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Since when do you have a right to computing freedom? Why don’t you buy from Purism instead? Sorry, but I can’t get behind such a draconian government takeover

Since when do you have a right to computing freedom? Why don’t you buy from Purism instead? Sorry, but I can’t get behind such a draconian government takeover of private corporations. No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone. Support free products with your wallet instead of demanding that a the government coerce a private entity to make your arbitrary wishes and desires real.

manigandham 6y ago
Consumers should come first before massive corporations. It's why we have regulations in the first place. A world controlled by a few giant conglomerates that own all of your data while providing the illusion of choice of "just don't buy it" is not a good outcome.
- xvector 6y ago
  > Consumers should come first before massive corporations And yet corporations don’t exist to do your particular bidding and make your desires real. Unless a corporation is doing something illegal, you have no right to tell them what to do and what to make. Apple could, for all intents and purposes, sell useless slabs of aluminum. Your demands to have the government coerce them into creating open APIs would be just as outrageous in this scenario. Finally, giving the government this much power is shortsighted at best. Has the Trump administration not shown you the extremes the government can go to? The TikTok debacle after Trump’s Tulsa rally was ruined by it, calls to repeal Section 230, etc. The government is not your friend and it never will be. There will always come a time when it will abuse its powers to the greatest extent possible. Unless corporations are actively and illegally harming consumers, I don’t see why your proposal is necessary. Consider supporting companies that further your ideals with your own wallet rather than telling other companies what to do.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Support such companies or actually work on projects that further them. The idea that the government is going to create an open software utopia is hard to understand.
  - hnick 6y ago
    > Unless a corporation is doing something illegal, you have no right to tell them what to do and what to make. OK so we make it illegal. Governments are good at that.
    - zepto 6y ago
      Make what illegal?
      - hnick 6y ago
        In this case, possibly nothing, since antitrust already exists. But I'm not qualified to decide. It is probably best to wait and see how this and the Apple/Epic case play out to see if changes are required. I'm just a bit sick of the argument "It's OK if it is legal" when laws exist to serve us and can be changed. Discussion is the first step. My comment was a response to that. Mandating right to repair and open platforms and formats (such as the circuit diagrams we used to get within our instruction manuals) would be one possibility.
        zepto 6y ago
        You’d have to make that mandate global, otherwise you’d see countries that do permit trade secrets simply dominate the computing landscape. This is not a realistic option.
        hnick 6y ago
        I don't think it needs to be fully global, just a significant market. EU's mandate on USB-C chargers is one example where you lose a lot by opting out.
        zepto 6y ago
        How is a standardized charging socket in any way comparable to banning trade secrets? This doesn’t make sense to me.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    > "Unless a corporation is doing something illegal, you have no right to tell them what to do and what to make" Exactly, legislation and legality is how we tell them what to do. > Your demands to have the government coerce them into creating open APIs would be just as outrageous in this scenario. I didn't demand govt-forced open APIs? Where did you come up with that? However right-to-repair and other freedoms and ownership over the hardware you purchase, especially when it's so critical to your life and centrally controlled, is worthwhile to pursue. > "giving the government this much power is shortsighted at best" Either the corporation or the government has the power. The challenge is finding the right balance, because neither should have complete authority.
    - xvector 6y ago
      > Exactly, legislation and legality is how well tell them what to do. What legislation do you propose? > I didn't demand govt-forced open APIs? Where did you come up with that? OP’s comment, which you seem to be arguing in favor of. Apologies if I misinterpreted. > Either the corporation or the government has the power. Obviously. So long as there are anti-monopolistic practices in place, you can choose the corporation you want to interface with easily. Nothing is stopping OP from buying an Android phone, PinePhone, or Purism Librem 5. Governments are not something you can choose, not really, and giving them wholesale control of how corporations can create tech products is granting them an absurd level of power, especially when viable alternatives already exist on the free market.
      - manigandham 6y ago
        Right-to-repair and freedom to install and operate apps without going through a single centrally-controlled app store. Here's a question: Should the wireless networks that your phone requires to function follow net neutrality? Why or why not?
      - paulryanrogers 6y ago
        Apple is approaching a monopsony over phone profits. Given time it could hollow out the competition until there is no practical alternative.
- themacguffinman 6y ago
