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>Hell no it's not ending, why would you even think that? Because a few governments only started cautiously talking about breaking apart giants? So what? As if c

>Hell no it's not ending, why would you even think that? Because a few governments only started cautiously talking about breaking apart giants? So what? As if corporate lawyers don't find holes in any new regulation literally the same week. Governments take years to formulate a legislation, and your average corporate legal team defeats it in days. In some way wish it is ending. As human society, we don't need any more mega big company. Everything ought to kept local and small and diverse, so there is no central control, it is only resilient way to thrive for tech and innovation.

pdimitar 5y ago
I wish that too, believe me, but the interests of the corps is to pull us towards a cyberpunk future when they can stop your (artificial and cloud-connected) liver from working if you post something vaguely anti-establishment somewhere. They have been very trigger happy lately.
- snek_case 5y ago
  This is why we need to protect free speech. IMO the far left challenging free speech is a bit of a trojan horse. Yes, you can use censorship to suppress distasteful ideas, but it's also obvious that if you give corporations the power to censor whatever they want, they will also use it to censor anything you say to criticize them. Look at what the Chinese government is doing, they can basically erase anything that makes China look bad from the internet in less than 30 minutes. Is that what we want here too? Free speech is not a "far right" idea. It's the basis of democracy.
  - clairity 5y ago
    it's a truism that free speech undergirds democracy, but you get to it via a false dichotomy (left vs right) handed down to us by surrogates of power (political scientists, in this case) to distract and divide the populace. the only useful (but not wholly accurate) dichotomy regarding political economies is the one between the powerful and the powerless. this is the timeless and unending conflict, not left-right, liberal-conservative, or any of that other bullshit. free speech is one tool of the powerless populace to keep the powerful in check.
    - 0KnowledgeGoof 5y ago
      Absolutely agree. There are powerful politicians promising all sort of ideologies. There are weak politicians promising all sorts of ideologies. In the end the powerful remain powerful, and the weak remain weak. IMO much of democracy is a smokescreen. With apologies to Marx, the opiate of the masses is democracy.
      - clairity 5y ago
        perhaps democracy gives the people an (outsized) illusion of control, but i'd disagree that democracy itself is the opiate. democracy is more open to a diversity of rhetoric, which can facilitate ideologically-driven diversions used by the powerful to corral the powerless.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Turning important society-wide (and hell, world-wide even) problems into yet another "us vs. them" diatribe seriously does not help anyone and it's just a distraction. I don't care if I group up with "lefties" or "righties" to make important societal changes happen. If they are on board with the vision, let them believe in Santa if they need that to sleep better.
  - sobkas 5y ago
    > IMO the far left challenging free speech is a bit of a trojan horse. Yes, you can use censorship to suppress distasteful ideas, Yeah, and rightwing is a bunch of saints that never deplatformed anyone?
cute_boi 5y ago
Hmm, Many corps, government, humans etc. aim to become bigger and global. So, there is no easy way to keep them local, small and diverse. And once they grow big most of them turns blind eye on small local companies just like how amazon is doing now. This is a problem that will prevail forever and can't be solved easily. We can experience today too in china the government do crackdown but most of us hate it right? If they don't regulate they grow beyond party. (Taking example of china because I don't know other country which does crackdown on big giants like this)
- nicoburns 5y ago
  Not easily, I agree, but it could be done. For example, there could be higher taxation rates for larger companies.
  - ixnus 5y ago
    I wonder how this would work, considering higher tax rates hurt the profitability of a company.
    - 0KnowledgeGoof 5y ago
      Sure, but do we want to optimize for creating trillion-dollar companies? They can hardly even find ways to spend their fortunes; we could tax quite a bit from them before anyone except accountants notices. And that money could be used for social good.
  - adventured 5y ago
    The interesting thing about big tech in that regard, is a 50% income tax rate wouldn't be enough to stop them. Big tech piles up large amounts of cash as it is and they have no idea what to do with it (other than shovel it back to shareholders). They have far beyond the margins they need to keep expanding, even with a 50% income tax. So the first thing it would do is cut into shareholder returns (less cash), their multiples would contract as investors would find them less appealing. Half of America is invested in big tech (in one form or another), and those are by far the most active voters. If they see their portfolios tank due to a huge hike in corporate income taxes, they'll promptly punish the politician/s that are responsible for it. Big tech would keep growing at 50%, so what's the alternative? 70%-80%? It's unlikely to ever have the support required to get it passed, it just plain sounds very egregious as a policy. At very high levels it comes across as: we like to punish success; and that's how it would be run against politically by the other side (Republicans).
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
But what if one of those local, small, and diverse communities doesn't conform to the globally approved ideology? Diversity in modern culture means physical window dressing. True diversity of communities might lead to people with no-no values living with others with the same no-no values. How can that be allowed?
dash2 5y ago
Apple sells billions of iPhones, all with the same hardware and OS. As a result it can afford to spend a lot of money on design. You would not enjoy an iPhone made by your local electrician.
- Causality1 5y ago
  Not local, but small and competitive was nice. Electronics were so much more fun twenty years ago. Nowadays a company is a bold risk-taker if their glass sandwich has an extra button on top.
  - dgemm 5y ago
    Consumer stuff sure, but we didn't have today's proliferation of hobbyist platforms back then either. The fun things are still out there, they are just different.
- EB66 5y ago
  Have you tried the Framework Laptop? It's a great example of how small start-ups can build better devices than the giants. Difficult, yes -- impossible, no.
  - dash2 5y ago
    It's a niche product for hardware hackers. (That's why its sales are so low.)
    - EB66 5y ago
      Whether it's a niche product or not is beside the point. The point is that a small entity can build a device that is arguably better designed, better reviewed, affordable and readily available for purchase.
      - dash2 5y ago
        Me, an economist: if it's better, why does nobody buy it?

