Daily Archives: April 15, 2022

from the with-friends-like-these... dept

While the press and some policy circles have made a large stink the last few years about massive new bipartisan support for antitrust reform, weve noted that the push isnt quite whats being advertised. While some of the bills being proposed might help correct some competitive imbalances online, the push in general is bizarrely narrow and only targets some tech companies under some circumstances.

As a party thats coddled monopolies (see: telecom, banking, airlines, insurance) for literally 40 years, the GOP support for antitrust reform has always been performative. The GOP largely sees antitrust reform as a way to gain leverage over social media giants so they can mandate the carriage of race-baiting propaganda, a cornerstone of GOP power in the face of shifting demographics and an aging electorate.

Democratic activists and lawmakers, hoping to push some of these antitrust bills across the finish line, have been debating whether crushing ethics underfoot is worth it. Case in point: some Democrats have chosen to partner with The American Principles Project on antitrust reform, despite the fact the group is jam-packed with no shortage of obvious bigotry:

APP President Terry Schilling hascalled pediatricians who provide gender-affirming care groomers, meaning pedophiles, and referred to transgender women as biological males who believe they are women. The group has also delved into racial issues, describing the Black Lives Matter movement as a rhetorical Trojan horse pursuing an identiarian race-based caste system for the U.S.

Matt Stoller, the guy who thought Josh Hawley was the future of modern politics and antitrust reform until everybody realized Hawley was a confused, opportunistic, authoritarian knob, argues that the bills being proposed are worth throwing all other ethical considerations in the toilet for:

Consolidated corporate power is the biggest problem that were facing right now in our politics, said Matt Stoller, research director at the anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project, who regularly works with populist figures on the right,including APP. He said divisions within both parties about antitrust changes mean that supporters have to cobble together a majority.

Theres productively working with people you disagree with across the aisle, and then theres this. Authoritarians arent your friends. It doesnt usually end well. And, as some other activists note in the piece, allying with bigots who literally want to destroy your constituents and everything they stand for just to pass some very limited reform laws (several of which have very concrete problems) isnt worth it:

It doesnt make sense to work with someone that doesnt share our values and doesnt share our goal, said Jeremie Greer, co-founder and executive director of economic rights group Liberation in a Generation. I dont think were fighting for the same thing. Greer argued that the push for antitrust reform is essentially about increasing equality and strengthening democracy and a group fighting against LGBTQ and minority rights is fundamentally opposed to that work.

Again, having some slightly more fair app stores or more competitive Amazon product listings isnt going to mean a whole hell of a lot should authoritarians gain power and begin dismantling the law and numerous societal systems in a bid for complete and total domination of their political enemies. And make no mistake, while groups like this dress up far right authoritarianism and bigotry as a rosy-cheeked concern for family values, authoritarianism is very much what were talking about.

At the same time, if youre a large U.S. company in any of a dozen heavily monopolized U.S. industries terrified of antitrust reform of any kind, highlighting these kind of issues in a bid to fracture delicate alliances is something youd most certainly have your K Street policy and PR shops engaged in right now.

That said, if were going to tackle antitrust reform, lets tackle antitrust reform. Instead, what weve wound up with is a bunch of extremely narrow bills that only meaningfully target a handful of companies that the GOP is mad at for belatedly policing political propaganda. And even then, this being the rabidly obstructionist GOP, theres no guarantee theyll show up to vote for a bill that actually does anything.

The entire recent antitrust reform effort literally pretends that sectors packed with natural monopolies (see: telecom) dont exist. And while, yeah, I get the argument that some fairly minor progress in one industry is better than no progress at all, thats not actually true if making that progress involves throwing your entire belief apparatus in the toilet and putting democracy and civility at risk.

Filed Under: antitrust, antitrust reform, authoritarian, big tech, gop, josh hawley, lgbtq, propaganda

Read more here:

Antitrust Reformers Debate Partnering With Bigots To Take On 'Big Tech' - Techdirt

Once the "livable" salary that thousands across the country fought to make the national minimum wage, living on $15/hour is now a near-insurmountable task in many urban metros, including the booming tech hub of Austin, where the median home price pushed past $600,000 in March.

Charles Mitchell, who owns Capital Budgeting Strategies, knows the perils of recent college graduates all too well. He's worked with clients with as little as $67 to their name and says living on your own is doableif you're willing to sacrifice some luxuries or time.

Here's the key to budgeting that $15/hour income in Austin, according to Mitchell:

Aside from paying off debts early, avoiding high-interest loans like payday loans and sacrificing some luxuries in life, Mitchell told Austonia the key comes down to finding cheap housing.

Affordable housing may seem like an element of old Austin legend, and it would be hard to find a place to stay within Mitchell's ideal rangehousing that costs within 28% of your monthly budget. For a full-time employee making $15 an hour, that income amounts to $2,217 per month.

That allots $620 per month for rent. Pickings may be slimjust two complexes offer four-bedroom apartments for that range in Austin on ApartmentFinder.combut with enough roommates, certain specials and the help of apartment locators, it's still very narrowly possible within the city.

