The Economics of Star Trek (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50 <comment><USER3> The problem I have with Star Trek is that AIs don't seem to feature nearly as extensively as I would expect them to if they actually existed, and I don't see us getting anywhere near a "post scarcity" society unless we do have that level of technology.

I hope our future looks more like the Culture than the Federation.

Edit: Of course, one valid criticism of the Culture is that humans are effectively the pets of the god-like AIs (the Minds) that actually run everything. However, as the Culture doesn't seem to act like most contemporary cultures in that it is quite happy to see people leave or parts of it secede if a group disagrees with a decision then I think I could probably live with being a very indulged pet.

<comment><USER4> Or a much more likely: strong AI isn't possible.

<comment><USER5> Data and Lore would seem to contradict that.

<comment><USER3> There is a scene in "The State of the Art" where the Culture folks visiting Earth are having a party and someone (while wearing a Star Trek uniform and waving a lightsaber around) announces that he wants to be Captain of the GCU Arbitrary.

Someone else comments that a person trying to take charge of a Culture ship is like a intestinal bacteria trying to take command of a person.

Edit: Of course, the Culture also appeals because of the much higher ambient humour level in the Culture than in the po-faced Federation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Star Trek economics are just plain bull shit, any society who has the ability to create food or other items by the expenditure of only energy has no need of much else. I remember a quote, if a race could materialize star ships they would not need too and this is where Star Trek's future always struck me wrong, where is the limit to replicators?

As to the point of are were on a post scarcity economy, well we might be in some Western cultures but it does indicate quite clearly that given nothing to do far too many people will excel at it, worse when they do do something it will be to eat. Society will need to adjust those who just take to find something to do with their time. It might not earn them money or much but they need an activity to avoid end up looking like an extra from Wall-e.

<comment><USER7> > if a race could materialize star ships they would not need too

Sorry can you rephrase this please? I really can't get the sense of it.

<comment><USER8> If a society was sufficiently advanced that they could just press a button and make a star ship at will, then they would probably be equally advanced in other areas and would not have any need for star ships.

<comment><USER9> That's a non sequitur. A society advances on numerous axis, but doesn't necessarily advance at the same time. Society can be immoral and enough scientifically advanced to have such machines. I'm pretty sure Romulans in that universe had replicators and they were known for their black ops division.

<comment><USER8> Good point. Though I think that the suggestion was that the technology required to materialise a massive, warp capable star ship may be more advanced than a different technology that accomplishes the same tasks as a star ship. For example being able to teleport both people and nuclear weapons across the whole universe would pretty much render star ships obsolete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I take it when they say "Star Trek", they're actually talking about the United Federation of Planets, and Starfleet... with their supposedly "unlimited" resources.

Of course, they don't go into details otherwise they'd quickly realize that it's not really a post-scarcity economy. It might be a "post-scarcity" on a lot of resources that we _currently_ find scarce, but not in the true definition. E.g. labor is scarce, property is scarce, and energy is scarce. Also, _Remember_ they need a mined resource to power those giant warp-cores that make it _seem_ like they have unlimited energy to "create" any resource.

Much like the laws of physics constrain us from creating a perpetual motion machine, they also constrain us from having a post-scarcity economy.

<comment><USER11> The laws of physics don't really prevent us from having a post-scarcity economy. The sun puts out _vast_ amounts of energy. If we had technology like replicators that turns energy into basically anything we like, most things are already taken care of. I don't really see how labour can be a problem either. If most production jobs are done via replicator, many people have nothing to do. And in the Star Trek universe there are holograms that are capable of performing complex tasks, certainly anything the "service industry" would require.

<comment><USER10> " _most things are already taken care of._ " Note how you used the word "most" instead of all.

I see what you're saying, but it relies on a lot of details being glossed over. We'd essentially have to live in some sort of utopian society where the universe magically auto-aligns and adjusts everything so that everything and everyone is equal, and has the exact same things.

Because, as soon as something is unequal, it's scarce in one place and abundant in another. If that happens, then we've created a market for exchange, and we're back to scarcity economics again. Granted, we're getting into philosophical grounds now, but do you understand what I'm trying to say?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (was posted six months ago, but fell off the radar.)

<comment><USER12> You might be getting downvotes from people who think this comment is a dupe complaint, not realizing you're the OP.

<comment><AUTHOR> If so, they're getting outweighed by the upvotes on the post itself, so I'm not bothered... :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Whenever people discuss "Star Trek Economics," they seem to limit their discussion to the apparent economics of, and within, the Federation -- and specifically, within Starfleet. This is problematic for two reasons.

The first is that the Federation is but one of many interstellar powers within its galaxy, and that's putting aside any of the thousands of unaligned or independent worlds and smaller coalitions. Many of these societies, even some of the Federation constituent societies, appear to use their own currencies or means of exchange. Take the Ferengi as the most extreme example. They are basically an anarcho-capitalist society, bordering on kleptocracy. Money is important to the Ferengi, to put it mildly. So how does the Federation conduct trade with the Ferengi government? On a more microeconomic level, what happens when Bashir and O'Brien order a couple rounds at Quark's? Who picks up their tab? Clearly Quark pays for his own supplies, and charges hefty markups, and he's always seen fretting about the difference. I have a hard time believing that Federation officers can just consume his (clearly limited) resources without contributing to his profit margins. And if they pay him in Federation Credits, what good are they to a non-member of the Federation? If they are not currency -- if they are more like scrip, or rations, or promissory notes good for X units of energy, or what have you -- then this creates a serious problem for Quark. Presumably, the value of Federation credits is relatively fixed and/or tied to some other unit or commodity. It is not a fiat currency. So why in the world would Quark accept credits, when he'd strongly prefer latinum? And how does one go about exchanging one for the other? For that matter, what would the Federation make of someone who decided to exchange all of his credits, even if he could, for gold-pressed latinum? If credits are not money, then perhaps they are something along the lines of notes or bonds, floated by the Federation government. In which case, Bashir and O'Brien pay for their drinks in the equivalent of US treasury bills, or perhaps in fractional shares of a Federation sovereign wealth fund. Or perhaps they are energy rations of some sort, in which case, Quark needs energy as much as any other business, and so he's happy to accept it (and to charge as many energy-units as he sees fit for his food, drinks, and games of chance).

The second problem has more to do with using Starfleet as the lens through which we draw conclusions about Federation society. If I were to show some alien society a documentary about the United States, set primarily on a US aircraft carrier, with ~90% of the situations and characters taking place in a military context, my alien viewers would draw some very interesting inferences about the US (or, more broadly, all of human society). They'd think we were a rigidly hierarchical society. They'd think we have a handful of basic professions, and that nobody really cares too much about personal property. They'd wonder how everyone gets by, and how resources are allocated, and they'd probably assume it's through a quasi-socialist system of rationing and stipends.

The microcosm of the US military is different from the macrocosm of US society, and especially different from that of the entire world. It's sort of a mini society within a larger society, operating under its own rules and organizing principles. Similarly, we should suspect that life in Starfleet is probably different, in some meaningful ways, from ordinary life in the Federation. And life in the Federation is different from life in the Klingon Empire, or in the Cardassian Union, etc.

None of this is to discount the deep and insightful thinking on the part of this article's author. Nevertheless, I think we should consider the limitations of the framework through which the shows allow us to view the Star Trek universe. We get our fair share of glimpses into the outside-Starfleet world, but we should still be mindful of the observational lens through which we catch those glimpses.

<comment><USER14> As someone finally watching DS9 for the first time, how does it work when Quark thumb-scans/charges Odo for 8 slips of latinum (in exchange for the baby changeling) in 'The Begotten' episode?

A few questions arise: Who does Odo work for? Who pays him? Does he use money (he doesn't seem to in any other episode)? How does Quark get the latinum?

<comment><USER15> > how does it work when Quark thumb-scans/charges Odo

I find it funny that a scheming Quark would bother thumb-printing a shape- shifter. It's only Odo's honor that prevents him from saying, "Oh, no, that's not my fingerprint. Let me show you my current set..."