pdimitar 5y ago

I wish that too, believe me, but the interests of the corps is to pull us towards a cyberpunk future when they can stop your (artificial and cloud-connected) liver from working if you post something vaguely anti-establishment somewhere. They have been very trigger happy lately.

snek_case 5y ago
This is why we need to protect free speech. IMO the far left challenging free speech is a bit of a trojan horse. Yes, you can use censorship to suppress distasteful ideas, but it's also obvious that if you give corporations the power to censor whatever they want, they will also use it to censor anything you say to criticize them. Look at what the Chinese government is doing, they can basically erase anything that makes China look bad from the internet in less than 30 minutes. Is that what we want here too? Free speech is not a "far right" idea. It's the basis of democracy.
- clairity 5y ago
  it's a truism that free speech undergirds democracy, but you get to it via a false dichotomy (left vs right) handed down to us by surrogates of power (political scientists, in this case) to distract and divide the populace. the only useful (but not wholly accurate) dichotomy regarding political economies is the one between the powerful and the powerless. this is the timeless and unending conflict, not left-right, liberal-conservative, or any of that other bullshit. free speech is one tool of the powerless populace to keep the powerful in check.
  - 0KnowledgeGoof 5y ago
    Absolutely agree. There are powerful politicians promising all sort of ideologies. There are weak politicians promising all sorts of ideologies. In the end the powerful remain powerful, and the weak remain weak. IMO much of democracy is a smokescreen. With apologies to Marx, the opiate of the masses is democracy.
    - clairity 5y ago
      perhaps democracy gives the people an (outsized) illusion of control, but i'd disagree that democracy itself is the opiate. democracy is more open to a diversity of rhetoric, which can facilitate ideologically-driven diversions used by the powerful to corral the powerless.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Turning important society-wide (and hell, world-wide even) problems into yet another "us vs. them" diatribe seriously does not help anyone and it's just a distraction. I don't care if I group up with "lefties" or "righties" to make important societal changes happen. If they are on board with the vision, let them believe in Santa if they need that to sleep better.
- sobkas 5y ago
  > IMO the far left challenging free speech is a bit of a trojan horse. Yes, you can use censorship to suppress distasteful ideas, Yeah, and rightwing is a bunch of saints that never deplatformed anyone?

cute_boi 5y ago

Hmm, Many corps, government, humans etc. aim to become bigger and global. So, there is no easy way to keep them local, small and diverse. And once they grow big most of them turns blind eye on small local companies just like how amazon is doing now. This is a problem that will prevail forever and can't be solved easily. We can experience today too in china the government do crackdown but most of us hate it right? If they don't regulate they grow beyond party. (Taking example of china because I don't know other country which does crackdown on big giants like this)

nicoburns 5y ago
Not easily, I agree, but it could be done. For example, there could be higher taxation rates for larger companies.
- ixnus 5y ago
  I wonder how this would work, considering higher tax rates hurt the profitability of a company.
  - 0KnowledgeGoof 5y ago
    Sure, but do we want to optimize for creating trillion-dollar companies? They can hardly even find ways to spend their fortunes; we could tax quite a bit from them before anyone except accountants notices. And that money could be used for social good.
- adventured 5y ago
  The interesting thing about big tech in that regard, is a 50% income tax rate wouldn't be enough to stop them. Big tech piles up large amounts of cash as it is and they have no idea what to do with it (other than shovel it back to shareholders). They have far beyond the margins they need to keep expanding, even with a 50% income tax. So the first thing it would do is cut into shareholder returns (less cash), their multiples would contract as investors would find them less appealing. Half of America is invested in big tech (in one form or another), and those are by far the most active voters. If they see their portfolios tank due to a huge hike in corporate income taxes, they'll promptly punish the politician/s that are responsible for it. Big tech would keep growing at 50%, so what's the alternative? 70%-80%? It's unlikely to ever have the support required to get it passed, it just plain sounds very egregious as a policy. At very high levels it comes across as: we like to punish success; and that's how it would be run against politically by the other side (Republicans).

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

But what if one of those local, small, and diverse communities doesn't conform to the globally approved ideology? Diversity in modern culture means physical window dressing. True diversity of communities might lead to people with no-no values living with others with the same no-no values. How can that be allowed?

dash2 5y ago

Apple sells billions of iPhones, all with the same hardware and OS. As a result it can afford to spend a lot of money on design. You would not enjoy an iPhone made by your local electrician.

Causality1 5y ago
Not local, but small and competitive was nice. Electronics were so much more fun twenty years ago. Nowadays a company is a bold risk-taker if their glass sandwich has an extra button on top.
- dgemm 5y ago
  Consumer stuff sure, but we didn't have today's proliferation of hobbyist platforms back then either. The fun things are still out there, they are just different.
EB66 5y ago
Have you tried the Framework Laptop? It's a great example of how small start-ups can build better devices than the giants. Difficult, yes -- impossible, no.
- dash2 5y ago
  It's a niche product for hardware hackers. (That's why its sales are so low.)
  - EB66 5y ago
    Whether it's a niche product or not is beside the point. The point is that a small entity can build a device that is arguably better designed, better reviewed, affordable and readily available for purchase.
    - dash2 5y ago
      Me, an economist: if it's better, why does nobody buy it?