The more likely scenario, like Patterson's, may be finding other budgeting areas to cut. Mitchell recommends skimping on luxuries, like payments for nicer cars, and cutting out on savings if needed.

"I'll more or less be able to prioritize paying "X" amount for rent each month," Patterson said. "Trying to be mindful of not just exuberantly spending or being impulsive with buying habits... just knowing that in the next few months, I need to start being able to hand out an additional $1,000 bucks each month just to live."

But $15 an hour may no longer cut it even for Austin homeowners. Fae, an Amazon and Whole Foods employee who is using an alias since she is going against the company media policy, has owned a house in Pflugerville for 20 years, when it was worth half of its current value.

But like virtually every other coworker she knows, Fae has picked up multiple supplemental jobs in order to eke out a living in her city.

Fae recently had a bittersweet celebration as her hourly wage increased to $15.25a 25-cent increase after three years with the company. Wages like hers put Amazon workers' median salary at just over $31,000 in Austinless than half of the median pay at Google, Meta and Apple.

"Even full-time (employees), it doesn't matter, they cannot rely on Amazon as a living job," Fae told Austonia. "Everybody I know has a side job."

Before he even goes out on his own, Patterson is preparing to work extra for a second flow of income that works with his hours at his current job at Austin FC's Q2 Stadium without running his energy into the ground.

A side hustle may be essential to paying off loans early and beginning to save for retirement (Mitchell recommends a high-interest IRA), but it doesn't have to be too taxing: Mitchell said anything from picking up food delivery shifts to having a garage sale could revitalize your budget.

Patterson didn't take his current job for the moneyinstead, he's hoping his current gig at the stadium could lead to his breakthrough in the sports industry.

Taking a job with clear upward mobility is key, Mitchell says, and bonuses like matching 401(k) plans or other benefits are a huge plus. If your job offers neither and still pays too little, however, it might be time to consider switching to a more sustainable job.

Mitchell said many people aren't taught the financial literacy tools needed to afford a living in Austin, and many others are never made aware of the employment options that are available. While Austin hasn't had much praise for its affordability in recent months, it does boast a swelling job market, with over 58,000 more jobs created from February 2020 to February 2022.

If your debt is low and you've got extra time, investing in a marketable skill online or at a local community college is always advisable. And while it may not be as desirable, some restaurants and entry-level positions, including McDonald's, have raised starting pay for some positions to over $15 per hour.

Even with these tips in place, both Fae and Patterson agree that their current wage is hardly doable in Austin.

Patterson says he wonders if he made the right decision to stay in the capital city in what is looking like its most expensive era yet.

"There's probably not a week that goes by where I don't second guess if I'm making the right call," Patterson said. "But I'm also pretty confident, just knowing me as a person, that I'll be able to... grind it out and find a way to make things work."

Fae plans to stay too, even as other Austinites she knows could get pushed out, as she collects workplace horror storiesand unlivable wagesat Amazon before her homemade skincare product line takes off.

"Everybody who's originally from Austin can't even afford to live in Austin (anymore) and they're just moving out," Fae said. "My question is, how do they get away with this?"

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Read more:

Here's the typical pay for a Big Tech worker in Austin - Austonia

Major League Baseball may have started in the 19th century and come of age in the 20th, but it is definitely no stranger to technology, whether its the cloud for storing and analyzing troves of data or figuring out how to customize and enhance fans experience.

To do all of that, MLB uses a range of technology from customized video search andStatcast for advanced statistics to streaming and mobile apps and games for its fans. The league is already welcoming NFTs and looking at AR and VR as it tries to take advantage of whatever tech is out there that makes sense for baseball.

I spoke to Vasanth Williams, the leagues head of engineering and chief product officer, to get a better sense of the technology being adopted and how its used.

Williams said baseball has its fingers in so many tech pies that theres no such thing as a typical day for him.

Its hard to have a typical day, because the breadth of our portfolio products is quite large. But overall, the biggest priority for me is to drive fan engagement leveraging all the new technologies and the data we have to help not just understand the game itself better or the data that we generate, but also create new and interesting experiences for fans in ways they can better connect to baseball, and also the community at large, he said.

Williams was hired by MLB after stints at Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon, so he understands Big Tech and said he saw a chance to work in a place that is constantly trying to innovate and take advantage of available technology.

MLB has a long history of leveraging data and technology, and being an early adopter of a lot of the technologies, which I love doing. Im happy to join the journey to continue that and push the envelope in sports technology as a whole, he said.

MLB FilmRoom lets you search for video footage from across baseball. Image Credits: MLB

MLB briefly worked with AWS to build its cloud stack, but it has now gone all-in with Google Cloud. The league is now building a platform for creating applications, which individual teams can also take advantage of.

See the original post:

MLB forays into the future with new tech for the old ball game - TechCrunch

Apples privacy-protecting Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) is expected to cost tech companies $16 billion in the coming year, an increase of 9%, according to a report by data solutions provider Lotame. However, a separate academic study has found companies already have ways around it.

