Walled Garden

In the real world, we live in different geographical locations, and with that come their own set of rules/regulations that are usually quite localised. We call these rules/regulations as ``laws'', ``cultures'', ``social norms'', and the like, depending on the type of rules/regulations we are talking about. And at some level, the rules/regulations that are enacted are arrived at by some kind of consensus of all participants---this is true even in the case of authoritarian systems since those who are in power still have their own metaphorical paymasters that they need to please.

When people dislike certain rules/regulations, they have several choices of action:

1. Grudging acceptance;
2. Malicious compliance;
3. Passive defiance;
4. Aggressive defiance;
5. Walk away.

Not all of these choices are safe for the person to take depending on the situation. The notion of safety usually comes with numbers. While the numbers in terms of capital is often the usual narrative, fundamentally the sheer numbers in terms of the number of people can triumph any imaginary numbers like capital; we often hear this in the form of ``voting with your wallet''.

Keep that in mind as we shift our focus to that of the software platform.

Software platforms are walled gardens, no matter how open they claim themselves to be. They are walled gardens in the technical sense---what counts as being ``on'' the platform is wholly determined by a specifically set of logic written in the program code. Yes, there is the data-driven aspect through account creation and what-not, but those are book-keeping---the rules/regulations are the immutable program code from the perspective of the participants. The difference then between the open source software platforms from the closed one is the revelation of the underlying rules/regulations, and more distinctly, the ability to change those rules/regulations in whatever we want before we spawn off a new instance of the software platform with the different rules/regulations.

He who controls the code, controls the rules/regulations, and inevitably controls what goes on in the software platform.

In the real world, the laws of physics cannot be changed and so everyone operates from the same basic rules of reality. We owe no one (other than God) for the existence of these rules of reality. In a software platform though, one owes the existence to the software platform operator. Put simply, what I am saying is that dependence on reality is ``free'' while dependence on a virtual reality that is the software platorm is not---one is at the mercy of the operator.

So if the operator decides to change the rules, there is nothing that one can do from within the software platform. The only way to effect any change is to do it in the meta, i.e. falling back to the real world to demand for the changes wanted.

For better or worse, software platform operators now are very capitalism-centric---anything that improves business will be the right action to take; that is literally their agenda. Hence all the pandering to the latest trends, the virtue signalling to the most vocal troublemakers, sometimes to the detriment of their original audience/clientiele---it doesn't matter if one has the moral high ground, or well-thought up explanations. If that particular action can cause the software platform owner to lose capital, it will be penalised.

But despite all these side effects of the software platform, they are still popular as a dependency for many people to make a living. Part of the reason is due to the reduction of the expenses and effort required to run a similar ``reality'' that the software platform is offering. A classic example is the use of online marketplaces like Amazon.com to perform online sales instead of the late 1990s trend of running one's own shopping web site to sell one's wares.

A more recent example is the rise of audio-visual content creators using various streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch.tv, or Spotify to showcase their work and receive remuneration. Prior to the existence of such software platforms, the only way to do so was to somehow engage with the broadcasting authority, obtain the necessary licences as well as equipment/space, before finally having the opportunity to actually do what was intended. The alternative then was to approach someone with an existing broadcast network and then pitch the content to see if they were willing to run it, thus shifting the risk of governmental regulation to that of the broadcast network owner. All these processes took lots of time, effort, money, and some amount of networking.

Nowadays almost anyone can put up whatever audio-visual extravaganza they had put together, though if they want to make money from it, the rules get very complicated and blurry.

And that's part of the problem these days. Software platform rules are supranational, and are maintained by both program code and meta ``code of conduct'' rules that are enforced first by people and then by more program code when the scaling gets beyond ridiculous. This is somewhat necessary because there isn't a world government that provides a single source of universal Truth with respect to what counts as legal and illegal with respect to behaviours on the software platform. For the individual who chooses to use the software platform, they always have the option to choose a different one if the current walled garden proves too heinous to operate in, though there will come a point in time where there is no other garden to escape to thanks to the monopolisation effect that comes from consolidation due to network effects.

For companies that are built upon using the softare platform as their uhh platform, they have much less options. Being larger than the individual, they are therefore a much larger target for any form of negative/postive action, and as such, they have a tendency to play it conservatively. In the context of creative content creation, this means nerfing the creative part of it, since being creative necessarily means pushing [hard] against the boundaries of what is considered mainstream/acceptable.

So for a truly creative person, being constrained by such a situation may not be the best thing, even if the company itself provides many other exciting support that can help the person to grow their presence (and thus value).

Why am I suddenly randomly ranting about this? No idea. 🙂

Till the next update.