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| Author: |
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Doc Searls |
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| Posted: |
7/16/2001; 9:31:50 AM |
| Topic: |
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| Msg #: |
861 (top msg in thread) |
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860/862 |
| Reads: |
3023 |
Now for some coffee 
| | I've been up since 5am working on the laptop while everybody else sleeps. A warm soft tropical breeze blows in through the screen porch. The sea is gray, with the look of hammered metal. The sky is only a lighter shade of the same color: a pure marine haze that the sun will burn off in an hour or two. |
| | That makes two days in a row I've missed the great conjunction in the predawn eastern sky — Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury and Venus sparkling like scattered jewels above the horizon — and the persistence of Comet Linear as well. If any of ya'll are reading this on the West Coast where it's still dark, step outside and look up. You'll never get a better look at the whole damn solar system. Especially when you go out tonight and spot the other naked-eye planet, Mars, showing its bright red self in the Southeast sky. |
Suggests we might revisit the meaning of Customs
| | So far I've detected zero concern for the real issue with Passport: that it makes Microsoft the intermediary for nearly all of what we call "consumer" commerce — and makes the consumer pay for the privilege: |
| | Microsoft will operate the HailStorm services as a business. The HailStorm services will have real operational costs, and rather than risk compromising the user-centric model by having someone such as advertisers pay for these services, the people receiving the value the end users will be the primary source of revenue to Microsoft. HailStorm will help move the Internet to end-user subscriptions, where users pay for value received. |
| | Stewart says he's concerned about Microsoft owning and controlling too much personal data about people. Miguel expresses some of the same concerns, but also a degree of appreciation: The idea behind Passport is indeed a good one (I can start to get rid of my file that keeps track of the 30 logins and passwords or so that I use across the various services on the net myself). |
| | But nobody seems concerned that Microsoft intends to add a market efficiency to e-commerce — to the whole Net — that it will entirely own and control. And since this efficiency will be paid for by consumers and developers, it bypasses a lot of regulatory issues that, say, VISA does not. |
| | And 'pat man' writes to inform me that Clay Shirky has done the same, providing us with this great one-line explanation: Microsoft wants to own your identity and rent it back to you for a few bucks per month. |
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