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> One of the most pernicious effects of tech advances in recent decades has been the rise of surveillance state and surveillance capitalism, and the loss of pri
by handrous 5y ago
> One of the most pernicious effects of tech advances in recent decades has been the rise of surveillance state and surveillance capitalism, and the loss of privacy that comes with that.
Exactly this! Two out of five of FAANG derive effectively all their revenue from global-scale dragnet spying, and all five of them use that kind of data collection as a highly effective moat against competition.
It should simply be outlawed. That should be step #1 for breaking the tech monopolies.
- ethbr0 5y agoI'd say 3/5 (+Amazon). And arguably 5/5 if you include product mining within their ecosystems (+Apple +Netflix).
- handrous 5y agoYeah, that'd be the "moat" I mentioned, but maybe I didn't sufficiently emphasize what a huge advantage that is for them. Losing the ability to vacuum up and hoard data just wouldn't be quite as big a shock directly to the bottom line, in very short order, for the rest of FAANG (+M) as it would be for F and G, in particular. It'd hurt the others plenty, however.