What it is. IDFA is a random device identifier assigned by Apple. It lets advertisers track users to deliver customized advertising, while protecting personal information. The Android equivalent is Google Play Services ID for Android.

Last fall, Lotame estimated IDFA would have a total financial impact of $10 billion on Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and YouTube, with Facebook being responsible for more than 80% of that. That was a very good estimate.

During Facebooks Q4 earnings call CFO David Wehner said, we believe the impact of iOS overall as a headwind on our business in 2022 is on the order of $10 billion, so its a pretty significant headwind for our business. And were seeing that impact in a number of verticals. E-commerce was an area where we saw a meaningful slowdown in growth in Q4.

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Who will lose what. Lotame expects Facebook to be the biggest loser again next year. It projects the company to have a $12.8 billion loss, followed by YouTube at $2.1 billion, SNAP $546 million and Twitter $323 million.

However, a new report suggests that while IFDA has made tracking more difficult, companies appear to be finding ways around it.

The report by Oxford academics Konrad Kollnig, Max Van Kleek, Reuben Binns, and Nigel Shadbolt, with independent U.S.-based researcher Anastasia Shuba, will be published in June (a draft version is available). The team analyzed 1,759 apps before and after Apple introduced its protections.

Proof of continued tracking. While tracking did decrease, there was little change in apps tracking libraries, which record usage frequency and activities. Even more disturbing: Many apps continued to collect tracking data despite users having asked the apps not to be tracked.

The researchers also found evidence of app makers engaging in fingerprinting of users, collecting device and usage data to create a unique identifier to track the user, through the use of server-side code.

While Apples changes make tracking individual users more difficult, they motivate a counter-movement, and reinforce existing market power of gatekeeper companies with access to large troves of first-party data, they state in their paper.

One company that IFDA is helping? Apple. Its Search Ads program, which prioritizes placement in the App Store, grew by $3.7 billion in 2021, an increase of 238% over the previous year, according to market analyst Omdia.

Why we care. Data collecting doesnt go over well with a lot of the public (who also want personalized CX, go figure). Thats why Apple and Google (and others) have been working to protect personal information. It was inevitable that some companies would try to get around this. It is likely this will come back to bite them, as Apple and Google dont like companies which break the rules.

Read next: Mozilla and Meta are working on privacy-preserving attribution

Continued here:

Apple privacy protections expected to cost big tech firms $16 billion in coming year - MarTech

The origins of the free and open-source software (FOSS) movement in the 1980s are typical of a social movement. It was triggered by the frustration generated by the expansion of intellectual property rights (IPR) to software, perceived by many software developers and researchers as a barrier to their ways of working, their values, freedoms and productivity. However, only in the 1990s, with the advent of the world wide web, could the movement really take off. This happened when dispersed developers, driven by varying motivations initially not mainly economic began to come together, forming new types of communities, based on collaboration, voluntary contributions and original forms of governance.

From the beginning, however, the main innovation introduced by FOSS was to turn around property rights. FOSS licences work under a regime of what Yochai Benkler termed open access commons, which makes this kind of commons different from the characterisations, dilemmas and principles of governance that Elinor Ostrom developed in her Nobel Prize-winning studies. This has many important implications, both in the modalities of governance and in the forms of generation and appropriation of value. The most relevant is that this regime denies the right to exclude or the exclusive rights of the owner. With that, it removes the possibility of selling the property or selling the right to access and use the resource, and in this way to appropriate its value, at least privately and exclusively.

In this article I try to understand the significance and evolution of free and open-source software in the wider context of the transition now underway in the organisation of production shaped by the new revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). It is only from this perspective that we can understand both the true significance of FOSS and its surprising evolution in relation to the capitalist ICT markets and the novel character of the current transition.

Software production is the core of the digital revolution. The surprising development I want to highlight and analyse is that FOSS, a phenomenon born on the margins of industry and organised around a commons on the frontiers of software innovation, has become the standard model for software production.

Three recent developments indicate that something interesting is going on. First, in 2018, Microsoft, formerly the fiercest enemy of FOSS (depicting the free software as a cancer, undermining the software markets)announced the acquisition of GitHub, the main platform for FOSS development. The news shocked many, but the move was the culmination of some radical repositioning by Microsoft, which had begun years earlier. Shortly after this, IBM in a game of catch-up with Microsoft bought Red Hat, the biggest open-source services company, for $34 billion. Finally, the European Commission imposed a spectacular4.34 billion fine on Google forabusing its dominant position in mobile telephone technology, which it obtained through its open-source Android operating system. Together, these three occurrences give us an idea about far-reaching changes in the relation of FOSS to the capitalist market, challenging us to rethink our interpretations of FOSS as a digital commons.

To understand both the significance of FOSS and its evolution in the context of the current transition in systems of production, we need to understand the relations these changes entail between technology, the economy and institutional forms, including forms of ownership and governance. Such an understanding can best be approached through the framework of a techno-economic paradigm (TEP).