<comment><USER14> Also a bit funny is the Founders all look like Odo, or rather his "father", the scientist who experimented on him when he was "young".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> When I read this the last time it came up, I suspected that the author was walking around the edges of the Basic Income hypothesis. Theory being you can be "poor" forever (income provided for basic shelter, food, and medical attention. And anything else you want you have to work for. The basic tenant being that _everyone_ is funded into a reasonably safe life, even people who are working. Being paid a salary is 'bonus' on top of the basic allotment.

At which point you can eliminate minimum wage and labor unions. The question of course is whether or not anyone would do some of the jobs we cannot currently outsource to robots.

<comment><USER17> It's funny you ask whether someone will do the jobs we cannot outsource to robots. I saw an old man bend over and pick up a piece of trash the other day while walking to work. I have also calculated that about 90% of the software I use on a daily basis is OSS. Your question has actually already been answered. People do jobs they are not compensated for all the time. And for things that must get done, you can raise salaries until they get done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "The key here, to me, is to start thinking about how economics would work when we decouple labor from reward."

Economics has always had a weak association between labor and reward.... That's where I stopped reading.

<comment><USER19> I think he means something like "Economic value of a certain function largely decoupled from reward" \-- otherwise you couldn't contemplate the possibility of not working at all and having a high baseline reward. You'd have gotten the spirit if you read the rest.

<comment><USER18> your comment makes even less sense. Economic value is coupled to reward, but value != labor. It's actually Marxist (and to a lesser degree classical Smithian) theories that conflate value with labor. There are plenty of economic theories that generally disregard the relationship between labor and value, except the causal relationship that labor sometimes (but not always) creates value.

<comment><USER20> Value has value. Labor is labor. Agreed. It's laughable to base assumptions on relating "labor" to "value." The forms of labor that generate value depend entirely on cultures, systems, laws/artificial constraints, and circumstances of an era. It's still worth noting that in a society with post-scarcity such as Star Trek:TNG, which, of course, is almost entirely a result of replicator proliferation, "labor" would have a far more visceral and noticeable correlation with "value." Which human actions would be highly valued in a fantasy where people have the means to bend matter/energy to their will, where no one is without most specialty foods and material objects of choice, where it's almost always a question of what people feel like doing on any particular day?

Many episodes touched on that. Naturally, the value of a person's _time_ sharply rises where no one need give their time. Today there are still vast differences in personalities among people that generates incredible variance in culture and pursuits irrespective of reward. Conjecture that to the maximum. There are things that give incentive to pull away from what one might not ordinarily do. There's specialty teaching; personal performances; lively forms of artistry; types of manual labor for odds and ends not conducive to androids and automation; the never-ending pursuit of happiness and/or power? What might "dirty work" be? It's like thinking of an amalgamation of the present day considerations of elite society equalized through sheer unrestricted access of the masses. I forget how land settlement on Earth works in Star Trek.

No matter the economics...

One might expect that most societies comprised of Earthlings will still start with the world's oldest profession and end with the world's second-oldest profession.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't have any rigor behind this, but my theory is that credits are used external to the Federation. And that transactions between Federation citizens are essentially cashless.

This lets the Federation trade with societies that value money (the Ferengi) yet not get all caught up in internal accounting.

With replicator technology, a Star Fleet officer could produce all the gold pressed Latinum he wants. But that would obviously have bad effects on the Ferengi economy, so there's a moral rule in place (perhaps enforced with limits in the replicator code) not to do that.

<comment><USER22> > With replicator technology, a Star Fleet officer could produce all the gold > pressed Latinum he wants.

The whole basis for latinum's value as a medium of exchange is the fact that it has some kind of technobabble immunity to replication so, no, they couldn't. (Latinum isn't the _only_ thing which has this kind of problem -- IIRC, as also antimatter, dilithium, certain radioactives, and, well, basically anything that needed to be scarce in at least one episode where they didn't want to invoke the non-availability of the replicators has a similar issue; of course, given that replicators and transporters notionally work on the same principles, but most replicator-immune things _have_ been transported in the series, there is a pretty deep technobabble consistency problem here, but that's a recurring problem in Trek.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm surprised nobody has linked Matthew Yglesias' excellent response: "The Star Trek Economy: (Mostly) Post-Scarcity (Mostly) Socialism".

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/18/star_trek_eco...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/11/18/star_trek_economy_federation_is_only_mostly_post_scarcity.html)

The most important concept in that article is that of a gift economy. The economy provides people with their basic needs and allows them to do (just about) whatever they wish with their time. Some people will chose to produce goods in old fashioned ways, like fine wine produced by tradtional methods, and these goods would be given to others as gifts.

Such goods will always be scarce by definition, but they are all luxuries. An interesting case for this is looking at the markets that developed in POW camps during World War II and how they collapsed once the liberating armies arived with an abundance of goods.

"On 12th April, withthe arrival of elements of the 30th US. Infantry Division, the ushering in of an age ofplenty demonstrated the hypothesis that with infinite means economic organizationand activity would be redundant, as every want could be satisfied without effort." (Pg. 14 of the linked PDF)

[http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~hfoad/e111su08/Radford.pdf](http://www- rohan.sdsu.edu/~hfoad/e111su08/Radford.pdf)

Another thing to note is the shift in the means of production. If labor is basically unnecessary in the production of goods you get a shift in modes of production. I could see this happening in the near with the decentralized 3D printing of goods, combined with the massive energy of the sun and the shocking amounts of raw materials in the asteroids around the solar system.

This I think is a demonstration of Marx's biggest mistake. He thought the economic organization would shift without a change in the means of production. Unlike every other change in his economic theories.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Take a mental journey for a moment with me: what if, one day, technology reaches the point that a small number of humans — say, 10 million — can produce all of the food, shelter and energy that the race needs. This doesn't seem like insanely wishful thinking, given current trends. There's no rational reason why the advances in robotics, factories, energy and agriculture couldn't continue unabated for long periods of time. Of course I'm not saying they will, but rather, they could."

If those $10 million people are capitalists, the price of the goods they create will rise until the rest of us become their slaves.

</comment><comment><USER25> > In reality,the market already basically dictates this, for who can claim > that a Wall Street banker works more than a teacher?

Ummm, I daresay that just about any Wall Street banker works significantly more, has to comprehend significantly more data points, exerts significantly more mental effort and is (probably) significantly more stressed than a teacher.

I will cheerfully admit that one's _mental image_ of a Wall Street banker works less than one's mental image of a teacher.

And he puts _way_ too much effort into justifying the internal contradictions of a poorly-written, third-rate science fantasy show.

</comment><comment><USER26> "I'll listen to them again when our schools are decent and our life span starts increasing again magically."

Stopped reading right there. If you need straw men, you aren't worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER27> There are other post-scarcity economies, some of which are discussed more in depth than Star Trek. The first one that comes to mind is Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"[1], which uses whuffie[2].

[1] [http://craphound.com/down/download.php](http://craphound.com/down/download.php) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie)

</comment><comment><USER28> I always assumed Federation members had their bills paid by the Federation. ie. Quark sells 100 bars of latinum worth of drinks in a week to Federation staff, the Federation's accounting/remittance department sends over 100 bars of latinum to Quark (digitally of course).

</comment><comment><USER29> Star Trek: The Next Generation's episode "The Neutral Zone" covers this topic pretty well. I highly recommend it.

"The challenge, Mr. Offenhouse, is to improve yourself... to enrich yourself. Enjoy it."

\- Picard, describing life on 24th century Earth

</comment><comment><USER30> I read a more detailed explanation of the star trek economy. I can't find the link now [1] but it answered some of the questions raised in this post. Since I can't find it I'm not sure if it was canon or just fan theorizing, but it was interesting all the same. I understand that this is a highly nerdy topic, but it's an example of how a a Proto Post Scarcity economy could work.