  It's not an illusion, "just don't buy it" would have prevented all of this but clearly the majority of consumers don't agree with you. Whether or not you think it's a good outcome, consumers have largely chosen to buy or use the stuff that these companies make. Consumers have always come first, and they've already spoken.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    Most consumers do not understand the repercussions nor do they understand the power these companies can weld, so you can't say they have spoken.
    - themacguffinman 6y ago
      And I say they do, they don't just don't value it as highly as you do. It's awfully convenient to blindly assert that people can't be trusted to make their own choices, especially when the proposed solution is take away their choice with government regulation.
      - manigandham 6y ago
        How is their choice being taken away? They would only be gaining more freedom and control over their devices, not losing anything.
        themacguffinman 6y ago
        You know, it is possible that many people like Facebook as it is today considering that it's the most popular social network in the world. I'm also really curious what additional freedom and control over their devices consumers would gain from this antitrust suit given that no one is coerced into using Facebook (or Instagram, WhatsApp etc) and Facebook doesn't even make the devices that run those apps.
        manigandham 6y ago
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  > Consumers should come first before massive corporations. No one can come first. If the terms aren’t mutually agreeable, the other will not participate in a transaction. They don’t have to make things to sell you just like you don’t have to buy from them. It can’t work any other way.
  - throwaway122378 6y ago
    Eventually when an individual’s access to basic human rights are controlled by products made by a single corporation, human rights can come first.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    Yes, consumers and society come first before the corporations that serve them. The corporations only exist to provide, only survive because they do. Free markets and capitalism are great, the best system we have, but there are still guardrails to ensure proper behavior and mitigate harm. This is the problem being discussed. The balance in recent times is completely off with these massive software/internet companies that control so much of our lives with little oversight or accountability. This is what people are arguing against, and I believe you would agree with that.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jariel 6y ago
"draconian government takeover of private corporations" It's not a takeover, it's a break up of business units. When these units operate together, they enable a kind of power otherwise unachievable. Carriers and Mobile device makers play incredibly anti-competitive games all the time in the fight for market share. It's almost surreal. The carriers were pretty bad before smartphones, now it's Android+iOS. Large entities can play all sorts of games like forcing their buyers into exclusivity, requiring them to not carry competitive devices all sorts of things. Microsoft is a classic example with Office: they can integrate their software into their OS in a manner they don't afford to competitors, thereby leveraging their OS monopoly, into other monopolies, which in the long run is bad for business. Platforms have an inherent aspect to them which makes us want to have fewer players, but there still should be more diversity. Remember feature phones? There were plenty of choices. And buying one, did not lock you into the next one. They were not 'platforms' there were 1000 varieties even if there were some 'big players' (ie Nokia). There are actually some consumer benefits when vertical integration is done well, and there is pricing competition - which is why I think that the desktop market is fair. Apple is being a 'good capitalist' on the Mac side - great innovation - and choice. The issue with Facebook is an entirely different issue, I don't even think it's one of 'anti competitive' behaviour - the real issue is a little bit political and it's about the control of information, liability, content filtering, 'truth' etc.. That's where that discussion is focused. If I were 'Capitalist God' I wouldn't break up Apple but I would force them to allow open distribution of apps, while allowing certain measures for security, and of course, transportability of personal data from all apps, all vendors, including Apple. Similarly to Google with their services and Android. With Facebook and content, requiring them to have a completely independant panel for content filtering, with some kind of objective oversight (like a board, but not corporate), where FB gets to set pretty much any policy they want, but that Board/Panel ensures that there's fair and consistent application of those policies to the content. Much like Banks are regulated: they have to have 'firewalls' between their buy and sell side operations to avoid conflict of interest. Finally, some rules about channel ownership and exclusivity - so that Apple/Android can't join in with AT&T/Verizon to basically cut every little other vendor in the world out. Honestly, what I just described just as an example is not deeply interventional, and it would allow those businesses to thrive mostly the same while giving users more choice, privacy, allow business to set their own content guidelines and wash their hands of politicians thinking 'their party is treated unfairly' because it's literally and independent body doing the filtering equitably, and it would let smaller players with actually decent products into the playing field.
bmitc 6y ago
