With Google’s recent monopoly status being a topic a discussion recently. This article from 2017 argues that we should nationalize these platforms in the age of platform capitalism. Ahead of its time, in fact the author predicted the downfall of Ello.
We need to split them, kill them, do whatever it takes to scatter the power they’ve accumulated.
They , as in people holding that power, want to nationalize them, because it simplifies the system they have already built for themselves.
Both Harris’ program and such articles are all in the same direction. “Corps are fine, they just should be state-controlled and their services affordable”.
No. People who want this are power-hungry fools, and despite their feeling of victory factually achieved and only waiting to be formalized, they will get fucked and this will fail.
Governments are bad; I get it.
But is it tiring to constantly mistrust the people we’ve put in charge of our shared resources or is it resignation to keep choosing the same people each time instead of the ones you CAN trust?
I didn’t put anybody in charge. I could theoretically employ them. They are employees.
When someone wants trust, they are the last person to be trusted.
I obviously don’t choose much.
First, because an anonymous vote where you can vote only for one candidate, not even against. Something similar to likes\dislikes would make more sense, but with each voter getting, say, the amount of likes equal to floor of 1/3 choices in the ballot, and the same amount of dislikes.
Second, because I live in Russia.
Yup. It’s time for some trust-busting. Amazon’s logistics is great (though there is need for unionization of the employees) but their shopping site sucks. Kill the vertical integration so there can be different websites that use their logistics to deliver stuff. Many shopping portals competing with each other to allow people to quickly find products that don’t suck and have those products be delivered within days.
Pull out the Cloud services from Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Probably should have some standard APIs for cloud services so to make it easier to switch between them which means they will have to compete instead of just locking people in to their particular service.
Social media just needs to be regulated like the phone companies are. Required to interoperate. Don’t like what Elon Musk has done with Twitter? Move to Mastodon, Threads, or whatever and still be able to communicate with your friends that are still on Twitter. Create a common social media API standard that the biggies are required to implement so they can’t use the network effect as a barrier to entry. Moving to a different social media platforms should be like changing to a different phone company. You don’t have to be on the same phone company that your friends use, so why should you have to be on the same social media platform that your friends use?
Maybe update the CDA so that if their algorithm recommends something, they face the same liability as traditional media does when they publish something. Sure they shouldn’t be liable whenever a random user posts something, but if their algorithm is recommending that post to millions of people, it doesn’t seem any different from a newspaper printing an article saying some bullshit.
I’d say computers with internet have done to regulations of mass media the same thing that early computers have done to encryption.
They allow platforms\businesses\whoever to make systems of enormous complexity, easily incompatible and with intentional gray zones for laws here and there, and to do that fast and in enormous quantities.
For example, with algorithmic recommendations and who’s responsible.
What in the world before the Internet would be generally contained to real physical objects and procedures hard to change that fast, after it became wholly models defined by computer programs. When Facebook reads your messages, they don’t open any physical envelope and they don’t even do something at a telephone station.
There’s an explosion of facts legal systems have not been designed to deal with. As we’ve all seen with the way they react to it.
Scattering it just creates an opening for the next monopoly to come and fill the gap. Nationalizing ensures everyone gets fair and equal access and prevents a capitalist monopoly.
It’s so easy to just say “they” and sound scary it’s harder to actually figure out why some solutions are good and others bad without resorting to a mysterious malevolent entity.
Some people live with a regulated market and think that it won’t lead to monopoly no matter what.
Some people live without seeing what nationalization does and think that it will be something fair and equal.
Let’s generally avoid being so certain about things we haven’t seen.
There’s nothing mysterious in this.
If hard narcotics are highly illegal, but also still generally available in your country for those who seek, then somebody does that work with protection from sufficiently powerful people.
If prostitution is illegal in your country, then the same.
And so on and so forth.
Now we are talking about the government control over a large chunk of your communications. There’s no need to sound scary, this is bullshit and you are either a shill or very inexperienced.
It pretty much by definition has to be a monopoly. The point is that profit isn’t the goal anymore. Serving the people is.
What? That’s totally an unrelated topic.
They already partially are in most places. Building infrastructure requires government consent or it’d be chaos. Having an option of a search engine being national does not put them in charge of all options though. It just creates a base version that people always have access to.
You can’t possibly have any instrument to set that goal to people with more power than you or “the people”. And idiots thinking they can have centralized power with “a different goal” somehow set are the ones who’ve lead us to the current state of things.
It’s not. That’s the kind of system you are suggesting to nationalize something under.
Having an option of Meta or Google doesn’t put them in charge of all social networks too. But in practice it’s different.