6 ms·

America’s New Corporate Tyranny

37 points by toaway 6y ago

2Gkashmiri 6y ago
In india, its well known the reliance and adani group pretty much run the country as its own. Everyone knows this but cant do anything because the "selected" leaders do everything in their power to keep their overlords' control. Like literally the entire India is in a recession, every Indian has lost savings and investments are down and employment is shot to shit but these two people have earned billions.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  How was Jio service in J and K before 5 August?
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    oh. it was fine actually. both airtel and jio had 4G in the valley since 2016-17 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/airtel-launches-4g-services-in-22-towns-of-kashmir/57955941 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/airtel-lau... i would say a lot of penetration owing to cheap mobiles and almost free 4G/
- hiyer 6y ago
  > investments are down Where have you been investing? India's stock market is at all time highs and up almost 80% since the Covid-fueled crash in March. Gold - India's favourite investment vehicle - was also at all time high levels a few months back before going down a few notches.
  - 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
    oh. not that kind. gold and real estate is what people keep their money in. but its not like you can can sell off a 1 cr property to pay off bills. stocks, eh not so much. financial illiteracy coupled with bad history of brokers chasing commissions leading to bad outcomes have systematically made people wary. its not like people altogether dont invest. they do but they rather buy a house than shares
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
With Facebook and Twitter USA could have ruled the world. But the magic power was spent on internal showdowns. Good. Very good. Well done, folks.
- Yetanfou 6y ago
  Of course they couldn't have "ruled the world" with those two, just take a look at China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan for some examples of countries which do not allow these two to "rule them".
SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
> Traditionally two kinds of private industries have been deemed to be “clothed in the public interest.” One consists of “common carriers,” the other “public accommodations.” A common carrier like a railroad cannot refuse service to passengers or cargo, with narrow exceptions. And a public accommodation like a hotel or a restaurant or a grocery store cannot reject paying customers, with narrow exceptions. Written in regards to SCOTUS precedent of instructions for private companies, it’s hard to see how the tech monopolies are not “common carrier” if not also a “public accommodation” depending on how you want to look at it. > The result is our present situation, in which some of the indispensable industries in the U.S. economy, social life, the media and politics are allowed to make their own rules, in the form of ever-changing “terms of service” that nobody reads; Either way... it seems like this can (should) not continue this way. Like everything hyper-partisan now; I expect we only see a reaction when the pendulum swings and for a brief moment “both sides” can agree something is wrong, until “the other side” switches there position and this is OK now.
- dantheman 6y ago
  These are neither of these things, if anything they're publishers - like booksellers or newspapers; on the web anyone can be a publisher in minutes at almost zero cost. common carriers and public accommodations have to do with limited access in the physical world - none of those constrains apply to the digital one.
  - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
    > on the web anyone can be a publisher in minutes at almost zero cost. But in case of common carriers, everyone can also carry their stuff from one location to another.
  - howlgarnish 6y ago
    The top HN story earlier today was a tale of how Google can effectively cripple a company that doesn't even use any of its services: https://gomox.medium.com/google-safe-browsing-can-kill-your-startup-7d73c474b98d https://gomox.medium.com/google-safe-browsing-can-kill-your-...
vsskanth 6y ago
IMO tech overplayed their hand. If there's one thing lawmakers don't like, it is being shown their power is limited. This time it was the right, but the left knows it can happen to them next. I feel congress has realized tech has too much power now. The ball has started rolling. Expect heavy anti-trust enforcement, regulations and forced interoperability to erode their power.
- giancarlostoro 6y ago
  Today its the voice of those you hate, tomorrow it will be your voice. Fascism is bad period and it exists in either direction. We have talked about why big tech censoring is bad on HN for years now the rest of the world is catching up.
- option 6y ago
  I think this (anti-trust enforcement) is much overdue. Social networks need to be regulated in regards to free speech, children and youth usage and advertising, etc., etc.
  - still_grokking 6y ago
    The source of initiative needs to be drained. Regulation of internet advertising is the most important area where regulation is long overdue. Because it's in the end of the day ad-tech's money that drives that whole evil machinery. Not only that ad-tech created a surveillance infrastructure Big Brother would envy, also ad-tech wants to engage people with their data-acquisition tools as much as possible. All of the widely used free online services build by "big tech" aren't there to serve the users in the first place. They're there to harvest data from the users. Data that can be than used to manipulate the users. This data is than sold (directly, or indirectly in the form "manipulation as a service") to the actual paying customers of those companies. And those paying customers create the initiative for that whole madness. As long as it stays legal to create, run and / or use "large scale people manipulation tools" nothing will substantially change. But here lies the problem: Politicians are actually interested in "people manipulation machines". Only that they will make sure they are the ones that control this machine. What we see here now is just the battle over control. Not a battle against the root cause.
apple_innocent 6y ago
"In the case of Munn v. Illinois in 1876, the Supreme Court upheld the right of government to regulate industries that affect the common good or public interest (in this case, private grain storage facilities that all local farmers depended upon). Drawing on centuries of British common law precedents that justified regulations of privately owned ferries, wharves, and the like, the majority of the court declared that "when private property is devoted to a public use, it is subject to public regulation."" Is the "private property devoted to public use" a million-page website comprised of 100% UGC. Is it the telco infrastructure that provides the backbone of the internet. Do we the public really need the help of middlemen or do we only need the backbone infrastructure. Although 100% UGC, some consider the million-page websites "private". Well, now we have politicians and other characters, who are using these million-page private website middlemen as agents in their efforts to persuade voters to vote them in, re-elect them, raid a capitol, and so on. The middlemen are now caught in the middle of a political dogfight. Perhaps that is the price of being a middleman.
aaron-santos 6y ago
Sounds like real honest to goodness capitalism to me. If there is demand for such services, surely there is a market to be made. Regulating the social media industry will warp the market with perverse incentives. If anything the government needs to meddle less.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  What if there's no demand for such services, but their introduction would make the world a better place?