As I understood it, every year in the star trek universe citizens would request what they wanted and say what they were going to contribute to the economy in exchange for thaose things. ie, Captain Picard might say "I want to make improvements to my farm in france, a new personal transportation device for a relative, X number of paid for vacations and the daily luxuries of being a starfleet officer. In exchange for that, I'm willing to be a starship captain for the next year". Then an elected committee would review the request and approve it or deny it. I remember that it was noted that the committee had to be from a different area or state than the applicant. ie, a committee in Florida would review requests from Texas. Essentially it was a "That sounds fair" economy, based on judgement instead of currency.

As I recall, daily needs like food, shelter, medicine were taken care of for everyone, at various levels of luxury based on what the person was expected to contribute. Starfleet officers frequently talked about credits, either when gambling or visiting a bar on a non-federation or non-participating planet. I imagine this was a sort of legal black market system that would allow people to exchange money between one another to settle debts and to spend in other cultures, not really for routine living expenses. Post scarcity does mean post money, but there still has to be a way to maintain personal ledgers (maybe the credits were a year 2364 version of bitcoins?)

I think that Gene Roddenberry and other science fiction writers envision post scarcity societies for two reasons: 1) Money causes problems and 2) Economies function more efficiently without money.

We all love money, but think of the harm it can cause. Crime, ruined relationships, greed and the general oppression if not outright murder and enslavement of millions of people throughout history. As we all know, whenever someone says "It's not about the money", it's about the money. A moneyless world would solve a lot of these social problems. It's not that wealth is a bad thing. It's great to be rich. But a lot of problems arise when people need money for their daily sustenance. Food, housing, clothing, entertainment. All of these things should be taken care of at a low level, with compensation from contribution providing nicer and more desirable lifestyles. And it's quite possible that getting rid of daily dependence on individual spending is the best way to supercharge an economy. We don't see the waste in modern capitalism because we're primarily concerned with our own wealth, but it's there. Think about how much is wasted on a national (or galactic) scale. The efficiency gained through improved economic function would be more than enough to pay for all the replicator time that everyone on multiple worlds would need to live well.

Like many great things, the idea of post scarcity / post capitalism started in science fiction. But it doesn't have to stay there. We can start building a world where everyone has comfort and the rich have luxury. There are things we can do today to move us closer to this ideal and move people away from a system that's designed to make us all slaves to small amounts of wealth. I'm looking at you, Basic Income.

[1] Why hasn't someone made a startup to solve this problem? I'm constantly thinking of things I read and potentially bookmarked years ago, but google is a black hole. I would pay for this.

<comment><USER31> I think your heart is in the right place, but your economics are off - by a lot.

It's hard to rectify that in a quick comment though, as it's a complicated, interesting and fascinating subject.

Just to pick one thing, you mention 'efficiency'. Capitalism is not very efficient in a lot of ways. However, it happens to be more efficient for large groups of people than all the _other_ systems people have tried, if you don't mind me poaching Churchill's quote about democracy.

And another: money. Money is merely a means of trading scarce goods. Looking at it as a problem is a red herring. The actual problem is the availability and distribution of scarce resources like food and shelter and iphones and other things people want.

Here's a book I'm fond of - it's fairly mainstream economics.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Tim- Harford/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Tim- Harford/dp/0345494016?tag=dedasys-20)

He's written another one lately about macroeconomics which is pretty good as well:

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Strikes- Back/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Undercover-Economist-Strikes- Back/dp/1594631409/?tag=dedasys-20)

<comment><USER32> Money is _not_ merely a means of trading goods.

Capitalist culture is essentially a Darwinian zero-sum game. Winners win big, losers lose freedom, basic necessities, and ultimately their lives - <USER2> through a life of quasi-slavery working for someone else's benefit, and also through drastically shortened lifespan.

Money is the game counter. Decisions about how much money is available, who has access to it under what circumstances, and how much freedom they get in return for that access, define the game. But they're not set democratically - they're declared by a fiat, by a priestly caste of economists and bankers who administer the game.

The big difference between a Star Trek economy and this one is that in Star Trek, the game doesn't exist. Nor does the priestly caste.

What happens instead is that individuals trust the culture to do everything it can to look after them, and in return the culture trusts individuals to contribute voluntarily without freeloading, or without having some kind of semi-psychotic 'use all the things' fit of pointless public consumption.

It's effectively a trust economy, instead of a top-down planned economy like the capitalist system.

Wait - capitalism is a planned economy? Uh huh. Didn't you notice? It's as planned as the Soviet economy was, but instead of the Politburo, the planning is coordinated by the priestly caste which sets the rules of commerce (e.g. 'corporations must maximise profits and growth at all costs, even at the expense of long-term social stability'.)

In Star Trek, the economists have been replaced by planners who treat individuals like adults. The individuals act like adults, because they understand that the social benefits of volunteering time and talent vastly outweigh the personal costs, even if it costs them their lives.

In capitalism individuals are forced to compete for essentials. This makes volunteering _impossible_ for most of the population. It also turns the culture into a bear pit, and wastes a lot of energy on pointlessly damaging individual competition.

<comment><USER31> > Capitalist culture is essentially a Darwinian zero-sum game.

No, it isn't. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero- sum_game#Economics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game#Economics)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

<comment><USER33> In fact, I'd suggest even beyond that... just _think_ about that claim. Love it or hate it or anything in between, wealth of _all_ kinds has absolutely exploded under capitalism since the Industrial Revolution. If individual transactions in the world of capitalism are intrinsically exploitative and there is always a winner and a loser and a net loss of societal wealth... _how can you explain the modern world_ , in which the poorest residents of the industrialized countries consider their birthright many things that the Kings of old could literally not have gotten at any price? Don't just read the propaganda, _think_. This is self-evidently a ludicrous claim if you take it seriously. It is absurd that the net effect of multiple trillions (quadrillions?) of net-loss transactions could somehow sum to something so net positive. Bridge the gap between theory and reality... don't just let people babble on and on about economics without ever asking them to be correct, _think_ about what it would actually produce in the real world if it were true.

Capitalism has its problems. There may be better economic organizations. Capitalism may yet have a long term flaw in it as technology progresses (a lot of chatter about that case on HN in the past couple of years, there's a lot of interesting questions there). There's all sorts of avenues of "attack", or, better yet, all sorts of ways to just _think_ about where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. However, it's a sort of basic "you must be at least this tall to ride the ride" sort of thing that your theories must be able to explain how wealth has exploded under capitalism, and why it didn't explode under the older systems, and why it doesn't explode even more under any of the several attempts to use another system that have been really tried in the real world. (i.e., don't try to claim that many of the obvious "fixes" to capitalism have never been tried when in fact they've all been tried numerous times, and so far have not generated the best track records. Theories should include and explain real-world data, not ignore it when it is convenient to do so.)

And should you be tempted to explain _away_ the wealth, or claim with varying degrees of obfuscation that its distribution negates the wealth explosion entirely because it isn't to your exact tastes (an obviously absurd claim when spelled out clearly but a popular dodge when slathered over with enough words to mask the logic), I strongly recommend spending some time with 18th century medical case notes, or reading about the opulence of 16th century royalty with an eye to what simple things we have today that they would (quite literally) kill for, or something else that will simply rub in your face how unbelievably _wealthy_ we are today compared to the past. The past is _poor_. You can have theories about how it could be better, but if your theories become so powerful they explain why the wealth explosion didn't happen at all, it's time to throw the theory away and find a better one.

(Incidentally, I do have ways I'd improve things myself. If you're reading this as a paean to the status quo and anyone criticizing it should just shut up, you've probably got a bad case of the propagandas rendering you unable to understand different ideas. I've got my criticisms. However, my criticisms and yours still need to take the all of the above facts into account.)

<comment><USER31> Thanks for writing all that down. TheOtherHobbes' comments are another example of the bullshit asymmetry principle: refuting them takes a fair amount of time and energy, whereas it's easy to just write that kind of nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That bar up top that appears when you scroll up; I want to squash it like a fly, and I don't even squash flies. /meta

</comment><comment><USER35> This article has an interesting starting in an 'Age of The Essay'^ way. Start with an interesting question and see where the meandering leads. I don't think this got anywhere interesting though.

