I think there are ways to measure public good. Not perfectly, but certainly better than the market does. Open source libraries create a tremendous amount of pub

I think there are ways to measure public good. Not perfectly, but certainly better than the market does. Open source libraries create a tremendous amount of public good, yet their creators are paid next to nothing. Meanwhile malicious practices like vendor lock-in, proprietary software and tracking are rewarded. There exist organizations that treat software as a public good -- Software for the Public Interest, GNU, the Linux foundation, etc. These are relatively small in terms of funding but have a disproportionately large positive impact. Imagine if an organization the size of Google or Microsoft existed like that with public money, or if one or more of the big 5 tech companies were nationalized? It sounds unimaginable because of the political climate in the United States, but I can't see how this would be anything but a good thing. Tech companies behave much more like infrastructure, and thus are in my mind a very reasonable target for public ownership.