fail!

Terminado o papel, tratemos da BD em digital: como não a queremos. Não a queremos em ⁱ⁾ silos fechados, ⁱⁱ⁾ tecnologia proprietária, ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ desfigurada ao ponto de quase nem merecer a categorização de BD de tão --- ah, mas adiantamos-nos. Comedidos, insultos para outra ocasião. Das várias possibilidades de comics digitais, aqueles que mais nos nutrem carinho são os abertos distribuídos. Aqueles que menos nos merecem atenção, os $$$-grab Hollywood gimmick. Shit, em espírito do zé-geist, façamos do estado da arte em web uma parábola à introdução da matéria.

Uma pequena resenha histórica da web, so far. Ou podem ler os nossos rants dos últimos anos ^(*).

* Ou no entre-linhas do mais recente manifesto do Jeremy K. ainda a propósito do Google AMP no "Ends and means" ^{26 fev 2018}.

The internet is still early in its evolution

• During the first era of the internet - from the 1980s through the early 2000s - internet services were built on open protocols that were controlled by the internet community. Huge web properties were started during this era including Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. In the process, the importance of centralized platforms like AOL greatly diminished.
• During the second era of the internet, from the mid 2000s to the present, for-profit tech companies - most notably Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (GAFA) - built software and services that rapidly outpaced the capabilities of open protocols. The explosive growth of smartphones accelerated this trend as mobile apps became the majority of internet use. Eventually users migrated from open services to these more sophisticated, centralized services.

in "Why Decentralization Matters" ^{18 fev 2018}

Com as consequências que sabemos. Aos que precisam do texto, segue-se. A lógica faz-se pelo $$$, mas metam os vossos sumos criativos a trabalhar e faz aquela leitura que nos é mais próxima.

We now have decades of evidence that doing so will end in disappointment.

Let’s look at the problems with centralized platforms. Centralized platforms follow a predictable life cycle. When they start out, they do everything they can to recruit users and 3rd-party complements like developers, businesses, and media organizations. They do this to make their services more valuable, as platforms (by definition) are systems with multi-sided network effects. As platforms move up the adoption S-curve, their power over users and 3rd parties steadily grows.

extract / compete

When they hit the top of the S-curve, their relationships with network participants change from positive-sum to zero-sum. Historical examples of this are Microsoft vs Netscape, Google vs Yelp, Facebook vs Zynga, and Twitter vs its 3rd-party clients. Operating systems like iOS and Android have behaved better, although still take a healthy 30% tax, reject apps for seemingly arbitrary reasons, and subsume the functionality of 3rd-party apps at will. For 3rd parties, this transition from cooperation to competition feels like a bait-and-switch.
in "Why Decentralization Matters" ^{18 fev 2018}

Como notámos antes, no redistribuir está o ganho. Novamente o foco do artigo faz-se pelo $$$, mas o importante está lá. We-for tha indies, creative-wise.

Software is simply the encoding of human thought

Software and web services are built by developers. Many of the most important software projects in history were created by startups or by communities of independent developers. Decentralized networks can win the third era of the internet for the same reason they won the first era: by winning the hearts and minds of entrepreneurs and developers.

Computers connected to the internet are, by and large, free to run whatever software their owners choose. Whatever can be dreamt up, with the right set of incentives, can quickly propagate across the internet. Internet architecture is where technical creativity and incentive design intersect.

Exemplo enciclopédias. Não estivemos aqui à poucos dias? A história é (en)cíclica.

An illustrative analogy is the rivalry in the 2000s between Wikipedia and its centralized competitors like Encarta. If you compared the two products in the early 2000s, Encarta was a far better product, with better topic coverage and higher accuracy. But Wikipedia improved at a much faster rate, because it had an active community of volunteer contributors who were attracted to its decentralized, community-governed ethos. By 2005, Wikipedia was the most popular reference site on the internet. Encarta was shut down in 2009.
in "Why Decentralization Matters" ^{18 fev 2018}

Se a moral vos chega, fechamos analogias. Comix-wise, a evolução errada da bd em digital resultou em tecnologias proprietárias de extração e competição entre plataformas disfarçadas de soluções práticas à sua leitura em novos suportes / ecrãs. Exemplos para Madefire e os seus Motion Books, Guided View da Comixology ou o Google Bubble Zoom. Estes e semelhantes picam-nos o ^{i) ii)} e ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ anteriores.

Madefire's Motion Books

Comixology's Guided View

Google's Bubble Zoom

A definir comics digitais - e definir comic's a bitch, dependendo a quem perguntas - haveremos de retomar considerações adicionais sobre estes formatos e de como se anulam ao sentido dos ditos. Antes, regressamos à analogia com a web per se em paralelismos de intenções mais políticas que conceptuais - porque está tudo ligado...

Centralized platforms have been dominant for so long that many people have forgotten there is a better way to build internet services.

The question of whether decentralized or centralized systems will win the next era of the internet reduces to who will build the most compelling products, which in turn reduces to who will get more high quality developers and entrepreneurs on their side.

Where-u-at e os vossos compelling digital comix, my cómicos? Haveremos de chegar onde vcs deviam estar, entretanto sabem onde estamos -

That’s the web I want; a place with spare corners where un-monetisable enthusiasms can be preserved, even if they’ve not been updated for seven years.
in "We need an internet of unmonetisable enthusiasms" ^{13 fev 2018}

Quando voltarmos, onde technical creativity e incentive design não se intersect e o entusiasmo da preservação.

mark-that-language