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You can choose not to purchase, to an extent. You will likely use Amazon, microsoft and google at work in most industries. In many, avoiding paying them is high

You can choose not to purchase, to an extent. You will likely use Amazon, microsoft and google at work in most industries. In many, avoiding paying them is highly limiting. I suppose you can also avoid paying the post office Even if you manage to avoid paying them.... good luck avoiding using their sites, sites hosted by them, or collecting data for them. Good luck avoiding their payment systems, communication platforms, etc. This isn't like avoiding Mcdonalds. You need to be on John Galt's mountaintop to avoid these monopolies. Sticking to a narrative where Google's monopoly/monopsony represents free choices between free people is idiotic. I'm not going back to the voting thing again. It's beyond stupid.

randomdata 4y ago
> You need to be on John Galt's mountaintop to avoid these monopolies. So be it. If we were talking about a governmental election, and "your team" lost, you would also have to disappear to the mountains if you wanted to avoid having to interface with the elected government that doesn't represent your interests. More likely you'll just suck up the loss. That's what elections entail... They are not about the individual. > Sticking to a narrative where Google's monopoly/monopsony represents free choices between free people is idiotic. In reality, Google wouldn't last long if a large swath had a problem with them. The fact of the matter is that they offer a compelling product that many people want to use. You might not want to, but your minority position means that you've lost the election. Suck it up or move to the mountains, I guess, because the vote isn't about you as an individual. Monopolies of this sort can be problematic in that they can cause people to become blind to alternatives. If what Google offers is good enough, you're not compelled to look elsewhere. And when everyone has settled on the same good enough, there isn't someone else in your ear saying "You should check out X! It is even better than Google." This keeps the votes coming in for the incumbent. But if Google were to become no longer good enough, people will quickly start to look for X and vote for something else. Google already had exactly that happen when they were coupling their product with "unsavoury" content, which scared away customers who didn't want to be associated with such content. They had to change their policy to win back the votes. Voting works. That doesn't mean you will win.

randomdata 4y ago

> You need to be on John Galt's mountaintop to avoid these monopolies. So be it. If we were talking about a governmental election, and "your team" lost, you would also have to disappear to the mountains if you wanted to avoid having to interface with the elected government that doesn't represent your interests. More likely you'll just suck up the loss. That's what elections entail... They are not about the individual. > Sticking to a narrative where Google's monopoly/monopsony represents free choices between free people is idiotic. In reality, Google wouldn't last long if a large swath had a problem with them. The fact of the matter is that they offer a compelling product that many people want to use. You might not want to, but your minority position means that you've lost the election. Suck it up or move to the mountains, I guess, because the vote isn't about you as an individual. Monopolies of this sort can be problematic in that they can cause people to become blind to alternatives. If what Google offers is good enough, you're not compelled to look elsewhere. And when everyone has settled on the same good enough, there isn't someone else in your ear saying "You should check out X! It is even better than Google." This keeps the votes coming in for the incumbent. But if Google were to become no longer good enough, people will quickly start to look for X and vote for something else. Google already had exactly that happen when they were coupling their product with "unsavoury" content, which scared away customers who didn't want to be associated with such content. They had to change their policy to win back the votes. Voting works. That doesn't mean you will win.