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> It comes down to trust - as soon as one of these companies did abuse their position to do something widely evil, the market consequences would be dire... HAH
by exergy 7y ago
> It comes down to trust - as soon as one of these companies did abuse their position to do something widely evil, the market consequences would be dire...
HAHAHAHAHA.
No.
Look at Nestle/Coca Cola/Pepsi sucking the earth dry of precious driking water.
Or the fallout for bankers over the 2008 recession.
Or VW.
Or Equifax making merry with your social security number.
Or Deepwater horizon.
Or Cambridge Analytica.
Or... you get the point.
I'd argue the market has precious few fucks to give about outright evil deeds. There are countless examples of corporations pillaging and raping the earth for short term gains, and the market thanks them for it.
Free market efficiency is true for only a very narrow range of operating parameters, and regulations are very much needed for tackling th ebig picture.
The bottomline being, given a fuzzy outline of the line in the sand, I'd still rather the government shoot for it. If they fall short by too much, we'll know soon enough because symptoms will persist. If they go too FAR, well, that's perhaps even better because I'd rather the default stance on new things be conservative skepticism and caution, and then we slowly allow more things once we deem them acceptable.
- scifi6546 7y agoI would argue trust is a big part of it. My counter example: Apple. Apple is a massive company that could collect massive sums of valuable data. Althoguh they do act like a monopoly in many respects (cough cough T2) they do not abuse data that they could collect. I think the reason for that is they want some level of trust from consumers. They do abuse their position of power but they do not do very much 'creepy' things like google, MS, Amazon, or Facebook
- exergy 7y agoI sort of get what you're saying. A lot of formerly-anti-Apple people have started looking at them with new eyes because of their welcome stance on privacy. But even with the Apple example, aren't they the most valuable company on Earth? Despite having anti-consumer policies like removing the 3.5mm jack or making their laptops nigh-on irrepairable. Clearly the market shrugs at those 'tradeoffs' in exchange for Apple shifting more product more quickly. This is what I mean by the market not being the perfect device to self-regulate. Perhaps on a VERY long term scale, but not on human time scales.