What right does Apple have to make hundreds of billions dollars and to continually abuse their wealth for more power? You act as though Apple is suffering. It's pretty ridiculous. This isn't a draconian government takeover. It's to prevent a company, of all things, becoming more powerful than many governments in the world. Companies have no allegiance to the people and must be checked. > Support free products with your wallet instead That's not how society works. Humans can be abused and manipulated and deceived. I have seen scenarios in which Apple was a customer of another company. Apple was incredibly abusive in many ways, and this was toward a billion dollar plus company. How do you think Apple treats or cares about others, including its own customers?
- jevgeni 6y ago
  THEN DON’T BUY THEIR PRODUCTS. How is this difficult?
- xvector 6y ago
  > What right does Apple have to make hundreds of billions dollars and to continually abuse their wealth for more power? The same right that literally every other private entity has to use their existing wealth and power to gain more? > This isn't a draconian government takeover. Oh, for all intents and purposes it absolutely is - you are giving the government enough power to corral and coerce corporations into doing their bidding. See the ridiculously unethical actions the Trump administration is taking against TikTok after they ruined his Tulsa rally, for example. > Companies have no allegiance to the people and must be checked. And governments do? Governments abuse their power to the maximum extent legally possible all the time. Often, they go further. A cursory reading of United States history will show you that the government is not your friend, it never was, and at every moment possible it is also vying for more power, more control, more surveillance. As long as Apple has not turned into a monopoly there isn’t really a concern here. There is an available market for the products you want. Just because they are not as capable as the ones Apple makes, does not mean you get to coerce Apple into doing your bidding. > > Support free products with your wallet instead > That's not how society works. But it is. There is a flourishing community around libre products. The PinePhone has been a hit. There are large communities around reasonably open Android phones.
arrosenberg 6y ago
Whether or not one has the right to computing freedom is irrelevant. The federal government has the unquestioned authority to set the rules for interstate and international commerce. Breaking them up is not a takeover, by definition, since the government will not end up as the owners of those businesses. It is a restructuring of the market in furtherance of our goal of a free market economy based on fair rules and equality before the law. Further, pushing responsibility onto individual consumers to (somehow) shape the market "with their wallet" is absurd. The highest purpose of a public government is that it can serve to protect the common folk from the abuses of concentrated wealth. Asking regulators to do their job isn't coercive, it's corrective.
SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago
> Why don’t you buy from Purism instead? Because I don't want to spend twice the price of an iphone for something less useful than a flip phone. Freedom preserving devices will always struggle to reach the level of usability of the first iphone.
- xvector 6y ago
  Just because the product you want doesn’t exist, does not mean you get to coerce a company into making it for you. That’s just life. Sometimes you don’t get what you want. I want my phone to be a toaster - I have as much right as you do to make Apple implement what I want - that is to say, no right at all.
  - canofbars 6y ago
    In theory you can do what ever you want if the majority agree. If the majority of people think Apple should be required to respect user freedoms then the government will regulate it and they will have to unless they plan to retaliate in some way which is unlikely if the government and supporter group is big enough. The government is a powerful tool for improving the world when applied correctly.
croes 6y ago
Too late, the free product producers don't stand a chance against the big players. Neither feature wise, performance wise nor the whole ecosystem. And governments forcing rules upon private companies is the base of a free market to prevent oligopolies and give new players a chance.
jumbledfractal 6y ago
No sooner than someone makes a comment about how Apple is screwing things up, someone comes along with the "No one is forcing you to buy an iphone omgerd". This retarded argument is getting old real fast guys.
m463 6y ago
I think the case could be made that purism and similar companies are not playing on a level playing field. Think for example about regulations regarding cellphone number portability. They supported porting a phone number to switch providers fostered competition and lowered cellphone rates. (not perfect, but much better than before) Without that regulation new or smaller companies - even those providing better service or lower rates - could not get customers because of simple shenanigans. (Is Purism really even shipping? I ordered in 2017 and haven't gotten mine)
throwaway122378 6y ago
You have a right to freedom, it doesn’t matter if that’s computing freedom or any other freedoms.
post_below 6y ago
I didn't see anything in the post you're replying to about a draconian government takeover. Government has been intervening (in some industries) in these ways for decades. It works. It's not arbitrary. It's not perfect of course, but it's far better than allowing large companies to get a complete stranglehold. It seems to me that if you want to claim some version of "leave the marketplace alone and it will self correct" then you have to make a pretty strong case. It's not a self evident truth, history tells a different story. Sometimes the marketplace takes care of itself, sure, but there have been lots of examples where it hasn't. In those cases, when government has stepped in, the outcome has generally been positive (if sometimes short lived).