This idea,proposed by Carlota Perez, involves the notion of a technological revolution in capitalist production, which she defines as a set of inter-related radical breakthroughs, forming a major constellation of interdependent technologies. The emphasis is on the strong interconnection and interdependence of the systems that make up this paradigm, in both their technological and their economic aspects. This approach also stresses the power of these breakthroughs to profoundly and simultaneously transform the entire economy and society as a whole, including the state. Currently, on Perezs analysis, we are moving from a faltering paradigm of mass production (sometimes referred to as Fordism) to a new paradigm centred on information and communication technology.

The notion of a techno-economic paradigm captures the set of highly interconnected technical and organisational innovations that define a new common sense regarding the best model for efficient production that will guide the dissemination process across all sectors and provide the patterns for framing both problems and solutions. A new TEP emerges and develops in two distinct phases: the installation period and the deployment period.

According to Perez, these transitions begin when a previous paradigm has exhausted its potential for growth in productivity. The first phase of these technological revolutions is typically led by financial capital, speculative bubbles and a laissez-faire ideology, and aims to override the power of old production structures, to finance new entrepreneurs and to allow a period of extensive experimentation. This phase typically ends with a financial collapse.

It is by coming out of the ensuing depression that periods of great prosperity have been unleashed, by exploiting the enormous potential for transformation that has emerged embryonically in the first period. Whether these possibilities are fully realised depends on whether the powerful industries and organisations of the previous paradigm, including their associated state and civic organisations, use the new technologies to reinforce their entrenched positions and institutional power structures for example, corporate use of new technology to control labour and reinforce forms of exploitation typical of mass production (or mass delivery); or whether the new forces can reshape the institutions, spread the gains from the new technologies more widely and more sustainably, and reach a new social and environmental settlement.

Historically, these readjustments have only taken place under radical political pressure to reverse the dislocations produced by the previous period of rampant market domination. This is also true because they have entailed a major overhaul of the institutional order. Each paradigm shift has in fact required institutional and cultural discontinuities so deep that one can speak of a succession of different modes of growth in the history of capitalism.

This concept of a TEP enables us to understand FOSS as more than a radical but marginal innovation that has been incorporated and normalised but rather as a vital element of the current transition in forms of production. An understanding of FOSS therefore helps us understand the character of this transition and the research that needs to be done to understand the different paths it and the ecosystem of which, as we shall see, FOSS has become a part, could take.

The widespread absorption of FOSS into the capitalist market, in fact, requires a review, or at least a reworking, in particular of the early framing of the relations (summarised at the beginning of this article) between the capitalist market and the digital commons. To this end, I offer three concepts in order to organise a new approach to these relationships: semi-commons, shared infrastructure and ecosystems creation.

The concept of semi-commons describes the basis on which markets and the commons co-exist and eventually grow in parallel. One example would be the medieval lands that accommodated two kinds of activities farming and grazing carried out at different times of the year, as well as two different regimes of property commons and private.

Applied to the analysis of modern communication networks, it points to a two-tiered framework based on the co-existence of a double regime of property and economic activity in the same system of resources. This framework can house the variety of open business models emerging around FOSS: sale of services, support, certifications, the development of freemium offers and the integration of property-based additional software features. The software remains a commons that cannot be appropriated in an exclusive way, but on top of this shared base, different forms of commercialisation and markets can be devised or generated.

This two-tiered semi-commons sustains the rationale that is most used for explaining companies adoption of FOSS: shared infrastructures. In such cases, market actors are mainly users or buyers of software, rather than producers and vendors of software and related products or services. For these actors, FOSS, as a commons, provides a way to share and economise on the costs and risks related to the access to and use of necessary components of production.

Although these forms of collaborative decommodification are far from easy to achieve, the sharing of resources is made easier by leveraging certain characteristics of the digital commons, such as its non-rivalry in use or its practically non-existent marginal costs. The dominance that Linux achieved in servers or cloud computing are examples of this use of FOSS to build shared infrastructure. At the same time, the extremely concentrated structure of the cloud computing market shows, once again, how FOSS can go hand in hand with new forms of market concentration.

If semi-commons explains the basic logic, and a shared infrastructure is the most widespread rationale for the adoption of FOSS by market players, the third concept the generation of ecosystems highlights how FOSS, as a commons, has been used to implement innovative capitalist competition strategies. Googles Android represents the clearest and most successful example.

This strategy is based on a multi-layered modulation of ownership regimes and consists of disrupting a market by decommodifying a crucial layer of an industrial ecosystem in the case of Android, the operating system used by the mobile phone industry. In this case, the objective is to shift competition in an industry into a more advantageous terrain; to attract users, developers and various types of business ecosystems to a new standard, infrastructure or platform; and to exploit the growth or creation of complementary markets, which are adjacent to and correlated with the FOSS commons.

As the recent fine imposed on Google by the EU Commission shows, these cross-subsidy practices can be used as a kind of innovative dumping strategy, which aims to eliminate competitors, trigger adoption and various types of network effects, and achieve monopolistic positions. Surveillance Capitalismanalysed and exposed by Shoshana Zuboff, which revolves around the hoarding and exploitation of user data, has been a fertile ground for these strategies. But these modalities of competition are increasingly expanding beyond software itself.