" _a long, complicated journey as somethings become more abundant in some places, while other things are still scarce_ "

That's an interesting thought. We have lots of examples of things suddenly becoming 'abundant,' especially in the last few decades. If I was doing a meandering essay on this topic I'd make a list and see if there's anything insightful to be learned from these. Maybe we can find a pattern.

Calories/grains are, for the wealthier half of the world are essentially abundant. Peasants were once the majority, producing and consuming grain as their primary economic activity. Today grains cost $200-$500 per ton. Median household income is in the $5k-$10k range. So half the world can have more grain than they can eat for <10% of their income.

Computers have various interesting examples of similar abundance.

The end result is interestingly similar in both cases. Our capacity to consume more quality is enormous. We feed grain to cattle to produce meat. It takes 5-10 grain calories to make a calorie of meat, depending on the animal. We spent processing power to create user interfaces put personal computers in every pocket. More consumption. Higher quality.

This seems to follow standard economics. When goods get cheaper we consumer more, at higher quality and spend less. That concept seems to stretch pretty well. Even though calories and computing power are incredible cheap and abundant compared to their historical prices, we haven't crossed our ability to consume more of them and 'scarcity economics' doesn't break.

If you go back to the industrial age or "space age" equivalents of this essay you will find fantastic parallels. _" We can make so much stuff! So cheap! This will change everything!"_ There seems to be a common fallacy here. We look at a future of 10X efficiency and we underestimate our ability to consume more. Since we can't consume 10X more goods, we assume that we'll just work less. I think the tricky part is 'quality.' You certainly can't eat a ton of( $250) maize per day. But, you can easily spend $250 on food in a day. So, if you don't want to look stupid in 100 years, be careful about predicting free time.

Here's a question I would love to hear economists opines about: why don't high earners work less. Say a Belgian lawyer makes €100,000 euros per year and a paralegal make €35,000. Why doesn't the lawyer work fewer hours? Think of working hours as money and everything they buy as a good. It appears that demand for "goods" as a whole is infinitely elastic. Make the goods half the price and homo economicus buys twice as much. Most markets are a lot more elastic than this one. Why?

If we saw some clear negative correlation between earnings per hour and hours worked (either at economy or individual level) we might be able predict see the path to a start trek economy of optional employment.

It might be worth going back to the beginning with this question. "Why don't people work less when they make more per hour."

^[http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html)

<comment><USER36> The problem with the market is its not so smoothly distributed. You can barely, almost, sometimes buy commodities at a worldwide price in most places, but certainly cannot earn the same everywhere. The median for Africa is about $2K not $10K so making the huge assumption that poverty stricken economies only involve food, thats still ten or so pounds of rice per day, which is pretty marginal as a sole long term food source for an entire household.

Thats the problem with "homo economicus" the market is very small and will not offer certain things, the Belgian lawyer in the example simply won't be offered a part time job by the market, no matter if the demand exists or not.

If you don't really have a market, market speak and market analysis don't lead to useful places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think we will get there, but on a much longer timeframe.</comment>


Stanford Pulls Bid for New York Tech Campus - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2011/12/16/breaking-stanford-pulls-bid-for-new-york-tech-campus/

<comment><USER2> "we're not exactly chomping at the bit to see New York squander its funding on students who spend their time building Star Wars simulations"

So, a New York based venture capitalist booster says that Stanford engineering students are "not tapped into the current tech scene", and ridicules that they know how to built robots.

Fascinating.

<comment><USER3> Is that in the story? I can't find it.

<comment><USER4> It's in this story, [http://www.betabeat.com/2011/07/18/stanford-students- dont-wa...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/07/18/stanford-students-dont-want-a- new-york-campus/), which was linked.

<comment><USER2> Oops, thanks, sorry about attributing to the wrong story, I must have just fluidly slipped into that other one.

<comment><USER5> It wasn't said by a VC booster though. It was said by one of betabeat's writers.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm wrong, my understanding is that betabeat is a NY tech advocacy site, their about page pretty much says that and admits they engage in boosterism. And it kind of follows that NY tech advocacy is pretty much all about the financing angle, hence my seeing their NY tech boosterism as fundamentally NY VC boosterism.

Anyway, I found the quote interesting and kind of highlights that there is something of an irreconcilable major cultural mismatch between the scenes on each coast, which may have been an issue with Stanford pulling out. I thing west coast entrepreneurs often don't realize the extent to which east coast people don't think the same at all about tech and business. As the author pointed out, he didn't see much value in Stanford seeding their point of view regarding technology and entrepreneurship to the east, he thought the greater value was in Stanford learning their perspectives about fashion and high finance instead. Those are things he sees as more valuable than using star wars metaphors for designing robots, not seeing that there is utility in research and research can sometimes be made fun. Star Wars is not the only influence on the west coast, there is also the very major influence of Star Trek devices on Apple's entire current business model since we've been seeing iPads on west coast produced TV programs since the 1980s and Siri since the 1960s. New Yorkers, as is evidenced by the comments, see that stuff as a bunch of stupid childish geek stupidity which they have contempt and disdain for. Getting bailouts, buying jet airplanes, and having servants are what proper adults should be interested in. Hah, I guess you can tell which coast I favor, I'm biased as well.

<comment><USER6> A little over the top, no? You're quoting one dude.

MIT, not exactly a bastion of west coastism, also declined to bid for a campus in New York City. John Hennessy's Ph.D. is from SUNY for heaven's sake. I'm sure many people in California also enjoy "Seinfeld" and the New York Times without feeling like traitors, and nobody can doubt that NYC is sincere in wanting to emulate Silicon Valley's success in high tech.

In any event, a true east coaster from the right sort of family would know how to spell "champing at the bit."

<comment><USER2> I'm not east coast but chomping is also correct and predominant in the US. Chomp dates back to 1645, champ to 1577. Both are centuries old. In the last 300 years chomp has been much more dominant. I suggest those interested peruse reputable dictionaries rather than rely on wikipedia and blogs as they are not authoritative sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Fun fact: Stanford President Hennessy is the same Hennessy who with Patterson wrote that great computer architecture book: Computer Organization & Design: The Hardware/Software Interface. Oh, he also co-founded MIPS

Although as my first job was doing MIPS related stuff I may be biased about usefulness of the book. Amusingly the first featured 5-star review on Amazon is from John Mashey whom older readers may remember from comp.arch on Usenet.

<comment><USER8> I have that book!

<comment><USER9> So does pretty much anyone who has taken a decent computer arch course :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's good, I never thought Stanford made sense as a choice for NYC. Don't get me wrong, Stanford is an exceptional school, with great tech credentials, and has spawned a unique startup environment.

But the thing that makes the SF area great for startups is the proximity (and thus density) of startups and tech in general. While long-distance networking has come a long way, it's still no replacement. If NYC's goal is to build a stronger tech community, I think they're better off building their own East Coast tech culture vs. trying to import a culture from SF.

Disclosure: as a Cornell grad, I'm definitely biased and psyched about it getting more involved in supporting a tech community (a $350M donation didn't hurt either)

</comment><comment><USER11> Cornell received a $350M gift to build their campus. It looks like Stanford withdrew in response.

Source: [http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/stanford- drops-...](http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/stanford-drops-bid-to- build-high-tech-campus-in-city/?hp)

</comment><comment><USER12> The Manhattan Project was so named because of Columbia's involvement. Yet somehow NYC never landed the geek culture, almost as if it is squeezed out by squishier disciplines.

Good call Stanford.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sad. It would be refreshing to get some west-coast culture to NYC.

<comment><USER14> I ask sincerely, what is west-coast culture?

(I have lived in New Hampshire all my life.)