manigandham 6y ago

Consumers should come first before massive corporations. It's why we have regulations in the first place. A world controlled by a few giant conglomerates that own all of your data while providing the illusion of choice of "just don't buy it" is not a good outcome.

xvector 6y ago
> Consumers should come first before massive corporations And yet corporations don’t exist to do your particular bidding and make your desires real. Unless a corporation is doing something illegal, you have no right to tell them what to do and what to make. Apple could, for all intents and purposes, sell useless slabs of aluminum. Your demands to have the government coerce them into creating open APIs would be just as outrageous in this scenario. Finally, giving the government this much power is shortsighted at best. Has the Trump administration not shown you the extremes the government can go to? The TikTok debacle after Trump’s Tulsa rally was ruined by it, calls to repeal Section 230, etc. The government is not your friend and it never will be. There will always come a time when it will abuse its powers to the greatest extent possible. Unless corporations are actively and illegally harming consumers, I don’t see why your proposal is necessary. Consider supporting companies that further your ideals with your own wallet rather than telling other companies what to do.
- zepto 6y ago
  Support such companies or actually work on projects that further them. The idea that the government is going to create an open software utopia is hard to understand.
- hnick 6y ago
  > Unless a corporation is doing something illegal, you have no right to tell them what to do and what to make. OK so we make it illegal. Governments are good at that.
  - zepto 6y ago
    Make what illegal?
    - hnick 6y ago
      In this case, possibly nothing, since antitrust already exists. But I'm not qualified to decide. It is probably best to wait and see how this and the Apple/Epic case play out to see if changes are required. I'm just a bit sick of the argument "It's OK if it is legal" when laws exist to serve us and can be changed. Discussion is the first step. My comment was a response to that. Mandating right to repair and open platforms and formats (such as the circuit diagrams we used to get within our instruction manuals) would be one possibility.
      - zepto 6y ago
        You’d have to make that mandate global, otherwise you’d see countries that do permit trade secrets simply dominate the computing landscape. This is not a realistic option.
        hnick 6y ago
        I don't think it needs to be fully global, just a significant market. EU's mandate on USB-C chargers is one example where you lose a lot by opting out.
        zepto 6y ago
        How is a standardized charging socket in any way comparable to banning trade secrets? This doesn’t make sense to me.
- manigandham 6y ago
  > "Unless a corporation is doing something illegal, you have no right to tell them what to do and what to make" Exactly, legislation and legality is how we tell them what to do. > Your demands to have the government coerce them into creating open APIs would be just as outrageous in this scenario. I didn't demand govt-forced open APIs? Where did you come up with that? However right-to-repair and other freedoms and ownership over the hardware you purchase, especially when it's so critical to your life and centrally controlled, is worthwhile to pursue. > "giving the government this much power is shortsighted at best" Either the corporation or the government has the power. The challenge is finding the right balance, because neither should have complete authority.
  - xvector 6y ago
    > Exactly, legislation and legality is how well tell them what to do. What legislation do you propose? > I didn't demand govt-forced open APIs? Where did you come up with that? OP’s comment, which you seem to be arguing in favor of. Apologies if I misinterpreted. > Either the corporation or the government has the power. Obviously. So long as there are anti-monopolistic practices in place, you can choose the corporation you want to interface with easily. Nothing is stopping OP from buying an Android phone, PinePhone, or Purism Librem 5. Governments are not something you can choose, not really, and giving them wholesale control of how corporations can create tech products is granting them an absurd level of power, especially when viable alternatives already exist on the free market.
    - manigandham 6y ago
      Right-to-repair and freedom to install and operate apps without going through a single centrally-controlled app store. Here's a question: Should the wireless networks that your phone requires to function follow net neutrality? Why or why not?
    - paulryanrogers 6y ago
      Apple is approaching a monopsony over phone profits. Given time it could hollow out the competition until there is no practical alternative.
themacguffinman 6y ago
It's not an illusion, "just don't buy it" would have prevented all of this but clearly the majority of consumers don't agree with you. Whether or not you think it's a good outcome, consumers have largely chosen to buy or use the stuff that these companies make. Consumers have always come first, and they've already spoken.
- bmitc 6y ago
  Most consumers do not understand the repercussions nor do they understand the power these companies can weld, so you can't say they have spoken.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    And I say they do, they don't just don't value it as highly as you do. It's awfully convenient to blindly assert that people can't be trusted to make their own choices, especially when the proposed solution is take away their choice with government regulation.
    - manigandham 6y ago
      How is their choice being taken away? They would only be gaining more freedom and control over their devices, not losing anything.
      - themacguffinman 6y ago
        You know, it is possible that many people like Facebook as it is today considering that it's the most popular social network in the world. I'm also really curious what additional freedom and control over their devices consumers would gain from this antitrust suit given that no one is coerced into using Facebook (or Instagram, WhatsApp etc) and Facebook doesn't even make the devices that run those apps.
        manigandham 6y ago
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
> Consumers should come first before massive corporations. No one can come first. If the terms aren’t mutually agreeable, the other will not participate in a transaction. They don’t have to make things to sell you just like you don’t have to buy from them. It can’t work any other way.
- throwaway122378 6y ago
  Eventually when an individual’s access to basic human rights are controlled by products made by a single corporation, human rights can come first.
- manigandham 6y ago
  Yes, consumers and society come first before the corporations that serve them. The corporations only exist to provide, only survive because they do. Free markets and capitalism are great, the best system we have, but there are still guardrails to ensure proper behavior and mitigate harm. This is the problem being discussed. The balance in recent times is completely off with these massive software/internet companies that control so much of our lives with little oversight or accountability. This is what people are arguing against, and I believe you would agree with that.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jariel 6y ago