Several ideas can be gleaned from this framework to guide future work on these new commons. First is the need to study these new commons, born on the frontier of the digital revolution, as hybrid configurations that combine different regimes of ownership and economic exploitation, rather than as pure, isolated and autonomous systems. This nested structure, in fact, seems omnipresent and is also applicable in the purest community-centred projects. But most importantly, it is crucial to take it into account in order to understand the economics and politics of these new multi-layered productive ecosystems.

Second, despite their idiosyncratic structures, markets and commons can not only co-exist, but can expand in parallel or in synergy. Third, however counter-intuitive it may seem, there can be forms of capitalistic competition that are based on the creation of the commons. And fourth, the emergence of these new commons and their different configurations with the markets allow us to spot several potential areas for new kinds of public policies: from anti-trust to the modulation of a new kind of mixed political economy.

The development of the digital commons, with its denial of the exclusive rights of the owner to appropriate its value privately and exclusively, was seen as either exciting or frightening, depending on ones perspective. Initially, FOSS was celebrated by many for its anarchic features. And still today, FOSS is sometimes considered as a sign of an emerging post-capitalist mode of production. Conversely, it was relatively easy for Microsoft to leverage instinctive fears in the business world, where it was perceived as a threat to their markets and profits. Indeed, I would argue that, to some extent, the participation of companies in the development of FOSS means that they are contributing to processes of de-propertisation and decommodification.

From another perspective however, it could legitimately be argued that by producing freely shared goods, these companies are engaging with and contributing to the expansion of a modality of value creation and appropriation that is distinct from the market. It is clear that, despite its idiosyncratic form with respect to its commercialisation as a product, the surprising success of FOSS would not have taken place without the increasing engagement of companies in its use and development. This was a goal deliberately pursued by the business-friendly branch of FOSS, which divided the free software movement in the late 1990s and can now justifiably celebrate its achievement.

Thus, returning to my focus on the importance of FOSS for the current wider changes in technological and economic relations and forms of organisation, we have seen FOSS move from the margins and challenge the dominant market/state dichotomy. By growing forcefully throughout the installation period, it is on course to become the essence of the information systems and infrastructures that will permeate the new TEP. The FOSS ecosystem has successfully installed a new institution, what has been called a contractually reconstructed commons. The spectacular growth of FOSS therefore indicates that new kinds of commons could potentially play a central role in the new paradigm. Conversely, the missed engagement with these new commons (for example, by public institutions) could represent one of the blind spots generated by what Perez understands as the present impasse in the unresolved transition from the installation phase to the deployment phase of the new paradigm. A more serious engagement with these novelties could help to clarify different possible directions in the search for a new conceptual and regulatory framework adapted to its potential. However, the necessary clarification of these dilemmas can only be made through politics.

There are many reasons to think that one of the most crucial areas of innovation in the near future could come from public policy. So far, the public sector has lagged behind the market in dealing with these novelties, and it remains to be understood how it can productively engage with, participate in and contribute to the further development of the FOSS ecosystem and production model. It is significant that the Chinese government has alreadymade a commitment at the highest levelto answer the question. It is a vital issue to be addressed by all those with an interest in democratic, non-exclusive, commons-based economic relations.

Teaser photo credit; By Benjamintf1 Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35656954

See the rest here:

Common Knowledge: Big tech and the digital commons - Resilience

DuckDuckGo is rolling out access to a new internet browser to compete with popular big tech products, such as Googles Chrome, Apples Safari and Microsofts Internet Explorer.

DuckDuckGo is known for its search engine that aims to challenge Google and is marketed as a privacy-focused alternative to larger companies products.

The companys senior director for product, Beah Burger-Lenehan, said the new DuckDuckGo for Mac service is not simply a replacement for Incognito mode, which is Googles private browsing tool available in Chrome.

Our privacy feed lets you see who we caught trying to track you, lets you clear any stored data from websites you recently visited, and helps you easily navigate back to recent pages privately, Ms. Burger-Lenehan said on the companys blog. Facebook tries to get around tracker blockers by putting trackers in embedded content. When this happens, we block this content from loading by default, while still letting you opt-in to view it if desired.

People wanting to switch from a big tech browser to DuckDuckGo will need to join a private waitlist to use the service on Apples desktop operating system. A version of the browser for Microsofts operating system is under development.

Ms. Burger-Lenehan said Tuesday the company started picking people off its waitlist this week to use the new test browser for Mac and a version for Windows is forthcoming. People may join the waitlist through DuckDuckGos mobile app.

The search engine company has reported a surge in user activity on its platform that coincided with the onset of COVID restrictions that pushed more people online and the 2020 election that resulted in disaffected voters looking for alternatives to big tech products.

For example, DuckDuckGos website shows nearly 70 million more daily queries happening on average this week than three years ago. The companys website said 29.1 million queries were made on April 13, 2019, and nearly 98.7 million queries were recorded for Monday.

Search volume data from Google is not publicly available, but software company HubSpot estimated last year that Google processes 63,000 searches every second, or approximately 5.6 billion per day.

