Summary
I’m Dana Blankenhorn. I have covered the Internet as a reporter since 1983. I’ve been a professional business reporter since 1978, and a writer all my life.
I have learned a lot. Now I want to share my knowledge with you.
There are many ways in which we can do this. Here are two ways to get the conversation started:
I need some writing done. Let’s talk.
I have a business problem. Let’s talk about consulting. I know you won’t charge me until I’m satisfied with your work.
Source: Website
OnAir Post: Dana F. Blankenhorn
News
Zoe Kooyman is now running the Free Software Foundation. People I know and trust say she’s a good choice.
She had better be. She’s walking into a Category 5 hurricane.
The problem starts with DeepSeek. The Chinese LLM is available as open source under the MIT License. That’s different from the GPL, but Kooyman made clear the FSF is now aligned with the mainstream free software movement.
The issue is freedom. To review, FSF defines four freedoms. Freedom to download software, freedom to use it, freedom to change it, and freedom to share the changes. The GPL that the FSF wrote is different than other open source licenses, which define this fourth freedom as the freedom to profit from your improvements.
The Apple Strategy
For now, Apple plans to be a reseller.
It claims a “partnership” with OpenAI but there’s nothing it can’t get out of. Apple is focused on building models that can run directly on its clients, as opposed to larger models that require an online connection.
Given that the large models aren’t getting better fast and continue to hallucinate, even after considerable use, this looks like a sound strategy. Given the size of the phone market, any gains from Android will mean big money, and the Indian manufacturing base could bring such gains in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where economies are growing and where many countries are at relative peace, such as in Vietnam.
This means that when the GenAI market crashes, as everyone is predicting it will, Apple shouldn’t. It is independent of the madness, and I wonder why more analysts aren’t pointing this out.
People Beat Capital
Sam Altman convinced the markets, and his competitors, that a “Large Language Model” was everything, that software no longer matters. Nothing could be further from the truth.
DeepSeek and Manus have shown that the best hack still wins. They’ve also shown the superiority of the Open Source model and mindset.
Meta claimed to have that, but it also tried to redefine open source, as in “you can download it free, you can use it free, but all your improvements belong to me,” which isn’t open source at all. The Chinese startups are using real Open Source licenses, and the market is flocking to them.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
This lie was crafted as OpenAI started pushing “Generative Artificial Intelligence” programs like its ChatGPT, and it continues to spread. Generative AI came from the cloud-based database computing we’ve had for a decade. It’s descended from companies like Salesforce.Com selling databases as a service in the wake of the 2000 dot-bomb.
Generative AI combines machine learning from a large database with a flexible output. Want a picture of Elon Musk as a rat? How about a song about trees in the style of Steely Dan? Would you like a story about current events as told by Mark Twain? How about making your company’s firewall proactive
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Protection from Smaller Markets: There are No Publications, Just Communities
Source: Dana F. Blankenhorn
But there is no such thing as a newspaper, a magazine, a TV news channel or even a news website anymore. There is only the Web. If you want to live there, you must build a community within it.
That means doing something I hate, namely specializing. It also means creating a two-way street, like Facebook without the sludge. A safe place for locals to not only vent but connect, emphasis on the word SAFE. You’re about as safe on Facebook as you are on an unlit alleyway behind a strip club after midnight on a weekend.
Once you build a community, you can build another, but it won’t be any cheaper than the first one was. Doing this takes deep learning, expertise, and a desire to serve. The best publishers have always identified with their readers, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. Their business is creating =communities around shared needs, through unbiased journalism and a clear delineation between advertising and editorial.