"draconian government takeover of private corporations" It's not a takeover, it's a break up of business units. When these units operate together, they enable a kind of power otherwise unachievable. Carriers and Mobile device makers play incredibly anti-competitive games all the time in the fight for market share. It's almost surreal. The carriers were pretty bad before smartphones, now it's Android+iOS. Large entities can play all sorts of games like forcing their buyers into exclusivity, requiring them to not carry competitive devices all sorts of things. Microsoft is a classic example with Office: they can integrate their software into their OS in a manner they don't afford to competitors, thereby leveraging their OS monopoly, into other monopolies, which in the long run is bad for business. Platforms have an inherent aspect to them which makes us want to have fewer players, but there still should be more diversity. Remember feature phones? There were plenty of choices. And buying one, did not lock you into the next one. They were not 'platforms' there were 1000 varieties even if there were some 'big players' (ie Nokia). There are actually some consumer benefits when vertical integration is done well, and there is pricing competition - which is why I think that the desktop market is fair. Apple is being a 'good capitalist' on the Mac side - great innovation - and choice. The issue with Facebook is an entirely different issue, I don't even think it's one of 'anti competitive' behaviour - the real issue is a little bit political and it's about the control of information, liability, content filtering, 'truth' etc.. That's where that discussion is focused. If I were 'Capitalist God' I wouldn't break up Apple but I would force them to allow open distribution of apps, while allowing certain measures for security, and of course, transportability of personal data from all apps, all vendors, including Apple. Similarly to Google with their services and Android. With Facebook and content, requiring them to have a completely independant panel for content filtering, with some kind of objective oversight (like a board, but not corporate), where FB gets to set pretty much any policy they want, but that Board/Panel ensures that there's fair and consistent application of those policies to the content. Much like Banks are regulated: they have to have 'firewalls' between their buy and sell side operations to avoid conflict of interest. Finally, some rules about channel ownership and exclusivity - so that Apple/Android can't join in with AT&T/Verizon to basically cut every little other vendor in the world out. Honestly, what I just described just as an example is not deeply interventional, and it would allow those businesses to thrive mostly the same while giving users more choice, privacy, allow business to set their own content guidelines and wash their hands of politicians thinking 'their party is treated unfairly' because it's literally and independent body doing the filtering equitably, and it would let smaller players with actually decent products into the playing field.

bmitc 6y ago

What right does Apple have to make hundreds of billions dollars and to continually abuse their wealth for more power? You act as though Apple is suffering. It's pretty ridiculous. This isn't a draconian government takeover. It's to prevent a company, of all things, becoming more powerful than many governments in the world. Companies have no allegiance to the people and must be checked. > Support free products with your wallet instead That's not how society works. Humans can be abused and manipulated and deceived. I have seen scenarios in which Apple was a customer of another company. Apple was incredibly abusive in many ways, and this was toward a billion dollar plus company. How do you think Apple treats or cares about others, including its own customers?