37 points by toaway 6y ago

In india, its well known the reliance and adani group pretty much run the country as its own. Everyone knows this but cant do anything because the "selected" leaders do everything in their power to keep their overlords' control. Like literally the entire India is in a recession, every Indian has lost savings and investments are down and employment is shot to shit but these two people have earned billions.

selimthegrim 6y ago
How was Jio service in J and K before 5 August?
- 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  oh. it was fine actually. both airtel and jio had 4G in the valley since 2016-17 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/airtel-launches-4g-services-in-22-towns-of-kashmir/57955941 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/airtel-lau... i would say a lot of penetration owing to cheap mobiles and almost free 4G/
hiyer 6y ago
> investments are down Where have you been investing? India's stock market is at all time highs and up almost 80% since the Covid-fueled crash in March. Gold - India's favourite investment vehicle - was also at all time high levels a few months back before going down a few notches.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  oh. not that kind. gold and real estate is what people keep their money in. but its not like you can can sell off a 1 cr property to pay off bills. stocks, eh not so much. financial illiteracy coupled with bad history of brokers chasing commissions leading to bad outcomes have systematically made people wary. its not like people altogether dont invest. they do but they rather buy a house than shares

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago

With Facebook and Twitter USA could have ruled the world. But the magic power was spent on internal showdowns. Good. Very good. Well done, folks.

Yetanfou 6y ago
Of course they couldn't have "ruled the world" with those two, just take a look at China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan for some examples of countries which do not allow these two to "rule them".

