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Curious how “There is grow­ing con­cern … about big­ness and size, and pow­er be­cause pow­er cor­rupts absolutely” among the growing fan club of a representati

• takluyver 9y ago
  There's a case to be made that the largest tech companies are now larger and more powerful than many governments. Google estimates that there are now more than two billion active Android devices, and there's a similar number of active Facebook users. Obviously it's not just about numbers. Google and Facebook can't imprison you or raise an army. But when you consider their influence on communications, their ability to lobby governments, and in some cases their tendency to work around laws (I'm thinking of Uber's 'Greyball'), the idea that the government is the ultimate accumulation of size and power doesn't seem so clear, especially outside the US.
• Macha 9y ago
  The issue is that the government is ultimately supposed to be responsible to society at large whole a company is supposed to be responsible for its shareholders. If a government is screwing over the vulnerable or some minority (whether in discrimination terms or just "those people in that city who's water system we fucked up") because they ignored externalities or decided to cut costs they're failing at their job, while for a corporation their explicit goal is to serve their minority of shareholders and if they can cut costs at the cost of societal impacts, well, that's just good business.
• notfromhere 9y ago
  Governments, at least in the West, are elected and have a public mission compared to places like Google