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> [explain] to me, in plain English, why we ought to abolish the very important freedom of deciding for themselves who and how private entities do business with

> [explain] to me, in plain English, why we ought to abolish the very important freedom of deciding for themselves who and how private entities do business with The explanation for this is the same explanation for why eminent domain exists. If you own a piece of land that will be in the middle of a busy road, in the US you likely can't construct that part of the road yourself and charge people or arbitrarily restrict people from using it - you likely will have to sell it to the US government. I'm not trying to argue about if this is the ideal way to do things, but the more society views tech companies owning platforms like landowners owning parts of roads, the more government control.

Barrin92 5y ago
Eminent domain exists because land use is exclusionary. Land owners have the ability to hamper development by exercising coercive power. If AT&T or your phone provider start to cancel you, you have a pretty good analogy. Services and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. Mailchimp however does not sit on mail-land. There is nothing that prevents dozens of mailchimp competitors to exist, offering whatever content policies people prefer. Google does not sit on search-land and somehow excludes anyone from building a search engine. Tech companies, in almost all cases, derive their value from the intellectual property that they built, not some sort of analog to land they stumbled upon. If that was the case we would be on MySpace.
- hobs 5y ago
  I dont know if your defense applies as much to Google search as it does sit on an existing search-land, if you scrape someone's website like google does you'll find different policies apply - on this website alone people link sites using referral tricks to accomplish the same thing, scraping as if we were googlebot.
- tangjurine 5y ago
  > [Owners of services] and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. I agree. But fungibility isn't a binary thing, it's a spectrum. And how society chooses to regulate goods and services also varies between extremes. > Google does not sit on search-land and somehow excludes anyone from building a search engine. Owning a piece of land that will be in the middle of the road doesn't mean the government can't build a different road right? Both google and the landowner just make it harder. > Tech companies, in almost all cases, derive their value from the intellectual property that they built, not some sort of analog to land they stumbled upon. If that was the case we would be on MySpace. Couldn't your arguments could be applied just as well against standard eminent domain? I feel like you are saying something analogous to: Most businesses derive their value from the goods and services they developed, not some sort of logo or piece of land they own. That's why the government shouldn't be able to take anyone's land.

Barrin92 5y ago

Eminent domain exists because land use is exclusionary. Land owners have the ability to hamper development by exercising coercive power. If AT&T or your phone provider start to cancel you, you have a pretty good analogy. Services and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. Mailchimp however does not sit on mail-land. There is nothing that prevents dozens of mailchimp competitors to exist, offering whatever content policies people prefer. Google does not sit on search-land and somehow excludes anyone from building a search engine. Tech companies, in almost all cases, derive their value from the intellectual property that they built, not some sort of analog to land they stumbled upon. If that was the case we would be on MySpace.

hobs 5y ago
I dont know if your defense applies as much to Google search as it does sit on an existing search-land, if you scrape someone's website like google does you'll find different policies apply - on this website alone people link sites using referral tricks to accomplish the same thing, scraping as if we were googlebot.
tangjurine 5y ago
> [Owners of services] and products on the internet however are not landowners. The reason eminent domain exists is because land is not fungible. I agree. But fungibility isn't a binary thing, it's a spectrum. And how society chooses to regulate goods and services also varies between extremes. > Google does not sit on search-land and somehow excludes anyone from building a search engine. Owning a piece of land that will be in the middle of the road doesn't mean the government can't build a different road right? Both google and the landowner just make it harder. > Tech companies, in almost all cases, derive their value from the intellectual property that they built, not some sort of analog to land they stumbled upon. If that was the case we would be on MySpace. Couldn't your arguments could be applied just as well against standard eminent domain? I feel like you are saying something analogous to: Most businesses derive their value from the goods and services they developed, not some sort of logo or piece of land they own. That's why the government shouldn't be able to take anyone's land.