As part of its strategy to compete with the markets dominant players, DuckDuckGo has waded into policy efforts in Washington to crack down on its big tech opponents.

Earlier this year, DuckDuckGo signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee supporting the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which would limit large tech companies from preferencing their own products. The bill advanced through the committee but has not received final consideration by the full Senate.

A DuckDuckGo official also appeared at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to push lawmakers to ban surveillance advertising.

View post:

DuckDuckGo readying browser to compete with big tech products from Google, Apple - Washington Times

The rush to capture the metaverse frontier has led to a $2 billion investment in Epic Games from Sony and Kirkbi (which owns the Lego Group) this week. Days before the announcement, Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, also launched a partnership with Lego to design a metaverse community for children. Chief among the goals for the collaboration is the mission to protect children by focusing on privacy and well being in the metaverse, and providing children and their parents with the tools to control their experiences.

This focus on the protection and safety of children and other vulnerable groups has become an increasingly loud drumbeat around the topic of the metaverse as critics point to the troubled trajectory of Facebook.

On Monday, the same day that Epic Games received its multibillion-dollar boost, corporate activism group SumOfUs released Risky Business, an investor briefing on Meta, (pdf) a report meant to compel Meta to hire an independent group to study the potential psychological and civil and human rights harms of a metaverse.

Although some remain skeptical of the very concept of the metaverse, major institutions in technology, medicine, gaming, and the investment community are already convinced that it is the next phase of the internet. In March, Citi framed (pdf) the metaverse opportunity to businesses investing in the space as potentially worth $13 trillion by 2030, while in December Goldman Sachs forecast (pdf) a value of $12.5 trillion in the coming decades.

However, the perils of investing heavily in the future before it fully materializes are already being felt by Meta. In February, the company suffered the biggest one-day stock crash in market history, losing $230 billion in value. The plunge in value happened after Metas last earnings report, which outlined slower revenue growth, stoking investor concerns about the companys spending on metaverse research and development rather than its current flagship products.

Adding to concerns around Metas plans for the metaverse are near constant revelationsabout the way the company treats its users onFacebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The latest damning report in March detailed the companys efforts to secretly turn the public against rival social media giant TikTok. The news followed last years whistleblower report accusing Meta of suppressing research that indicated that Instagram was toxic for teenage girls.

The board and shareholders should receive a report of a third-party assessment of: potential psychological and civil and human rights harms of a metaverse, reads the SumOfUs report, which cites Metas $10 billion in spending on metaverse projects in 2021. Conversely, Epic Games and Lego included three principles of safety in their metaverse launch announcement.

Meta has dominated the negative metaverse chatter, but the risks to any company, particularly its handling of children, are real. Heeding prevailing concerns, Microsoft, Roblox, Niantic and others leading the metaverse are now weaving ethics and safety tenets into the foundations of their efforts.

Read more here:

Big Techs battle for the metaverse will come down to ethics - Quartz

mviamonte/iStock via Getty Images

While IonQ (NYSE:IONQ) is an exciting company in a next-generation industry, I think the company will struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of technological change. The company is competing with companies with more financial resources necessary to pay for the best talent. The company is losing money, and that will not change soon. Constant refinancing or dilution will be required. It's also unclear how much value IONQ has added to its customers. It is difficult to find information and even more challenging to understand the technology behind quantum computing. Much of any potential future success is already priced into its enormous valuation. In addition, the cost of talent and energy is rising, and venture capital is becoming scarcer as interest rates rise. Therefore, I do not see an attractive risk/reward ratio.

IonQ was founded in 2015 by Dr. Christopher Monroe and Dr. Jungsang Kim, who already had decades of experience researching quantum computers. They had "the goal of taking trapped ion quantum computing out of the lab and into the market".

Right now, it's the only public company whose quantum computers are available in big-tech clouds - via Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure and Amazon's (AMZN) Web Services starting in 2019, and Google's (GOOG) cloud starting in 2021. These can be booked by companies, which generates revenue for the company. The company has been listed on the stock exchange since October 2021.

The quantum computing market size is predicted to rise from $89.6 million in 2019 to $1,866.8 million by 2030 (according to the market research report published by P&S Intelligence), equaling a CAGR of 33.1%. Furthermore, on page 3 of their investor presentation, IONQ mentions a $65B TAM by 2030.

Of course, these are all estimates, and I doubt any assessment that goes further than two years into the future. However, it is almost certain that when quantum computers exceed the computing power of today's best classical supercomputers, the market will be there, and it will be huge. This assumes that the performance will also be practically usable without producing errors, which researchers have struggled with so far. There are already quantum computers that are faster than today's supercomputers, but so far, these perform calculations tailored to them and cannot be used for "everything" in general.

According to IBM, how exactly quantum computers will be useful, we do not know yet. Among the early adaptors are Financial managers and banks. Pharmaceutical companies could also become significant beneficiaries, and finally, quantum computers will help elevate machine learning and AI to levels of complexity that are unimaginable for us today. And there will undoubtedly be many other areas of application, but from today's point of view, this is only speculation.