<comment><USER15> Here's my favorite example of how it's not really so different, at least among status-conscious people:

I live in California and work with someone who recently moved here from Baltimore. He's kind of an older gen-X guy, and he likes to go to thrift stores, buy old suits for < $10 and wear them ironically, like with dress shoes but ankle-length white socks and the sleeves pushed up, and the front end of the tie shorter than the back end.

Every few months, a manager will pull him aside and say in a trying-to-be- friendly way, "You know, you really don't have to wear a suit around here." To which he'll respond, "Yeah, I know, it's just my thing, man." And then there manager will stare at him a little harder and say something along the lines of, "No, I mean you _really_ don't have to wear a suit around here." Eventually the manager gives up and writes him off as an incorrigible free spirit.

TL;DR The West Coast is a place where you can wear whatever you want to work, as long as it's a Hawaiian shirt.

<comment><USER16> Huh. I thought the counter culture of suits was well understood. Though honestly, why would a suit have to be worn ironically in the first place? I love how suits look. Was I the only guy who watched Gattaca and found myself wishing that it were more socially acceptable to wear a suit to my job? ;) I wouldn't want to emulate much about that world, but man did they look good in their suits.

Anyway, I agree with you that the tech industry, especially in the west, rigorously enforces the presence of the absence of a dress code. Even PG said "Nerds don't just happen to dress informally. They do it too consistently. Consciously or not, they dress informally as a prophylactic measure against stupidity."

Bummer, cause I actually kind of like it when people dress with some style.

<comment><USER17> I think he meant that the quirky individual was wearing frumpy "1980s English professor"-style suits, not some sleek expensive architectural thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Personally, I thought it a bit of an odd idea based on the large geographic and cultural distances between Palo Alto and NYC. It just didn't seem like the right ecosystem for a transplant. On the east coast, even Boston would seem better suited from a cultural standpoint - there is much more of a public emphasis on technology.

</comment><comment><USER19> Surprising, given the amount of time it's taken to get to this point.

As a New Yorker myself, I'm not sure what I should think of it. _Someone_ is going to make a campus, be it Cornell or NYU.

<comment><USER20> Why not Columbia?

<comment><USER21> Why not Columbia, indeed? As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, let's not forget where the Manhattan Project - an project that spanned multiple countries - got its name!

Columbia's always been a top-tier research institution - in fact, it has more Nobel laureates than any other university in the world. As far as computer science is concerned, let's not forget that a number of great achievements in tech & computer science (past and present) are the work of people who are or were in some way affiliated with Columbia. I can't find a comprehensive list at the moment - unfortunately the Columbia CS department website doesn't brag about itself enough for that - but it's not too hard to think of examples.

Columbia already has an engineering school (the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences). The school is known for the strength of its graduate _and_ undergraduate programs - its selectivity rate for undergraduate admissions, for what it's worth, is lower than any other school in the country except MIT.

Is there room for improvement? Absolutely - I can think of a number of ways. But the tech scene in New York is young and looking to grow quickly. It makes more sense to me to take advantage of the tremendous resources already here and amp them up, rather than start from scratch.

Unfortunately, for reasons that are more political than they are logical, I'd be surprised if Columbia actually won this contest. But it would be a pleasant surprise, knowing that they made the right decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's interesting how schools expand their reach to the other coast. CMU has a SV branch and Wharton has SF.

</comment><comment><USER23> I really don't see Bloomberg standing on stage announcing a choice with anyone else but Stanford. He would consider it a personal failure and embarrassment. The project is basically dead at it's original scope. Maybe something much smaller will be announced but it will be low key and with a deputy mayor filling in.

</comment><comment><USER24> Too bad. I thought the Roosevelt Island renderings looked pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER25> Maybe now Stanford and MIT can consider a merger ^_~ j/k

</comment><comment><USER26> Someone offered a $350,000,000 gift to Cornell, at which point Stanford decided to drop out.</comment>


APL Demonstration (1975) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DTpQ4Kk2wA <comment><USER2> Just in case, Aaron Hsu made a bunch of talks about APL

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aaron+hsu](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aaron+hsu)

It's a bit caustic to the mainstream (beauty, terseness over ease and variable names) but I personally find it tickles all my boxes.

<comment><USER3> Aaron Hsu's work has truly inspired me, and expanded my horizon when it comes to code and programming in general.

<comment><USER4> He did a couple major discussions on HN a couple years ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13565743)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13797797](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13797797)

<comment><USER2> Thanks I missed those

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The clarity, simplicity and minimal didactic approach towards making old instructional videos is gone now. We have subscribe/hit-the-bell reminders, annotations, background music, sponsorships, intro and exit greetings and all kinds of unneeded bullshit in video production.

Commercialization of video has ruined this art form. Just compare early Mythbuster episodes to something from 2016. Production quality has horrendously degraded. The money is where the masses are and the masses want entertainment, not education.

</comment><comment><USER6> As cool as this is, APL has improved a _lot_ in the 34 years since that video was made. Most notably, these days, APL has `direct functions`, which enable a degree of concision and tacit-programming support unmatched in any other programming language (yes, including Haskell).

As a minor taste of the power of direct fns, here's a naive implementation of the Fibonacci sequence with one: `fib←{1≥⍵:⍵⋄(∇⍵-1)+∇⍵-2}`

<comment><USER7> That's an example of what I call "stupid terse".

When comparing program length, we should count tokens, not characters.

We should give a penalty to excessively long tokens, of course, like pointlessly_long_variable_or_function_names. Say, any token longer than 8 characters counts as two tokens. Any longer than 16 counts as 4 and so on, exponentially. Pairing tokens like { } and ( ) can count as one for the pair. In syntax like f(x, y), the () are essentialy one operator denoting function application, spread out to enclose the arguments.

Your APL

      fib←{1≥⍵:⍵⋄(∇⍵-1)+∇⍵-2}

has 19 tokens. jodrelllblank's Python:

        def fib(n):
            if (1 >= n):
                return n
            else:
                return fib(n-1) + fib(n - 2)

has 27. There is a bit of verbiage with the colons, the else punctuation and the explicit return commands.

TXR Lisp:

      (defun fib (n) (if (plusp n) n (fib (+ (pred n) (ppred n)))))

has 21 tokens (or, if you will, nodes in the syntax tree). Only two more over APL, and provides a clear function definition from which we know it takes exactly one required argument, which is given a name. It exhibits no ambiguities.

<comment><USER8> It's all very well to say your lisp is clear and unambiguous, how long did it take you to realise it's wrong? It took me a good 20-30 minutes of writing a reply about character count, before I tried to format your lisp onto three lines and then noticed.

I think the Python code is very clearly a correct Fibonacci, it looks at a glance like the layout of a procedural language doing a recursive call with a base case and a recursive case. The APL is not as clear in that sense, but knowing the diamond is a statement separator it breaks down into small pieces and is fairly easy to read because there's so little of it to read. The Lisp with 8 pairs of parens, 5 levels of nesting, and use of function names instead of "n - 2", while still being a long run of code where there are almost no symbols except alphabet letters and parens to make anything stand out, makes it difficult for me to parse by eye to see what the intended nesting is, and to make sure the parens are nested as intended.

You have it returning fib ((n-1) + (n-2)) instead of ((fib (n-1))+(fib (n-2))), and I think you might have the condition the wrong way around, if N is positive then the recursive calls should happen. That's not to say you or Lisp can't write a correct Fib, it's to say that I think I would spot errors in the Python much more easily, thus making it "more clear".

Which his another way of saying that I'm not convinced that counting characters is automatically worse than counting tokens - characters are what we type, what we have to read, they are what take up screen space and push other code off screen, they push related bits of code further apart even when it's all on-screen, and they are places bugs can hide. If they're not helping, what are they doing?

Characters are the reason the APL could fit 3x in a single 80 character wide line, and the Lisp code 1.3x in the same line, and the Python code 0.2x in the same line. Not that I desperately want to read 80 characters of uncommented APL, but that adds up quickly. The APL tends to be high level and more declarative, which doesn't show up in Fibonacci, but makes a difference in character count.

