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Considering right now companies like Facebook are very actively making the world a worse place I would say this would be a strong move towards something better.

srkmno 8y ago
Facebook is people and people suck. Facebook is also a scapegoat and to the contrary of what a resentful media industry would like you to believe the sum of their contributions to the world is overwhelmingly positive
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  Facebook is the tip of the iceberg. For every bad story about Facebook there's at least a dozen about Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Uber, AirBnB, and smaller players. Regulation designed to rein in the heavy hitters will not harm small startups, especially ones whose innovation is built upon careful flouting of law and loophole-seeking, anyway.
  - srkmno 8y ago
    Regulation as the result of "bad stories" yeah let heysteria and sensationalism lead the way. Facebook et al are not the source of all evil, they are actually a source of financial relief to most people, they are only a problem to media companies, and those who write books about how bad they are. It's healthcare and housing costs that are the bane of everyday people, this media fabricated tech backlash is a strategic distraction.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      > Regulation as the result of "bad stories" yeah let heysteria and sensationalism lead the way. That's literally how muckrakers during the Progressive Era alerted the public to the depredations of big business and forced government regulation of business practices to ensure competition and free enterprise. And how does any social media company provide "financial relief"?
      - srkmno 8y ago
        > muckrakers during the Progressive Era So you're one of those. Were the "muckrakers" at the time in the same business as the companies they were raking muck at? Cause that sure is the case nowadays. > And how does any social media company provide "financial relief"? Zero dollar cost for communication, broadcasting, entertainment, information retrieval, etc while little else is free.
  - betterunix2 8y ago
    Except that in practice regulation nearly typically protects big incumbents from startup competitors. That is exactly the effect GDPR had in Europe: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/09/gdpr-has-cut-ad-trackers-in-europe-but-helped-google-study-suggests/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/09/gdpr-has-cut-ad-trackers-i... Incumbents, especially in the tech industry, face a greater threat of being unseated by a startup than being unable to handle regulations. The "heavy hitters" have plenty of cash available to pay for the lawyers needed to deal with regulations, and the lobbyists needed to shape regulations to their advantage. Startups need to be careful about their budgets, and the added cost of compliance represents an entry cost that will almost certainly work against small players. Moreover, when you regulate to the point where the big incumbents suffer economically, you are typically in a state of over-regulation. The evidence is very clear that numerous freight railroads failed in the 1960s because over-regulation prevented them from adapting to new realities; it was too difficult for the railroads to shut down unprofitable routes due to service requirements and they were required to continue paying taxes and maintenance costs on redundant infrastructure. Following deregulation (the Staggers Act) America's freight rail industry was able to reorganize and become profitable once again (and today the North American freight network is one of the most efficient systems on earth and is envied by the world). Passenger railroads are still uneconomical even in regions with high population densities that are absolutely dependent on passenger service (e.g. the northeast corridor, which is the ideal scenario and home to some of the only services that manage an operating surplus) largely because of persistent over-regulation (especially safety -- Acela trainsets are significantly heavier than comparable equipment in Europe and Asia and are more expensive to operate). Good regulation is certainly possible, but it is the exception rather than the rule. The more typical pattern is either the economic failure of an industry (over-regulation) or regulatory capture.
