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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by_market_capitalization#2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by... Microso

by pacala 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by_market_capitalization#2019 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by... Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Facebook, Berkshire Hathaway, Alibaba Group, Tencent, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase. 6 surveillance corporations in top 10, 4 american and 2 chinese. If 6 out of largest corporations in the world were oil companies, we'd call it oil capitalism. If they were banks, we'd call it financial capitalism. It so happens that our age is the age of surveillance capitalism.

cromwellian 7y ago
Amazon makes most of their money from retail and cloud. Microsoft arguably makes most of their money from sales of Windows, Office, and Azure. If any form of advertising, even internal tracking and advertising, at all denotes you as surveillance company, then Apple's iAd, and Store optimization algorithms to try and maximize app sales would count. Likewise, JPMorgan Chase, which probably knows a good deal more about your personal finances than any of the tech companies, is also a surveillance company. We live in an era where defense contractors have caused the deaths of millions of people, and Purdue farmer just made $30 billion hooking people on opioids and reducing American life expectancy for the first time since 1918, where gun manufacturers are feeding small arms violence all over the world, especially in developing countries, and even hooking kids on smoking nicotine -- Juul -- is back. And we're discussing how on HN horrible target advertising is, over and over again. There's actually people's lives and healthy being literally destroyed by regular old capitalism all around the world.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  > If any form of advertising, even internal tracking and advertising, at all denotes you as surveillance company I don't think it does. What makes you a surveillance company is if you incorporate surveillance into your business model. By that measure, Google, Facebook, and so forth are certainly surveillance companies. You can do advertising without spying on people. Ad companies that behave this way are not "surveillance companies", they're just ad companies.
  - cromwellian 7y ago
    Then why are Amazon and Microsoft counted among the 4 surveillance companies the OP? Also it is arguable if behavioral targeting meaningful increases revenue over day, keyword targeting. Are there any studies?
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      > Then why are Amazon and Microsoft counted among the 4 surveillance companies the OP? Perhaps because they both have surveillance as part of their business models? > Also it is arguable if behavioral targeting meaningful increases revenue over day, keyword targeting. I never made any comment about the revenue impact of various forms of advertising. I was merely stating the plain fact that advertising can be done without spying on people, and an ad company that works this way would not count as a "surveillance company".
      - cromwellian 7y ago
        > Perhaps because they both have surveillance as part of their business models? The majority of Microsoft and Amazon's revenue doesn't come from advertising. That was my point about Apple, which is, although their primary market is HW, they are getting into services, and they did have iAds, and they are exploring ads on the App Store. Again, in MS's revenue breakdown, advertising is a rounding error. And Amazon purchaser of ads.
        JohnFen 7y ago
        > The majority of Microsoft and Amazon's revenue doesn't come from advertising. I was talking about surveillance, not advertising specifically. Surveillance is embedded deeply into both company's business models even if we ignore the advertising side of their businesses. Advertising and surveillance are two different things, and each can exist without the other.
        cromwellian 7y ago

by pacala 7y ago

cromwellian 7y ago

Amazon makes most of their money from retail and cloud. Microsoft arguably makes most of their money from sales of Windows, Office, and Azure. If any form of advertising, even internal tracking and advertising, at all denotes you as surveillance company, then Apple's iAd, and Store optimization algorithms to try and maximize app sales would count. Likewise, JPMorgan Chase, which probably knows a good deal more about your personal finances than any of the tech companies, is also a surveillance company. We live in an era where defense contractors have caused the deaths of millions of people, and Purdue farmer just made $30 billion hooking people on opioids and reducing American life expectancy for the first time since 1918, where gun manufacturers are feeding small arms violence all over the world, especially in developing countries, and even hooking kids on smoking nicotine -- Juul -- is back. And we're discussing how on HN horrible target advertising is, over and over again. There's actually people's lives and healthy being literally destroyed by regular old capitalism all around the world.

JohnFen 7y ago
> If any form of advertising, even internal tracking and advertising, at all denotes you as surveillance company I don't think it does. What makes you a surveillance company is if you incorporate surveillance into your business model. By that measure, Google, Facebook, and so forth are certainly surveillance companies. You can do advertising without spying on people. Ad companies that behave this way are not "surveillance companies", they're just ad companies.
- cromwellian 7y ago
  Then why are Amazon and Microsoft counted among the 4 surveillance companies the OP? Also it is arguable if behavioral targeting meaningful increases revenue over day, keyword targeting. Are there any studies?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    > Then why are Amazon and Microsoft counted among the 4 surveillance companies the OP? Perhaps because they both have surveillance as part of their business models? > Also it is arguable if behavioral targeting meaningful increases revenue over day, keyword targeting. I never made any comment about the revenue impact of various forms of advertising. I was merely stating the plain fact that advertising can be done without spying on people, and an ad company that works this way would not count as a "surveillance company".
    - cromwellian 7y ago
      > Perhaps because they both have surveillance as part of their business models? The majority of Microsoft and Amazon's revenue doesn't come from advertising. That was my point about Apple, which is, although their primary market is HW, they are getting into services, and they did have iAds, and they are exploring ads on the App Store. Again, in MS's revenue breakdown, advertising is a rounding error. And Amazon purchaser of ads.
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        > The majority of Microsoft and Amazon's revenue doesn't come from advertising. I was talking about surveillance, not advertising specifically. Surveillance is embedded deeply into both company's business models even if we ignore the advertising side of their businesses. Advertising and surveillance are two different things, and each can exist without the other.
        cromwellian 7y ago