\----

APL functions in the dfn style (curly braces) can only take an argument on the left and an argument on the right, both optional. The left one becomes alpha ⍺ and the right one becomes omega ⍵. That is to say, because you see omega in the code, you know it too expects exactly one argument, that argument goes on the right, and it has a name. The name is no less meaningful than "n", although no more meaningful either.

The steep learning curve about APL code isn't "what does the code say, those symbols are unreadable", they stop being scary quite quickly and just stay dense, instead it's "how on Earth does that manipulation of arrays solve the problem??"

<comment><USER7> > _I think you might have the condition the wrong way around,_

Yes I do! I did this just minutes before rushing out the door, and didn't even bother to run it.

Now, the funny thing is, I was focused on paraphrasing your Python expression for expression, so that it calculates Fibonacci in exactly the same way with the same conventions, so any size comparisons are fair. (Though obviously I took advantage of the _pred_ and _ppred_ idioms.) I wasn't thinking "is this correct Fib", but "does it match whatever the Python is doing".

So now I'm looking at: why did I transcribe the simple conditional backwards? Taking a second look at the Python, I now clearly see the reversed convention in 1 >= n that I read as n >= 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a feeling that apl (or j) based calculator app (with buttons for all fancy symbols) could be something. All those nice powerful one liners seem to be suited for such app. I wonder if something like that is available. I know there is j for Android, but having a nice closed interface focused on short clever code would be fun.

<comment><USER2> I grew up with a HP48g and for some reason I never considered a handheld APL. That would be the only thing to match HP RPL :)

<comment><USER8> dzaima/APL is implemented in Java and can be built as an Android app; steps in the readme here: [https://github.com/dzaima/APL](https://github.com/dzaima/APL) and downloadable APK and screenshots here: [https://github.com/dzaima/APL/tree/master/AndroidIDE](https://github.com/dzaima/APL/tree/master/AndroidIDE)

(I think; I've never used it)

<comment><USER2> hehe, pretty nice

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A thread from 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7817593](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7817593)

</comment><comment><USER10> I find that his mentioning of "monadic" and "dyadic" instead of "unary" and "binary" interesting, why did he mention those?

<comment><USER11> As far as I know, this is a peculiarity of APL resulting from Iverson's stance on the language as a "tool for thought"[0]. The best explanation I've heard is that "binary" is most apt to number systems (or matrices!) - but a "verb" in APL is not binary, it is dyadic. The language of verbs and nouns is a similar reflection of the ideas that APL is primarily a _language_ (like English, more so than Fortran) to express mathematics succinctly (with a minimum of ambiguity or syntax).

This is (to me) even more apparent in his next language, J; where he sought to "correct" deficiencies in APL and further expanded the "language" to include things like "gerunds"[1] more explicitly, which are nominally (as defined in an English dictionary):

> a noun formed from a verb, denoting an action or state

Which may be summarized somewhat unsatisfactorily as: "Because Ken said so".

[0]: [https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/tot.htm](https://www.jsoftware.com/papers/tot.htm)

[1]: [https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/GerundsAndAtomicR...](https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Vocabulary/GerundsAndAtomicRepresentation)

<comment><USER12> It's not _totally_ APL-specific terminology, although it's uncommon in other areas of computer science. You can find it (predating APL) in areas like mathematical logic, where a predicate over two terms is sometimes called a "dyadic predicate". I'm guessing Iverson was familiar with that usage and extended it to APL. I wouldn't read too much into it though. It's mostly just Latin vs. Greek roots (unary, binary, ternary are Latin; monadic, dyadic, triadic are Greek).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> APL made a lot more sense in the era of 110 baud teletypes.</comment>


Got That Game? Compare Your Steam Games With Friends - <AUTHOR> http://www.gotthatgame.com/

<comment><USER2> its so sweet!</comment>


Firebase (YC S11) aims to reinvent real-time apps and already has 4,000 sign-ups - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/19/firebase-post-launch/

<comment><USER2> I love the technology, I've had a play with building a mini-app in their interactive tutorial, but I really want to see their security model. How is it possible to stop a user opening up the JavaScript console of the web browser and writing code? There are authentication mechanisms you can use, tokens etc. but that just authenticates that user. They can still start hacking.

Maybe the thought is to let a user hack with their own data?

What's the solution when it comes to shared application data?

Will they ultimately need to let app developers deploy server logic on their infrastructure for the security solution?

Also, amazing job by their PR contacts for getting so much coverage and creating such an amazing buzz.

<comment><USER3> You have to think of it as writing a P2P app with no "trusted" server. Each client needs to be suspicious of all content created by other clients, and handle it accordingly. There are _many_ services where a trusted server doesn't really add any value.

Consider for instance Facebook and Twitter. What if each user had full control over their own data:

Search: Each user would register a link to their data in a shared namespace so users could find each other. A single user could add/remove/edit their link, but only enumerate/search others.

Follow: The consumer traverses the link from the registry to the data and consumes it.

Friend: A asks to be B's friend by writing a request into a write-only namespace unique to B. B grants or denies access to protected data.

You get the idea. Nearly everything can be made to work with multiple clients that cooperate but don't trust each other. A trusted server isn't really required.

<comment><USER4> Nearly anything _can_ be made to work, but in many cases it means jumping through a lot of hoops to get there.

Without a trusted party you have to be much more suspicious of everything coming in, as you say, and that means coding additional verification, everywhere.

For instance, with that model of friend requesting, there has to be some method of proving that A made the request to B. I can think of various ways of doing this (A signs their request, or A adds a duplicate outgoing request to a queue only they can write to, etc), but the point is that they're all much more overheard than doing it the traditional way. And that's just for a friend request.

The big concern is that all this overheard will mount up enough to offset any of the other gains Firebase brings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really dislike how the term "real-time" has been distorted into something entirely different. Just call it "live" apps or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Firebase is _true_ realtime. No polling. No waiting for disk I/O. We are trying to produce the absolute lowest latency possible.

<comment><USER6> Traditionally "real-time" in the context of computing means responding to events within a guaranteed time interval, usually milliseconds or microseconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been lucky enough to get to play with Firebase from the beginning, and am really impressed with how it's come together. The team knows the security issues are real, and have a viable plan to address them for most use cases.

I can't wait until the security features are implemented and I can use Firebase in my apps!

<comment><USER7> I too am impressed with Firebase, but am I the only one that thinks details like "security" should be baked in from the beginning? I've never considered security to be a bolt on you do at a later time, as often it requires core level changes that could have unforeseen consequences in other areas of your system.

<comment><USER3> They're not bolting it on as an afterthought. They looked for feedback from the very beginning on how people wanted to use it and what security features would enable those uses. Then they ensured that in designing the core product adding those features later would still be possible and efficient.

I commend this approach. Security before there's anything to secure is a little silly. Having it in mind when designing your product and making intelligent compromises is essential.

<comment><USER8> > Security before there's anything to secure is a little silly.

Cute, but falls flat in the face of reality. If you just bought an expensive diamond ring, you already have the safe at your apartment waiting for it.

The same with software. You can't add security later.

You will need to rewrite everything, because with software, _every_ action needs to be secure. So every action would have to be re-written. Every database write and read, every file write and read, etc. etc.

You want to know the real reason Firebase and Meteor didn't have security baked in from the start? Because security is 90% of the work in any real software suite. They started off with the 10% that's a low hanging fruit.

That's totally fine! But that also means neither one has a viable product and they won't have a viable product until they do the other 90% of the work.

<comment><USER3> I think we'll need to agree to disagree.

Some examples come to mind: Is it impossible to build the internals of a filesystem first, and add ACLs as a layer on top? What about the internals of a database? Should you start with users, schemas and permissions; or b*-trees, join logic, and the query parser?

You can't really add security from buffer overflows or SQL injection to an app after the fact. You can add well-reasoned access controls.

<comment><USER8> All of the things you mention have flat or very simplistic security systems. In other words, access is predefined. X can do Y.

