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I think it captures what is happening with society. If you're not famous, then you have effectively no legal rights unless something REALLY REALLY bad happens
by jondubois 10y ago
I think it captures what is happening with society.
If you're not famous, then you have effectively no legal rights unless something REALLY REALLY bad happens to you.
This is only going to get worse as the total number of violations by corporations increase and the media can no longer keep up with most of them - Only the most vile/blatant breaches will be punished.
I can easily imagine that in 20 years, there will be so many breaches of the law by corporations that they will get away with it most of the time... Or if we're lucky and the legal system still works, large corporations will be forced to hire huge numbers of lawyers to be able to defend themselves from the constant stream of claims.
I think that's because the economy has become so competitive that it's difficult for a company to turn a profit without committing lots of minor transgressions (their competitors are doing it). So the most profitable company ends up being the one which commits the most breaches and has the highest rate of success at getting cases against it thrown out of court.
- vonklaus 10y agoWell, to some extent the OP is an edge case-- not every "little guy" gets his grievance any visibilty. However, twitter, reddit, HN, 4chan, and a blogs of all types make it possible to appeal to the public. 20 years ago the same thing occurred, but with less recourse. A company can have its image litigated in public and that can be good
- chii 10y ago20 years ago, there's less surface area for which you could be grieved on by a bigger corporation. Today, where a lot of long tail exists within ecosystems (such as the various app stores), its much easier for a corp to do wrong, and not get punished as each individual infraction is much smaller, but occurr in larger numbers.