Why can't the UK govt set up or incentivise the set up of our own alternatives to the big tech giant products? We already have Argos (believe it or not) which is a pretty good Amazon substitute, we could easily create social media and search engines and whatnot. This way we could have content moderation that stands on its own, rather than being what DT wants.
I'd add Operating Systems to the mix as well
Operating system is mostly solved = Linux.
Search engine - I'm using Ecosia, which seems pretty decent. It's German so maybe that doesn't count.
Social media - if everyone used STW, the pages would never load.
The Americans simply buy up any competition and kill it off before it threatens their monopoly
Argos is fairly terrible though tbh. There is never stock in the place you need it and they don't seem to redistribute so its rarely available for delivery either.
we could easily create social media and search engines and whatnot
I love this kind of mindless optimism about how easy social media and search engines are to create. I mean, a couple of smelly 20 year olds still living at home with their parents could probably just build Facebook or Google in an afternoon, right?
Search engine - I'm using Ecosia
Ecosia just uses Google and Bing 🙁
Social media - if everyone used STW, the pages would never load
Is amused. Looks for applause emoji
When did you last use Argos. They haven't been useful since the early 2000s.....roughly when Amazon took off really.
When did you last use Argos. They haven't been useful since the early 2000s.....roughly when Amazon took off really.
Disagree. They are often very competitive on price and if they don't have what you need in stock at one of their supermarket outlets they can usually get it next day. Have used them quite a few times in the last few years and they haven't let me down.
When did you last use Argos. They haven't been useful since the early 2000s.
A month or two ago. When did YOU last use Argos? Honestly they've done a cracking job of stocking the sort of tech crap I'd buy from Amazon.
I love this kind of mindless optimism about how easy social media and search engines are to create. I mean, a couple of smelly 20 year olds still living at home with their parents could probably just build Facebook or Google in an afternoon, right?
I do this stuff for a living, so I wouldn't call it mindless optimisim. It's a pretty straightforward technical problem, all Meta's work goes into allowing people to pay variable amounts of money for exposure but obfuscating how they actually do it.
When did you last use Argos. They haven't been useful since the early 2000s.....roughly when Amazon took off really.
Competitive for name brand products and do same day delivery and you're not spending money with that **** Bezos.
Plus I'm a shareholder so you really should spend more money with them.
We're just assuming whoever owns Argos is a nice person? 🙂
Competitive for name brand products and do same day delive
Is that region specific..... I can't even get same day delivery on shit round here when ever I've tried to use them - if I select any shop between Arbroath to inverurie and agree to travel to the shop.
Absolutely not a competitor for amazon
They may be ****s. But Argos don't fill the gap.
whoever owns Argos is a nice person?
Sainsbury's
@trail_rat YMMV but Argos works well here and Amazon is absolutely the retailer of last resort chez nous.
I had a memory that Argos were owned by British American Tobacco at some point, but Wikipedia suggests that hasn't been the case since the '90s. It's been owned by Sainsbury's since 2016.
Not BAT but GUS, Great Universal Stores who did a demerger.
Edit: you're right BAT ownership predated GUS ownership
we also use Argos quite a bit
they don't have a tv chanel with Reacher on tho
I mean, a couple of smelly 20 year olds still living at home with their parents could probably just build Facebook or Google
Isn't that pretty much what happened?
Argos works well here and Amazon is absolutely the retailer of last resort chez nous.
Same here. Although MrsD still pays for Amazon Prime (sigh)
Good to see you are all finally catching up! Member (member berries) when everybody on the internet thought Musk was a real life Tony Stark, totes amazeballs, what a guy.
I did point out, many times, how pernicious American culture is and what a seeping poison their corporate/social media/entertainment is. The way they have set out to homogenise all markets, so they can sell as much product, to as many people as possible, making your average consumer feel special, is as tragic as it is hilarious. Indoctrinating younger generations to the point they speak American and think they can be an influencer/brand, chatting shit, playing video games, driving round in sports cars whilst living in a beach house in Malibu. It's an easy sell, it's much more appealing than living in grey old Britain working for minimum wage, whilst not being able to afford anything that actually matters!
Let's all play dress up and go to a convention with our dogs it's going to be amazzzingggg. Let's go!!!
Social media needs vast numbers of users to have a hope of being profitable, so any UK built one would need to attract a global user base - I just don't see that happening. It would also need to attract global advertisers, again - how?
If any UK based social media or online shopping company was publicly traded they'd just get bought up by one of the existing giants anyway (if they ever got to a size to be noticed).
I can't see us leading the way in the AI space either, it just requires too much investment and we also lack the land and infrastructure required for the datacentres to run it in. Developing AI algorithms will increasingly be done by AI to so not much scope for having the UK lead the way in that side of it either.
required for the datacentres to run it in
Kolos in Norway is (going to be?) one of the biggest apparently, I'm not seeing why the Norwegians have space but the UK doesn't? Apart from money. (That's a question, not a statement, I'm curious)
I'm not seeing why the Norwegians have space but the UK doesn't?
Norway is cold, which means you don't need as much aircon, and it also has huge amounts of hydroelectric power which is free to run. So it's a perfect DC location.
Social media needs vast numbers of users to have a hope of being profitable
Yes, but what if it didn't need to be profitable. I reckon the basics of social media, as in sharing content with people, is pretty straightfoward and relatively inexpensive. All the work is about how to monetize it as effectively as possible, which is also where much of the evilness starts. What if some form of social media service were considered a public service or a utility?
Beaten to a Norway response.
Norway is cold, which means you don't need as much aircon, and it also has huge amounts of hydroelectric power which is free to run. So it's a perfect DC location.
I said many years ago that it would be better to locate datacentres in the north of Scotland rather than be transmitting huge quantities of electricity the length of the UK.
Did anyone listen?
When did you last use Argos. They haven't been useful since the early 2000s.....roughly when Amazon took off really.
The other week - needed a TV wall mount. Ordered and collected in 30mins. Argos is great for many things. Random widgets - then maybe not.
They were easily the best price on a new iPhone 13 for my wife two months ago too.
Norway is cold, which means you don't need as much aircon, and it also has huge amounts of hydroelectric power which is free to run. So it's a perfect DC location.
I said many years ago that it would be better to locate datacentres in the north of Scotland rather than be transmitting huge quantities of electricity the length of the UK.
Did anyone listen?
Yes hence the zonal pricing of electricity proposal.
Facebook is slowly dying anyway
Folk have been saying that for years though.
There's plenty of large datacentres in the UK, I've been in a few. They're all pretty full though.
Beaten to a Norway response.
Yes way!
What if some form of social media service were considered a public service or a utility?
Itd probably be labelled Communist or nanny state. A Non-profit might work.
Facebook is slowly dying anyway
I dunno. There's still way more content on there for me than anything else. I get videos about philosophy, science, linguistics and what not. I suspect most of them are also on YT shorts or TikTok though so I might head there instead.
Folk have been saying that for years though.
This, really.
People have been predicting "the death of..." since the Internet was published on stone tablets. I'm here from a Bulletin Board System, users were predicting its imminent failure 30+ years ago. Today it's very, very quiet for sure, but it's still going.
Hell, look at the doomsayers on STW. If the forum had been dying every time someone said it was, it would have uninvented itself by now.
About the only thing that seems to be actually dying is Twitter. I refuse to call it X, though Ex may be appropriate.
I refuse to call it X, though Ex may be appropriate.
🤣 🤣