That's not how high-level software design works. You're at the top of the chain. The security that you engineer will vary based on the very content that's being accessed! Just because you're a user with the right password doesn't mean squat.

Facebook is a fine example. Just because you can view the profile of one of your friends, doesn't mean I should be able to as well. I'm not his friend.

How do you define that in Firebase? if(you_are_friend) allow_access? What the hell is a friend? How does Firebase know what a friend is? Now you're setting up complex rules that access multiple databases/tables/rows just to make a decision.

That mountain of code that manages the core operations of your software can't be wished away by happy thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The technology provides an impressive first impression. With that said, I would appreciate it if somebody can help me understand how this doesn't lead to "two-dimensional" vendor lock-in (hosting and proprietary framework). From my first glance, this appears to be a combination of hosted service and web framework all rolled into one, where code portability is not possible. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER10> From where I sit you are correct - which makes it a non-starter.

They'll have to bite and open source their backend (ala OpenStack) or this is going nowhere beyond toy apps.

Otherwise, if their platform is viable, a third-party OSS clone will pop up and eat their lunch.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure if it's a non-starter. As a total code newb, I would find it very enticing to have to learn fewer things--like just their front end--rather than server-side too. If they are truly awesome, I'd probably be willing to pay through the nose to have that simplicity. If they can effectively reduce complexity so that all you really need to learn is JavaScript, it's going to make it easier for non-software engineers to build services. Of course most of the market isn't new to programming, but flattening the learning curve of would-be programmers is a pretty important comparative advantage.

<comment><USER12> If you're just learning how to code then what could you possibly build yourself that you'd be willing to pay through the nose for?

My point here is that the only consumers that will pay are ones who have an actual business (model) in place and those people are rarely going to be total code newbs.

I can see this as an interesting playground but it also seems overkill to me for a playground.

I agree that in order for this to take off the data needs to be made portable which means they need to opensource all or part of it and rely on their expertise for the business model. That, I could get behind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Firebase is a great, especially if you want to rapidly develop or test new things. It's saved us days/weeks of time not having to worry about structuring/restructuring our backend and allowing us to focus on getting the UX/design of our app down first.

This has been extremely valuable for our small team -- we've been using Firebase since the beginning and are a big fan of the technology. By abstracting this part of our product away for the short term while we build and iterate, it's probably doubled our productivity - just in the short term, of course (and assuming it would take half of my time/focus to be building/maintaining backend code).

Plus, James and Andrew are always super responsive whenever we bug them for stuff.. they know how to keep their users happy.

</comment><comment><USER14> If there's anyone from Firebase here, I have a few questions that should interest everyone:

1\. will you support mobile platforms (especially interested in Android and iOS) ? The TC article says _Tamplin says it has also partnered with a yet-to- be-announced company who can package those websites for mobile app stores._ , but that sounds weird and vague.

2\. do you have a release schedule available? This looks like it would match my needs perfectly! When should we expect to have a stable release?

3\. pricing ?

</comment><comment><USER15> We're using it for our text chat modules at TokBox. Looking forward to releasing that code in our plug'n'play apps very soon!</comment>


SkyDrive is a threat to Dropbox - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/254298/new_and_improved_skydrive_is_a_threat_to_dropbox.html

<comment><USER2> Probably against the grain here, but agree. Not so much SkyDrive but more the integration between Mesh Skydrive, windows, mac, free office web apps and windows phone 7.

It's a seriously impressive, well integrated platform that costs nothing and doesn't tie you into keeping the data in the cloud. There's a copy always on your machines.

no-one is doing it as well as Microsoft if you ask me. Outside the mainstream tech press trendy Microsoft bashing I know a lot of people who are switching back to Live and Office 365. They're sneaking in the back door while everyone is bitching about them.

<comment><USER3> _trendy Microsoft bashing_

I've noticed an uptick of the "poor maligned Microsoft" angle lately. It is a boorish tactic to neuter counterpoints (essentially the yang of the "fanboy!" rallying cry). I would argue that many Microsoft products get a pass they would not get from any other company.

I tried Skydrive with OneNote, imagining a world of integration and usability. It was a horrible failure, not least because Skydrive has a comical latency for changes to propagate, rendering it useless for many purposes. Add the terrible, terrible UI. Further the "bundled" angle is a tactic that most consumers and businesses are rightly wary of now, and it gives Microsoft little advantage.

Dropbox has nothing to be afraid of from Microsoft. And eventually Microsoft will simply abandon SkyDrive (after various rebrandings) and leave adopters in the lurch.

 _I know a lot of people who are switching back to Live and Office 365_

Sure....

<comment><USER4> >I've noticed an uptick of the "poor maligned Microsoft" angle lately. It is a boorish tactic to neuter counterpoints (essentially the yang of the "fanboy!" rallying cry).

There are a bunch of MS haters around, even on HN.

For example, Microsoft watcher and insider Paul Thurrott's site <http://winsupersite.com> is hellbanned on HN(banned from even appearing on the new page), most probably due to excessive flagging from haters and fanboys of other platforms, while Gruber's posts get top billing.

> I would argue that many Microsoft products get a pass they would not get > from any other company.

Really?

<comment><USER5> I've flagged Gruber in the past for posts that were contentless flamebait (in my opinion, of course).

I don't know what the story is with Thurrott. Because of the banning, it sounds like a special case that the mods of HN have ultimately decided on, not just the users. So I'm ok with believing that it's not just a story about factions and groupthink.

<comment><USER4> I think excessive flagging can hellban websites, just like too many downmods can hellban users.

I really don't see anything remotely ban worthy on Winsupersite, do you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dropbox is now at the inflection point of having become a standard. All of the various cloud-drive solutions are gauging themselves in comparison to them; as such, they have won.

Will SkyDrive manage to become a good competitor? I would expect so, especially given how Microsoft can push into the field by piggybacking it on Office, etc.

However, _should_ Microsoft? No.

For Microsoft, SkyDrive will not sell more copies of Windows or Office. Instead, it will simply be another waste of money and resources on a feature that will not sway people to their products. If you're going to get Office, you're going to get Office - a cloud drive won't convince you over some other offering.

<comment><USER7> You have it backwards. SkyDrive won't sell more copies of office, it's office that will sell more subscriptions of SkyDrive.

<comment><USER6> Not really - my point is that SkyDrive adds nothing to Microsoft's strategy.

It won't really sell large numbers of Office, and the fact that less than 1% of people use more than 7gb (the free tier) means that it will make very little money overall.

Office will certainly sell subscriptions of SkyDrive, but they'll be free subscriptions mostly and the people won't really care about it. It doesn't make the core product offering more compelling, which seems to be their core strategy based on the yearly price.

Dropbox has done so well because they aren't just the first mover - they are the standard by which others are judged. With this in mind, Microsoft is making a mistake trying to make an offering to compete with it. They should have just made a deal with Dropbox in the first place.

Dropbox integration would be a fantastic selling point for Office; SkyDrive integration is not.

<comment><USER8> > _"Dropbox integration would be a fantastic selling point for Office; > SkyDrive integration is not"_

I think you may be discounting businesses that actually purchase a lot of Office licences. SkyDrive can be a way of providing file-syncing and sharing that's 'good-enough' for their employees/company. (edit: by which I mean it's a valid strategy to try and protect your turf).

I can see an analogy here with Sharepoint. My (limited) experiences with Sharepoint have been annoying and tedious yet the fact that it integrates with existing MS products and is 'good-enough' has made it very successful for Microsoft [1]. I'm not trying to suggest that SkyDrive could be a $1b business but that we shouldn't write it off so quickly.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar- bus...](http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar- businesses-2011-10?op=1)

<comment><USER6> Ok, that is a good point - there's certainly some instances I'm not familiar with such as the one you cite.

I'm still dubious, especially due to the market penetration Dropbox has, but I guess we'll see :)

<comment><USER9> Dropbox has little "market penetration" in the overall market of MS Office buyers.

Dropbox is familiar to us and the circles we are in, but that doesn't mean it has any traction at all among the middle-America soccer moms using MS Word to make flyers for little league or the pet shelter. (The recent photo sync update should help with this.)