Many technologies are used for quantum computing qubits, such as superconducting, photonics, silicon-based, spin qubits, trapped-ions, etc. IONQ's quantum technology of choice is trapped-ion qubits created from an isotope of a rare-earth metal called ytterbium but will be switched to barium in the next generation. These barium-based systems are supposed to offer several benefits, such as lower error rates, systems that are easier to network, and increased uptime for customers.

Overall, IONQ is more focused on keeping errors low, as their systems are already commercially available. It could be a potential risk for the company to commit to a specific technology too early and thus be less free to research than the competition: a side effect of the IPO. From now on, the market expects sales to rise sharply.

The current system operates with 20 algorithmic qubits and is expected to multiply within the next few years. However, it is essential to remember that while these long-term projections are a goal for companies, they are never sure to happen.

IONQ march presentation

Meanwhile, on November 15, IBM (IBM) introduced a chip with more than 100 qubits. The 'Eagle' chip is a step towards IBM's goal of creating a 433-qubit quantum processor next year, followed by one with 1,121 qubits, named Condor, by 2023. Already in 2019, Google announced a 54 qubit processor with the goal to build a "useful quantum computer" by 2029.

Other competitors include Honeywell (HON) and several Chinese companies that are going their independent way in this area. As we can see, it's a crowded business where we'll see a lot of discoveries and research in the future. It's impossible to predict who will build the most superior systems for years to come. But one thing is certain: This will require massive capital and talent. Currently, IONQ has only 97 employees (according to Seeking Alpha's company profile), which sounds like almost nothing and makes me wonder how this small company can compete with multi-billion dollar companies. Sure, they have partners like the University of Maryland and South Korea's Q Center. But will this be enough? I don't know. But what I know is...

IONQ currently has a market capitalization of $2.5B with debt of $4.2M and "cash, cash equivalents, and investments" of $603M as of December 31, 2021, resulting in an enterprise value of approximately $1.9B. According to the latest press release, 2021 revenues were $2.1M ($1.6M in Q4), representing an EV/S ratio of 904. The company expects sales in 2022 to be between $10.2M and $10.7M, which would correspond to a price to sales ratio of about 180.

The 2021 net loss was $106.2 million, and the adjusted EBITDA loss was $28.3 million. For 2022, adjusted EBITDA loss is expected to be approximately $55 million. So the cash burn rate continues to accelerate, but at least the cash reserves are sufficient for a few more years. Nevertheless, there is no indication if and when the company will ever be cash flow positive. In the current monetary and geopolitical environment, energy is becoming more expensive, and salaries are higher, especially for the highly educated talent that IONQ needs. They are permanently competing with rivals who can comfortably pay any compensation.

One thing I always check when stock prices appear high is whether there has been insider selling. I interpret that as a sign that those sellers think their price is overvalued. So there's not much to see here, especially since the stock price was double in December. Nevertheless, I mention it anyway because it is always valuable to check insider selling.

openinsider

I could not find out the price for bookings of the quantum computers. Then I realized that there is very little information:

Or in other words: I find it extremely difficult to assess whether this is a sticky business with high added value for IONQ's customers or not. Without knowing that, how should private investors like us evaluate our investments? The technical descriptions and developments are hard to understand for private investors. For example, how is anyone supposed to understand whether barium-based systems will be better than those made of ytterbium? So you always have to rely on the information provided by the company. At the same time, we don't know what the competition is currently researching and how far they are already behind closed doors. It will be the same as in every area of the economy: whoever offers the best product at the best price will prevail.

So there is a lot of uncertainty. Nevertheless, the valuation is so high that years of strong growth are already priced in. It is not an appealing risk-reward ratio. There is a lot of downside potential at this valuation, and I can hardly think of a trigger that would send this enormously high valuation even higher now.

But of course, there are also many positive things about the company. They have proven their concept and already have quantum computing systems in the clouds and successfully monetize them. This could well indicate that the company is technically further ahead than the competition, especially regarding a lower error rate, which research struggles with a lot.

Furthermore, the management team consists of high-caliber and highly educated people. Some have been researching the subject for decades and have previously done fundamental quantum research at universities. Furthermore, there is now a joint R&D with Hyundai to create the next generation EV batteries. The company also has high-profile investors (Amazon, Google) and customers (Goldman Sachs, Accenture).

The company may be a takeover candidate. While they are not generating much revenue, the intellectual property could be precious. Moreover, their system is already running on the clouds of Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Therefore, it would not be far-fetched if one of these three companies were interested in a takeover. IONQ's technology and employees would most likely complement their research. At the moment, of course, this is just pure speculation, but it should be kept in mind, especially if you want to short the stock because of its valuation.

It is a tempting stock to short. However, there is also risk: The hype around the share and quantum computers may continue or intensify. Furthermore, the company could be a takeover candidate. If you want to short, be sure to place a stop order so that the risk is limited. If you don't want to do that, I think this company is an excellent candidate to wait and see. It is likely that at some point, the company will not reach its quarterly targets, and on that day, the share price will fall sharply. There will be a better time for an entry if you ever want to enter.

