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> First, haven't we learned already that any government regulation always ends up favoring the status quo? That premise is wrong. Government regulation has lat

> First, haven't we learned already that any government regulation always ends up favoring the status quo? That premise is wrong. Government regulation has lately been mostly done on account of corporations which want to protect their monopolies and strengthen their position, but that doesn't make it inherently so.

rglullis 5y ago
> lately If by lately, you mean "basically always", then I'd agree. I'd be hard pressed to think of any regulation that was successfully enacted and led to actual distress and disruption in the big corporations. > that doesn't make it inherently so Why would it be different this time? Can you think of any kind of policy that has any slim chance of passing and would get us rid of Big Tech? And by "Big Tech", I mean all of it, not just the ones that you don't like.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Just reign it in. And just enforcing anticompetitive regulations help. The GDPR helps. The EU regulations requiring federated messaging help. The laws in favor net neutrality help.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    > I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Yes, I do. The FSF does. The IndieWeb does. > Just reign it in. To think that this is possible without any type of damaging side-effect is a huge delusion. Trusting more power to Big Government to try to control Big Tech is like saying "Look at all the destruction that Godzilla is making, we need to unleash King Kong to fight it". The only stable solution to avoid global systemic catastrophe is by removing centralized power and redistributing it to local communities. GDPR does not help, quite the opposite. It gave people some illusion of control but did nothing but scare smaller players into compliance. Messaging standardization might actually turn out to be good, but only because none of the dominant companies are from Europe.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      > The FSF does. The IndieWeb does. What are their options for search? I know DDG is an option, but even it seems to rely on Big Tech. > Trusting more power to Big Government to try to control Big Tech But it's definitely worked in the past. Government successfully reigned in a ton of industry. Sure, it hasn't reigned in Big Tech, but so much other stuff.
      - rglullis 5y ago
        Did it really? To me it looks like the Auto Industry is still pretty much doing whatever they want, Big Oil continues to expand on their emissions, Big Pharma profited quite a bit even despite being partly responsible for an opioid crisis...
        411111111111111 5y ago
        They're not doing whatever they want, because then they'd utilize slave labor with no safety regards (and some actually continue to do so too, just not in the developed world - which just proves the point that they'd jump on it as soon as could) They're however doing whatever they can get away with, which is arguably way too much
        rglullis 5y ago
        You are still arguing a straw man. The point is not about what the regulation stopped them from doing locally, the point is that no regulation that came into existence ever broke the power structure. It was never a threat to the ones connected to the elites. Any regulation that does get approve ends up weaponized in favor of the big companies. To illustrate: look at Dieselgate. If the regulations were actually meant to be serious, any scrappy company from Poland, Portugal or Bulgaria would have been absolutely dismantled out of existence. But VW got what? A symbolic fine, some Casablanca-style reprimands, perhaps a expiatory goat... but they will continue to have the support from the government. What about tech? What real benefit has GDPR brought to the people? Nothing! It made only the small business owners scared of violations, got them out of running their own sites and into siloed Facebook/Amazon pages, and with their "social Media presence" on Twitter/Instagram. Tell me with a clean face how that "regulation" was in your favor and not of the status quo?

rglullis 5y ago

> lately If by lately, you mean "basically always", then I'd agree. I'd be hard pressed to think of any regulation that was successfully enacted and led to actual distress and disruption in the big corporations. > that doesn't make it inherently so Why would it be different this time? Can you think of any kind of policy that has any slim chance of passing and would get us rid of Big Tech? And by "Big Tech", I mean all of it, not just the ones that you don't like.

HWR_14 5y ago
I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Just reign it in. And just enforcing anticompetitive regulations help. The GDPR helps. The EU regulations requiring federated messaging help. The laws in favor net neutrality help.
- rglullis 5y ago
  > I'm not sure anyone wants to get rid of big tech. Yes, I do. The FSF does. The IndieWeb does. > Just reign it in. To think that this is possible without any type of damaging side-effect is a huge delusion. Trusting more power to Big Government to try to control Big Tech is like saying "Look at all the destruction that Godzilla is making, we need to unleash King Kong to fight it". The only stable solution to avoid global systemic catastrophe is by removing centralized power and redistributing it to local communities. GDPR does not help, quite the opposite. It gave people some illusion of control but did nothing but scare smaller players into compliance. Messaging standardization might actually turn out to be good, but only because none of the dominant companies are from Europe.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    > The FSF does. The IndieWeb does. What are their options for search? I know DDG is an option, but even it seems to rely on Big Tech. > Trusting more power to Big Government to try to control Big Tech But it's definitely worked in the past. Government successfully reigned in a ton of industry. Sure, it hasn't reigned in Big Tech, but so much other stuff.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      Did it really? To me it looks like the Auto Industry is still pretty much doing whatever they want, Big Oil continues to expand on their emissions, Big Pharma profited quite a bit even despite being partly responsible for an opioid crisis...
      - 411111111111111 5y ago
        They're not doing whatever they want, because then they'd utilize slave labor with no safety regards (and some actually continue to do so too, just not in the developed world - which just proves the point that they'd jump on it as soon as could) They're however doing whatever they can get away with, which is arguably way too much
        rglullis 5y ago
        You are still arguing a straw man. The point is not about what the regulation stopped them from doing locally, the point is that no regulation that came into existence ever broke the power structure. It was never a threat to the ones connected to the elites. Any regulation that does get approve ends up weaponized in favor of the big companies. To illustrate: look at Dieselgate. If the regulations were actually meant to be serious, any scrappy company from Poland, Portugal or Bulgaria would have been absolutely dismantled out of existence. But VW got what? A symbolic fine, some Casablanca-style reprimands, perhaps a expiatory goat... but they will continue to have the support from the government. What about tech? What real benefit has GDPR brought to the people? Nothing! It made only the small business owners scared of violations, got them out of running their own sites and into siloed Facebook/Amazon pages, and with their "social Media presence" on Twitter/Instagram. Tell me with a clean face how that "regulation" was in your favor and not of the status quo?