    - bitwize 8y ago
      > Good regulation is certainly possible, but it is the exception rather than the rule. The more typical pattern is either the economic failure of an industry (over-regulation) or regulatory capture. In the USA. It's highly unclear whether that holds for democratic regimes.
    - blub 8y ago
  - Pocketknife 8y ago
    But in practice, the regulations end up being written by the heavy hitters, who also capture the regulators enforcing it. They make a token concession or two, heap on the compliance costs and complications, and then enjoy a cosy relationship with the government group in charge of their would-be competitors too.
- chillacy 8y ago
  True, I think people equate news media with informative journalism, which it does embody at its finest, but at its worst it's a machine for generating fear and clicks over constant scandals. Not that there's malice, but the entire system is incentivized to do this.
- lapnitnelav 8y ago
  "overwhelmingly positive" While I don't doubt there's been many good things coming out of the release and growth of Facebook, if only for their contribution to the ecosystem, I think you might be hyping it quite a bit there. Care to elaborate on your thought?
- blub 8y ago
  When ignoring the facilitation of election manipulation, age and race discrimination in ads, genocide and their paychological manipulation experiments and the mass surveillance and them targeting teens with their fake VPN and them purposefully allowing kids to be preyed on by IAPs and many others... ...one can say indeed that their contributions have been overwhelmingly positive. Certainly only a case of scapegoating and envy comrade.
dmix 8y ago
The rules always get written to control the big companies like FB, despite the fact the laws effect the whole marketplace of thousands of companies of different sizes. But big companies like FB have enough lawyers and influence and never really change. Meanwhile the laws cripple all sorts of harmless small-medium sized companies, including potential future better competitors to FB. And the laws stay law for decades before they get fixed, if ever. There are countless examples of this in other industries. Some of the laws following the 2008 financial crisis are a good example which reduced the market place of hundreds of small banks who couldn’t operate with the new rules and further solidified the positions of the 5 mega banks. So much for ending “too big to fail”. Idealism of “what should be done” meets reality of always historically ends up happening. If you’re interested in this topic Thomas Sowell included a hundred examples of well intentioned laws having the opposite effect and making problems either worse or stopping the one problem and generating far worse ones (usually after a period of time when every claims the regulation a success and moves on, before the reality of the situation reveals itself). https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Gordon-Tullock/dp/0631151133 https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Gordon-Tulloc...
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  Let's say that your argument is true: That large companies are effectively immune to the law and any type of regulation we pass would simply wash right over them. I don't buy into this one bit considering my personal experience with GDPR at a larger company, but for the sake of argumentation let's follow that logic. If companies are too large to be affected by law, then the only recourse is for the government to step in and break their monopoly. A company that is unaffected by laws will also have extreme leverage in the free market and have the strength to smother those smaller small-medium sized companies you claim are competitors to FB. It would seem illogical that a company would have the lawyers and influence to ignore regulations, but not be willing to use that same influence to kill competitors.
- StellarTabi 8y ago
  > The rules always get written to control the big companies like FB, despite the fact the laws effect the whole marketplace of thousands of companies of different sizes. Yup, and this is why campaign finance reform is so important.