jevgeni 6y ago
THEN DON’T BUY THEIR PRODUCTS. How is this difficult?
xvector 6y ago
> What right does Apple have to make hundreds of billions dollars and to continually abuse their wealth for more power? The same right that literally every other private entity has to use their existing wealth and power to gain more? > This isn't a draconian government takeover. Oh, for all intents and purposes it absolutely is - you are giving the government enough power to corral and coerce corporations into doing their bidding. See the ridiculously unethical actions the Trump administration is taking against TikTok after they ruined his Tulsa rally, for example. > Companies have no allegiance to the people and must be checked. And governments do? Governments abuse their power to the maximum extent legally possible all the time. Often, they go further. A cursory reading of United States history will show you that the government is not your friend, it never was, and at every moment possible it is also vying for more power, more control, more surveillance. As long as Apple has not turned into a monopoly there isn’t really a concern here. There is an available market for the products you want. Just because they are not as capable as the ones Apple makes, does not mean you get to coerce Apple into doing your bidding. > > Support free products with your wallet instead > That's not how society works. But it is. There is a flourishing community around libre products. The PinePhone has been a hit. There are large communities around reasonably open Android phones.

arrosenberg 6y ago

Whether or not one has the right to computing freedom is irrelevant. The federal government has the unquestioned authority to set the rules for interstate and international commerce. Breaking them up is not a takeover, by definition, since the government will not end up as the owners of those businesses. It is a restructuring of the market in furtherance of our goal of a free market economy based on fair rules and equality before the law. Further, pushing responsibility onto individual consumers to (somehow) shape the market "with their wallet" is absurd. The highest purpose of a public government is that it can serve to protect the common folk from the abuses of concentrated wealth. Asking regulators to do their job isn't coercive, it's corrective.

SulfurHexaFluri 6y ago

> Why don’t you buy from Purism instead? Because I don't want to spend twice the price of an iphone for something less useful than a flip phone. Freedom preserving devices will always struggle to reach the level of usability of the first iphone.

xvector 6y ago
Just because the product you want doesn’t exist, does not mean you get to coerce a company into making it for you. That’s just life. Sometimes you don’t get what you want. I want my phone to be a toaster - I have as much right as you do to make Apple implement what I want - that is to say, no right at all.
- canofbars 6y ago
  In theory you can do what ever you want if the majority agree. If the majority of people think Apple should be required to respect user freedoms then the government will regulate it and they will have to unless they plan to retaliate in some way which is unlikely if the government and supporter group is big enough. The government is a powerful tool for improving the world when applied correctly.

croes 6y ago

Too late, the free product producers don't stand a chance against the big players. Neither feature wise, performance wise nor the whole ecosystem. And governments forcing rules upon private companies is the base of a free market to prevent oligopolies and give new players a chance.

jumbledfractal 6y ago

No sooner than someone makes a comment about how Apple is screwing things up, someone comes along with the "No one is forcing you to buy an iphone omgerd". This retarded argument is getting old real fast guys.

m463 6y ago

I think the case could be made that purism and similar companies are not playing on a level playing field. Think for example about regulations regarding cellphone number portability. They supported porting a phone number to switch providers fostered competition and lowered cellphone rates. (not perfect, but much better than before) Without that regulation new or smaller companies - even those providing better service or lower rates - could not get customers because of simple shenanigans. (Is Purism really even shipping? I ordered in 2017 and haven't gotten mine)

throwaway122378 6y ago

You have a right to freedom, it doesn’t matter if that’s computing freedom or any other freedoms.

post_below 6y ago

I didn't see anything in the post you're replying to about a draconian government takeover. Government has been intervening (in some industries) in these ways for decades. It works. It's not arbitrary. It's not perfect of course, but it's far better than allowing large companies to get a complete stranglehold. It seems to me that if you want to claim some version of "leave the marketplace alone and it will self correct" then you have to make a pretty strong case. It's not a self evident truth, history tells a different story. Sometimes the marketplace takes care of itself, sure, but there have been lots of examples where it hasn't. In those cases, when government has stepped in, the outcome has generally been positive (if sometimes short lived).