as an accurate account of social, economic, or governmental history from the Great Depression, through WWII, the mid-20th century, through to today.
Perhaps a ycombinator readership can appreciate a telling example of the problems is in Graham's account of IBM's decision not to exclusively license PC-DOS. Per Graham, this "must have seemed a safe move at the time. No other computer manufacturer had ever been able to outsell them. What difference did it make if other manufacturers could offer DOS too? The result of that miscalculation was an explosion of inexpensive PC clones. Microsoft now owned the PC standard, and the customer. And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft."
OK, first, every indication is that IBM sought to deliberately create an explosion of inexpensive PC clones -- and that they were better off for it.
Briefly, IBM made a strategic decision that their position would be better if personal computers were a commodity with competitive suppliers rather than an artificial monopoly like Apple products. IBM achieved this aim. Competition meant that PC hardware margins were low, therefore IBM was ultimately better off letting other people make sell them. For years, this was a harsh blow to Apple which thrashed badly after the PC took off.
Second, it is misleading to say that "Microsoft now owned the PC standard, and the customer."
Microsoft has heavyweight influence but does not quite own "the PC standard". More to the point, figurative "ownership" of that standard is not a particularly valuable asset. The "standard" is the definition of a competitive commodity. Competition is hot. Therefore nobody "owns" the standard enough to exclude competing manufacturers in any significant way. Nobody "owns" the standard enough to extract significant rent on it.
Microsoft did gain a monopoly on DOS (then Windows) rents in the deal but (a) There does not seem to be any way IBM itself could have kept those rents while still making the PC a commodity; (b) Microsoft's rents on DOS and its control of what is in DOS have never once hurt IBM. (c) Microsoft's creation of a vast market of developers targeting DOS then Windows platforms has only helped IBM.
In short, Graham's snapshot of that bit of history is just plain counter-factual. I hope careful readers will look pretty skeptically on his accounts of "socialism", economic management during WWII (which was widely understood at the time to be fascist, not socialist), the typical experience of 20th century employment (not nearly as described), his armchair sociology....
You've got it backwards. He is right and you are the one who is wrong. Sorry.
You really thing IBM thought, "wow, we are making so much money with these PC things ... better turn them into a commodity so our profit margins will go away!"
I forget how much the original XT cost, something like $2K or so? The margins on that must have been incredible.
I'm with Thomas_Lord... IBM's PC division took a radically open stance with the PC market. I remember being astonished to see the circuit diagrams in the IBM 5150 Technical Reference manual, but understood the point to be that IBM wanted to make it easy to build compatible hardware and software. They reversed their stance - and lost their leadership - with the second-generation MicroChannel and PCjr architectures, largely due to the profit margin problem you identify.
Two part question:
1. A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here. Is there any current research in the direction of possible authentication methods to prevent such fakery?
2. What are we to make of the way this form of remote dominance (simulated or real) has been commodified and put in service of capital accumulation? Are not the paying customers even engaging in a form of self-domination, helping to reproduce their roles as wage slaves, by participating in this system of production?