srkmno 8y ago

Facebook is people and people suck. Facebook is also a scapegoat and to the contrary of what a resentful media industry would like you to believe the sum of their contributions to the world is overwhelmingly positive

Apocryphon 8y ago
Facebook is the tip of the iceberg. For every bad story about Facebook there's at least a dozen about Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Uber, AirBnB, and smaller players. Regulation designed to rein in the heavy hitters will not harm small startups, especially ones whose innovation is built upon careful flouting of law and loophole-seeking, anyway.
- srkmno 8y ago
  Regulation as the result of "bad stories" yeah let heysteria and sensationalism lead the way. Facebook et al are not the source of all evil, they are actually a source of financial relief to most people, they are only a problem to media companies, and those who write books about how bad they are. It's healthcare and housing costs that are the bane of everyday people, this media fabricated tech backlash is a strategic distraction.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    > Regulation as the result of "bad stories" yeah let heysteria and sensationalism lead the way. That's literally how muckrakers during the Progressive Era alerted the public to the depredations of big business and forced government regulation of business practices to ensure competition and free enterprise. And how does any social media company provide "financial relief"?
    - srkmno 8y ago
      > muckrakers during the Progressive Era So you're one of those. Were the "muckrakers" at the time in the same business as the companies they were raking muck at? Cause that sure is the case nowadays. > And how does any social media company provide "financial relief"? Zero dollar cost for communication, broadcasting, entertainment, information retrieval, etc while little else is free.
- betterunix2 8y ago
  Except that in practice regulation nearly typically protects big incumbents from startup competitors. That is exactly the effect GDPR had in Europe: https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/09/gdpr-has-cut-ad-trackers-in-europe-but-helped-google-study-suggests/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/09/gdpr-has-cut-ad-trackers-i... Incumbents, especially in the tech industry, face a greater threat of being unseated by a startup than being unable to handle regulations. The "heavy hitters" have plenty of cash available to pay for the lawyers needed to deal with regulations, and the lobbyists needed to shape regulations to their advantage. Startups need to be careful about their budgets, and the added cost of compliance represents an entry cost that will almost certainly work against small players. Moreover, when you regulate to the point where the big incumbents suffer economically, you are typically in a state of over-regulation. The evidence is very clear that numerous freight railroads failed in the 1960s because over-regulation prevented them from adapting to new realities; it was too difficult for the railroads to shut down unprofitable routes due to service requirements and they were required to continue paying taxes and maintenance costs on redundant infrastructure. Following deregulation (the Staggers Act) America's freight rail industry was able to reorganize and become profitable once again (and today the North American freight network is one of the most efficient systems on earth and is envied by the world). Passenger railroads are still uneconomical even in regions with high population densities that are absolutely dependent on passenger service (e.g. the northeast corridor, which is the ideal scenario and home to some of the only services that manage an operating surplus) largely because of persistent over-regulation (especially safety -- Acela trainsets are significantly heavier than comparable equipment in Europe and Asia and are more expensive to operate). Good regulation is certainly possible, but it is the exception rather than the rule. The more typical pattern is either the economic failure of an industry (over-regulation) or regulatory capture.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    > Good regulation is certainly possible, but it is the exception rather than the rule. The more typical pattern is either the economic failure of an industry (over-regulation) or regulatory capture. In the USA. It's highly unclear whether that holds for democratic regimes.
  - blub 8y ago
- Pocketknife 8y ago
  But in practice, the regulations end up being written by the heavy hitters, who also capture the regulators enforcing it. They make a token concession or two, heap on the compliance costs and complications, and then enjoy a cosy relationship with the government group in charge of their would-be competitors too.
chillacy 8y ago
True, I think people equate news media with informative journalism, which it does embody at its finest, but at its worst it's a machine for generating fear and clicks over constant scandals. Not that there's malice, but the entire system is incentivized to do this.
lapnitnelav 8y ago
"overwhelmingly positive" While I don't doubt there's been many good things coming out of the release and growth of Facebook, if only for their contribution to the ecosystem, I think you might be hyping it quite a bit there. Care to elaborate on your thought?
blub 8y ago
When ignoring the facilitation of election manipulation, age and race discrimination in ads, genocide and their paychological manipulation experiments and the mass surveillance and them targeting teens with their fake VPN and them purposefully allowing kids to be preyed on by IAPs and many others... ...one can say indeed that their contributions have been overwhelmingly positive. Certainly only a case of scapegoating and envy comrade.

dmix 8y ago

The rules always get written to control the big companies like FB, despite the fact the laws effect the whole marketplace of thousands of companies of different sizes. But big companies like FB have enough lawyers and influence and never really change. Meanwhile the laws cripple all sorts of harmless small-medium sized companies, including potential future better competitors to FB. And the laws stay law for decades before they get fixed, if ever. There are countless examples of this in other industries. Some of the laws following the 2008 financial crisis are a good example which reduced the market place of hundreds of small banks who couldn’t operate with the new rules and further solidified the positions of the 5 mega banks. So much for ending “too big to fail”. Idealism of “what should be done” meets reality of always historically ends up happening. If you’re interested in this topic Thomas Sowell included a hundred examples of well intentioned laws having the opposite effect and making problems either worse or stopping the one problem and generating far worse ones (usually after a period of time when every claims the regulation a success and moves on, before the reality of the situation reveals itself). https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Gordon-Tullock/dp/0631151133 https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty-Politics-Gordon-Tulloc...

fzeroracer 8y ago
Let's say that your argument is true: That large companies are effectively immune to the law and any type of regulation we pass would simply wash right over them. I don't buy into this one bit considering my personal experience with GDPR at a larger company, but for the sake of argumentation let's follow that logic. If companies are too large to be affected by law, then the only recourse is for the government to step in and break their monopoly. A company that is unaffected by laws will also have extreme leverage in the free market and have the strength to smother those smaller small-medium sized companies you claim are competitors to FB. It would seem illogical that a company would have the lawyers and influence to ignore regulations, but not be willing to use that same influence to kill competitors.
StellarTabi 8y ago
> The rules always get written to control the big companies like FB, despite the fact the laws effect the whole marketplace of thousands of companies of different sizes. Yup, and this is why campaign finance reform is so important.