And imagine the online world loosing both Google and Mozilla. Or development of Firefox, Chrome, and Android slowing to a crawl as they went paid or donation-only. Big companies would win in browser and mobile market by default.
Fixing the funding model is an independent problem.
I'm not saying that advertising and software development aren't prresently linked through funding. But the process is _fundamentally_ unbundled, through the vehicle of Free Software development and licensing.
The costs for advertising are approximately $500 per year per capita in the developed world (~1 billion persons), plus all the associated privacy, surveillance, security, and chilling-effects risks.
A shift of that basis from advertising to a syndicated content-and-development support tax would cut the cord between both advertising and content, and advertising and software development. Treating both writing of content (fiction, nonfiction, journalism, research) and software development as public goods could achieve some very strong social benefits (or at least present a different set of problems for us to jaw over on HN, though the concept of a technology startup incubator might also see some ground shifts).
"Fixing the funding model is an independent problem."
Oh no, it's a very, intertwined problem. One is only likely to succeed in business using models that are shown to work. A browser, secure platform, and so on is usually tens to hundreds of millions in labor. The only companies that have pulled that off either used premium, licensed software (eg Microsoft) or advertising (the rest). There's scores of attempts at alternative, business models to break into all these ad-dominated markets. Almost none of them work. So, this is important.
"through the vehicle of Free Software development and licensing."
It's possible but few have been built that way. There's a bunch of small players trying in the secure collaboration space. Making almost no money. Used iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatApp, and SMS instead. The ones making it, almost none in privacy, seem to be outliers that have lasted quite a while or VC-funded ones that we shouldn't trust due to sell-out risks.
"The costs for advertising are approximately $500 per year per capita in the developed world (~1 billion persons), plus all the associated privacy, surveillance, security, and chilling-effects risks."
Better to look at what it costs to develop top-notch products vs what they make on advertising, proprietary licensing, and FOSS licensing/support. What they make and if it justifies continuing the offering matter more than the $500/yr they probably haven't heard of. It's new to me, too.
"Treating both writing of content (fiction, nonfiction, journalism, research) and software development as public goods could achieve some very strong social benefits (or at least present a different set of problems for us to jaw over on HN, though the concept of a technology startup incubator might also see some ground shifts)."
I agree. It's just that 90-99% of buyers don't consistently for a decade or so.
"Detachable headphones and mics."
Mine and some others' designs call for simple switches that cut power or connection to mic, camera, and so on. That's doable if people want it. I'm also for jumper- and/or crypto-enabled updates of firmware that are tamper-evidence. Also doable.
"Bust out of that box a bit, Nick."
The model I've been considering is to get proprietary vendors to each contribute a bit of their revenue to the development of OSS dependencies. These might even be new proprietary vendors that are starting for the purpose of pushing better, paid software plus new models. The idea is that each of them contribute to say a mobile OS, a SSL library, a Linux/BSD, disk encryption, secure backup, and so on. As they improve and succeed, so do the critical components they are sponsoring. They can include it in the marketing material for customers along with examples like Heartbleed that came from supporting competition that didn't invest in critical infrastructure. So, there's immediate benefit, long-term maintenance, and public good all in one package. Selling the participants is the hard part here.
Note: I also thought getting CompSci people developing bug hunting or code generation tools to use them on these projects with their grant money would be nice, too.
Note 2: We haven't even gotten to the risk of patent suits on these companies whose business models have nowhere near as much money for lawyers or buying patents as those suing. That makes situation more dire at least in U.S..
The problem is separable in that it is conceptually possible to make organisation for software development independent of the business organisation that uses it. We've had this in the past, we have it now, though typically in smaller pieces. It's largely how Unix was developed (an unlikely consortium of a company which quite literally wasn't allowed to sell the product, but could make use of it, and a group of academic institutions in need of both computing tools and training projects), Usenet, the WWW, Linux, Apache, Debian, and more.
Your point that many Free Software projects make little money (at least as Free Software projects) misses the more salient point that they generally don't need to. Scratching itches, low barriers to collaboration, and solving problems in other application spaces makes this possible.
The giants' very reliance on vast revenue flows is also a vulnerability.
And no, I'm not arguing that costs disappear (though efficiencies do appear), but rather that they're distributed and loaded throughout numerous other organisations and activities making money on their own.
The "90-99% of buyers" problem is precisely why you look at funding alternatives which bypass per-copy market sales. I've been looking into the history of publishing and creative works, it's an interesting space. Patronage, busking/performing, crown sanction (essentially a content tax), BBC tax, etc. Information goods and markets interact very poorly: https://redd.it/2vm2da
(UC Berkely / Google economist Hal Varian has an extremely similar treatment which I ran across recently.)
The detachable headphones and mics comment was a reference to an earlier exchange we had, I thought you might recall it.
Your bust-out-of-the-box model isn't too far from what I'm suggesting for content tax/syndication. Whether voluntary (free-rider problem) or compulsory (politically difficult but possibly inevitable) you're distributing contribution to a shared resource. Much as, say, we ended up with language or the law.
Patent threats are also somewhat diminished through small pockets (less attractive target), or might be addressed specifically via legislation and/or international treaty. Say, something with a different philosophy than the TTP, TTIP, TiSA, and BITS crud being shoved down our throats by Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, et al.