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

> Traditionally two kinds of private industries have been deemed to be “clothed in the public interest.” One consists of “common carriers,” the other “public accommodations.” A common carrier like a railroad cannot refuse service to passengers or cargo, with narrow exceptions. And a public accommodation like a hotel or a restaurant or a grocery store cannot reject paying customers, with narrow exceptions. Written in regards to SCOTUS precedent of instructions for private companies, it’s hard to see how the tech monopolies are not “common carrier” if not also a “public accommodation” depending on how you want to look at it. > The result is our present situation, in which some of the indispensable industries in the U.S. economy, social life, the media and politics are allowed to make their own rules, in the form of ever-changing “terms of service” that nobody reads; Either way... it seems like this can (should) not continue this way. Like everything hyper-partisan now; I expect we only see a reaction when the pendulum swings and for a brief moment “both sides” can agree something is wrong, until “the other side” switches there position and this is OK now.

dantheman 6y ago
These are neither of these things, if anything they're publishers - like booksellers or newspapers; on the web anyone can be a publisher in minutes at almost zero cost. common carriers and public accommodations have to do with limited access in the physical world - none of those constrains apply to the digital one.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  > on the web anyone can be a publisher in minutes at almost zero cost. But in case of common carriers, everyone can also carry their stuff from one location to another.
- howlgarnish 6y ago
  The top HN story earlier today was a tale of how Google can effectively cripple a company that doesn't even use any of its services: https://gomox.medium.com/google-safe-browsing-can-kill-your-startup-7d73c474b98d https://gomox.medium.com/google-safe-browsing-can-kill-your-...

vsskanth 6y ago

IMO tech overplayed their hand. If there's one thing lawmakers don't like, it is being shown their power is limited. This time it was the right, but the left knows it can happen to them next. I feel congress has realized tech has too much power now. The ball has started rolling. Expect heavy anti-trust enforcement, regulations and forced interoperability to erode their power.

giancarlostoro 6y ago
Today its the voice of those you hate, tomorrow it will be your voice. Fascism is bad period and it exists in either direction. We have talked about why big tech censoring is bad on HN for years now the rest of the world is catching up.
option 6y ago
I think this (anti-trust enforcement) is much overdue. Social networks need to be regulated in regards to free speech, children and youth usage and advertising, etc., etc.
- still_grokking 6y ago
  The source of initiative needs to be drained. Regulation of internet advertising is the most important area where regulation is long overdue. Because it's in the end of the day ad-tech's money that drives that whole evil machinery. Not only that ad-tech created a surveillance infrastructure Big Brother would envy, also ad-tech wants to engage people with their data-acquisition tools as much as possible. All of the widely used free online services build by "big tech" aren't there to serve the users in the first place. They're there to harvest data from the users. Data that can be than used to manipulate the users. This data is than sold (directly, or indirectly in the form "manipulation as a service") to the actual paying customers of those companies. And those paying customers create the initiative for that whole madness. As long as it stays legal to create, run and / or use "large scale people manipulation tools" nothing will substantially change. But here lies the problem: Politicians are actually interested in "people manipulation machines". Only that they will make sure they are the ones that control this machine. What we see here now is just the battle over control. Not a battle against the root cause.

apple_innocent 6y ago

"In the case of Munn v. Illinois in 1876, the Supreme Court upheld the right of government to regulate industries that affect the common good or public interest (in this case, private grain storage facilities that all local farmers depended upon). Drawing on centuries of British common law precedents that justified regulations of privately owned ferries, wharves, and the like, the majority of the court declared that "when private property is devoted to a public use, it is subject to public regulation."" Is the "private property devoted to public use" a million-page website comprised of 100% UGC. Is it the telco infrastructure that provides the backbone of the internet. Do we the public really need the help of middlemen or do we only need the backbone infrastructure. Although 100% UGC, some consider the million-page websites "private". Well, now we have politicians and other characters, who are using these million-page private website middlemen as agents in their efforts to persuade voters to vote them in, re-elect them, raid a capitol, and so on. The middlemen are now caught in the middle of a political dogfight. Perhaps that is the price of being a middleman.

aaron-santos 6y ago

Sounds like real honest to goodness capitalism to me. If there is demand for such services, surely there is a market to be made. Regulating the social media industry will warp the market with perverse incentives. If anything the government needs to meddle less.

AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
What if there's no demand for such services, but their introduction would make the world a better place?