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This is simply too naive. We need regulation to stop global tech monopolities shamelessly exploiting their dominant position, be it Google, Microsoft, Facebook,
by l5870uoo9y 8y ago
This is simply too naive. We need regulation to stop global tech monopolities shamelessly exploiting their dominant position, be it Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Samsung and so on. I doubt this can be done properly on any other level than national.
- briandear 8y agoWhy? Don’t like Google, don’t use it. Pretty simple.
- Elrac 8y agoThat's from the gospel of the Libertarian Church of the Invisible Hand. This approach doesn't work in the real world because Google's consumers are neither perfectly informed nor perfectly rational. It also ignores the fact that major corporations can enlist the help of the US government in maintaining and extending their de facto monopolies.
- etatoby 8y agoStill, it's hard to argue that Google Chrome is a monopoly, when it's not even the default in most user OSs (the exceptions bring ChromeOS and some of the Android vendors.)
- mrguyorama 8y agoIs it not a de-facto default when the first thing many people do on the internet is hit Google.com and get prompted to download it?
- rebornshellfish 8y agoSomething I wonder is: would we have anywhere near as much of a problem with a handful of companies monopolising the information technology industry, if we didn't have Intellectual Property laws? People often forget that patents, copyright, etc. are just an arbitrary social construct with little real justification for their existence. Yet the overall effect they have is to make it considerably harder to start a new company to compete with a tech giant. It may be that the problem is that we have too much regulation rather than too little.
- openbasic 8y agoYes! We'll just write our problems away.