Techies typically "misunderestimate" the traction of entrenched tools among normals and the value of building add-ons for those entrenched tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> With a 25GB/user limit less than 1% of the users need more than 7GB of storage.

That sounds like an argument in favor of keeping the 25GB cap. Does Microsoft not trust their own data? Are they really allocating 25GB/user currently, do they need the revenue from the 1% that will now have to pay or what is going on?

<comment><USER11> Good point. The only thing I can think of is that they don't _have_ to give too much for free -- they just have to give more than their competitors.

Dropbox gives 2gb for free, so 7gb from Microsoft is more than enough to be a competitive advantage.

Also, by not starting out at 25gb, Microsoft can slowly increase the free rate, as and when necessary, and generate lots of free press and happy users along the way as well.

Lastly, since Google's service hasn't launched yet, perhaps it's not prudent to get into an arms-race right off the bat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lack of Android and Linux support is still a concern. MS has to address this or enable third party apps access to these platforms in order for it to be a real threat to Dropbox. Especially Android since it's one of the fastest growing OS out there.

<comment><USER13> From [http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...](http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2012/02/07/connect- your-android-device-to-skydrive-with-onenote-and-other-apps.aspx)

>If you have an Android device, we also encourage you to try other apps from partners built using SkyDrive APIs. For example with Browser for SkyDrive or Cloud Explorer for SkyDrive, you can view, access and upload documents or photos on your Android phone. Portfolio for SkyDrive lets you organize and upload photos from your Android phone in batches to SkyDrive. If you want to add SkyDrive support to your app, site or device, please visit our developer center.

Looks like there's OneNote and third party apps, but official support would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> SkyDrive is a threat to Dropbox because they're cheaper? I think Drew Houston said it near the beginning when asked about competitors, "Do you use any of those?" That's the difference.

</comment><comment><USER15> Anyone coming up with a personal equivalent to Dropbox? as in same simple interface, but storage is a multi-terabyte box at your home/office (instead of a few gigabytes "out there")?

<comment><USER16> <https://www.cubby.com>

Cubby - LogMeIn product .. 5Gb Free Cloud

\+ "Unlimited peer-to-peer (P2P) syncing means no storage limits when you're syncing between your own computers. Storage limits only apply to cubbies that are synced to the cloud."

<https://www.cubby.com/faq>

<comment><USER16> _"LogMeIn Prepares To Take On Dropbox & Box With Launch Of Cloud Storage Service Cubby"_

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/logmein-prepares-to-take- on...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/logmein-prepares-to-take-on-dropbox- box-with-launch-of-cloud-storage-service-cubby/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yes much like Windows Mobile is an Android killer.

<comment><USER18> yup, or as much as G+ is a threat to Facebook. It's all about the network effect.

In my professional circle, everyone is using Dropbox. Dropbox is doing a great job. There's little incentive to move.

<comment><USER19> There is traction to changing away from Facebook. How social/networked is your dropbox experience?

<comment><USER20> I rely on Dropbox shared folders for exchanging files with some clients. I also use the Dropbox integration of a few essential iOS apps quite regularly. For me, switching would mean having my clients install Skydrive, as well updates to those iOS apps for Skydrive support.

<comment><USER21> Everyone here is talking as if it's a all/nothing game. I'm using both DropBox (to continue to share with existing people) and SkyDrive for my larger, private stuff. I was able to move several gigs off of DropBox (with no effects with current people I share with) and then downgraded my account. A 2 Gig should be enough for me to share with the people I already share with, and I moved several gigs to MSFT.

Personally, I think DropBox should have had a smaller, paid plan than the $10/50 gigs. I only needed about 5 -7 total.

Problem solved for now, though.

Edit: I should add that my gigs of stuff I uploaded to SkyDrive today took a fraction of the time that my DropBox uploads take (not entirely sure why, but I've always felt DB throttles large files when uploading).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wouldn't say that.

Dropbox is good because is ridiculously simple. I've been using Windows 8 + Skydrive full time and well, it's not a sunshine.

It's buggy, and just upload files (not folders) and I don't believe it will get so much better after the official launch.

And yes, Dropbox is probably screwed. I've been using SugarSync just because it gives me more free space.

If google drive is just as good as dropbox, well, you know the drill.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's certainly becoming more impressive, though I think the network effect of Dropbox will certainly help them along.

Having the built in Office apps in Skydrive and the ability to have the same word doc available on every computer as well as the phone is very handy.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't think amount of free space is a great competitive advantage. If that is the case Sugarsync should be at least 2x bigger than Dropbox (since they are give 2x more free space than Dropbox).

I believe amount of free space only become competitive advantage _after_ services have the same service quality as competition _and_ the same level of integration with applications using the cloud storage (editing, collaboration, project management, photo sharing, etc.).

As of now Dropbox has way more applications supporting it than SkyDrive so it seems Dropbox is still ahead.

</comment><comment><USER25> I just got my ridiculously named teenager mail address to 25gb skydrive, alas, I'm not going to use it because I can't ever send files with that name to anybody. Registered a new account, it forced me to give out my ZIP code, and bam, only 7 GB, I was thinking that offer would be available for all customers before launch. Well, I'm already. pretty happy with my paid dropbox account, and Microsoft's out a potentially paying customer.

</comment><comment><USER26> I would say Windows Mesh is more a competitor than SkyDrive because its folder sync and online storage capacity. Neither are getting anywhere near as much traction as DropBox, but it would do MS good to merge these services asap.

Threat? No. An perfectly viable alternative? Certainly.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what they've done. Mesh became the SkyDrive desktop app. It lets you get remote access to your PC (either files or remote desktop), as well as sync with the cloud.

<comment><USER26> I'm home now running both the SkyDrive app and the LiveMesh app which itself has cloud storage. I think MS needs to clear things up as both services have serious overlap and will cause consumer confusion... even if that mean removing cloud storage from Mesh. As it is now, users can choose to have LiveMesh needlessly sync the local SkyDrive folder.

Mesh has a nice interface with baked in sync scenarios such as browser favorites and office settings. The quick and easy remote desktop is a good touch as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The sad thing about Dropbox is that my free Dropbox account has less space than my free gmail account. If I found a service which was as reliable and provided at least 7 gigs of free space, I would jump ship w/o thinking twice.

<comment><USER28> Stop being selfish and refer more people :). I'm up to 16GB free on mine.

<comment><USER27> Uh, if only it was this easy... Everyone i know is already using Dropbox.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> SkyDrive supports really awesome collaborative editing of Office file formats in the Office 2010 desktop apps. That got me (and a few friends of mine) to use it instead of Google Docs for collaborative editing of documents.

</comment><comment><USER30> _Microsoft has an app for Windows and for Mac OS X that integrates SkyDrive with the local OS_

So, no Linux? Then SkyDrive is no threat to Dropbox, at least to my household.

<comment><USER31> When I last tried, any client can access SkyDrive over WebDAV using <http://d.docs.live.net/{cID}>

(cID can be found in most SkyDrive URLs).

<comment><USER32> Does webdav sync to your disk automatically and such?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Since when is PCWorld's opinion worth anything?

</comment><comment><USER34> We need a plugin that automatically encrypts everything _before_ it goes to the cloud and then decrypts it when we download. So when the subpoena start to rain our data is safe regardless of what Microsoft or Dropbox are forced to do by the gov

<comment><USER34> for those that took the point: I meant an extra level of encryption, just in case there's a backdoor on the default one.

<comment><USER35> Keeping a truecrypt container (with built-in hidden container, naturally) synched with dropbox is quite easy.

<comment><USER36> Does this require unmounting the TC volume for releasing the file system lock on its container and letting for the sync to happen? Or does Dropbox know how to use Shadow Copying now?

<comment><USER35> On unmount, unfortunately. It's a bit of a pain, but it ends up working for me because I keep any TC volumes unmounted unless I'm directly working with their contents.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>