For all these reasons, an investment is out of the question for me. So far, there is only meager revenue, a lot of research to do, a high valuation, and a business model that I can't assess. Moreover, a competitor could make a breakthrough any day, causing the company to fall behind technologically. Nevertheless, it is a stock I want to keep on my watchlist since it could possibly be a potential winner of one of the next megatrends.

See the rest here:

IonQ: Enormous Valuation And The Competition Is Big-Tech - Seeking Alpha

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2022 Vint Cerf, a vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google, warned against government moderation of content on the internet during a panel event last week, as Washington focuses on addressing the power of big technology platforms.

Deliberate government censorship is almost never helpful because it inhibits the ability of the population to learn things it should know and needs to know, said Cerf at the April 6 Broadband Breakfast live event, which discussed internet censorship.

While Cerf is adamant that the government should not play a role in online content moderation, he is also not an advocate for company censorship either.

Censorship by companies is not necessarily any more attractive, except that its forced on many of those companies, including mine, partly because we impose those terms and conditions in the hope of shielding people from harmful behavior or we are induced and provided with incentives to do that because if we dont do that there will be fines that are inimical to business, Cerf said.

My sense is that were going to be forced to cope with some form of censorship whether its self-censorship or some kind of censorship imposed by legislative rule, added Cerf. My primary desire is to maximize the utility of the internet and do whatever we can to minimize its harmful abuse.

Fellow panelist at the event, Berin Szoka, president of tech lobbyist TechFreedom, echoed Cerfs point saying, The best answer is for the government to stay out because in the United States, it is simply not a proper thing for government officials to get involved in how content is moderated.

The discussion comes as debate swirls in Washington about what to do about big tech platforms and market power. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have been tasked by President Joe Biden with enforcing antitrust laws that includes addressing monopoly power and businesses practices perceived as anticompetitive.

Szoka was quick to dismantle Bidens antitrust approach at the Wednesday event. This is not an antitrust issue; it cant be an antitrust issue, he said. Antitrust is about regulating business practices, not editorial judgements. There are a lot of people who want to make this an antitrust issue on both sides of the aisle.

Republicans want revenge against big tech platforms for perceived bias and Democrats want somehow for antitrust law to do something about abstract values like diversity in media, or human rights, or whatever and these are simply inappropriate things for competition law to address, he added.

Read more:

Panelists Urge Government Resist Getting Involved in Content Moderation - BroadbandBreakfast.com

Tearsheet provides daily summaries of the top news stories and events, like this piece, in a nifty, neat, nicely-packaged daily email. Stay informed. Subscribe here.

CarbonPay launches payment card to help businesses automatically offset their carbon footprint

CarbonPay, a sustainability-focused fintech, just released its first product, CarbonPay Business Ctrl a prepaid corporate card offering.

The product is designed for companies looking to live their corporate green goals without participating in corporate greenwashing, CarbonPay CEO Rory Suprway told Tearsheet.

The firm claims that for every $1.50 or 1 spent using its products, it offsets 1 kg of CO2 at no extra cost. Their service is currentlyavailable in the US and the UK.

Read more

Green Finance Briefing: Techs newfound interest in carbon capture

The carbon removal market has been attracting a lot of interest lately, and now it seems that theres a strong wave of capital coming in as well, with big tech companies paving the way.

Alphabet, McKinsey, Meta, Shopify, and Stripe are joining together in launching a $925 million fund essentially an advanced market commitment on carbon capture technology in a project namedFrontier.

The idea is to invest in this technology at an early stage with the aim of figuring out a way to capture carbon at scale, store it long-term, bring the price below $100 per ton, and remove over 0.5 gigatons annually.

While its not a central solution to the problem of climate change, carbon removal has a significantrole to play we wont be able to reach net zero without it.

Read more(exclusive to Outlier members)

1. Investment priorities in banking this year

Source:Celent

2. The largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private firms

Source:a16z

Morgan Stanley is no longer Wall Streets smallest big bankDuring the pandemic, Morgan Stanleyvaulted past both Goldman Sachs and Citigroup in market valuation (Financial Times)

Revolut taps Cross River to build US businessCross River Bank has partnered withRevolut to build and scaleRevoluts business in the US(PYMNTS)

How Bidens crypto executive order may impact banksLast month, president Joe Biden signed an executive order on ensuring the responsible development of digital assets. How will it impact banks and fintechs?(Finovate)

JPMorgan reveals design specs for new NYC HQJPMorgan Chase unveiled the design for its new global headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, reinforcing its commitment to New York City(Finextra)

Bread rolls out cashback AmEx credit cardBread Financial, which offers payment, lending, and saving solutions, islaunchinga new consumer credit card the Bread Cashback American ExpressCredit Card(Crowdfund Insider)

Stay ahead of the game withOutlier Tearsheets exclusive members-only content programand join the leading financial services and fintech innovators reading us every day.

Read the rest here:

Daily Tearsheet: CarbonPay's sustainability-focused payment card, and tech's newfound interest in carbon capture Tearsheet - Tearsheet