4 ms·
Google has sunk about $100m into developing Chrome. People need to expect to own things after making big investments. That's how any of this works. dictate ran
by swyx 4y ago
Google has sunk about $100m into developing Chrome. People need to expect to own things after making big investments. That's how any of this works.
dictate random policies like that and you will watch American capitalism die.
- hardware2win 4y agoDa fuck? Only 100m?
- pleb_nz 4y agoI would have thought 10x 100m minimum
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dmitriid 4y ago[flagged]
- cma 4y agoMost of the development work they gave away free under a public domain like license.
- catach 4y agoIf "capitalism" can't survive reasonable consumer protection then perhaps it deserves to die, sure.
- cft 4y ago
- dmitriid 4y agoAs if those countries had anything reasonable. Why don't you look to Europe instead?
- bjelkeman-again 4y agoThere is a middle ground. “As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal-democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented mixed economy.” Some of the world’s most successful countries are run that way. It is called social democracy.
- vilaca 4y agoI'm sorry to have to break it to you but Venezuela and Iran are capitalist countries.
- Ensorceled 4y agoI'd like to think there are a wider group of options than a binary choice between "American Late-Stage Capitalism" and "Venezuela"
- teh64 4y agoRussia is literally capitalist though????
- immibis 4y agoThis is true. Russia is in fact a good case study of late-stage capitalism. You see, in American capitalism, everyone started equally and then had to build up to their monopoly positions today. In Russia, some people just started out with monopoly positions, due to corruption. So if we want to see what happens due to monopoly positions, we can just look there.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoAmericans all started equally? You sure, that the early comers, to america, who got huge amounts of land and resources started equally to irish and itallian immigrants? And even the modern monopolies... Gates and his mom getting him a deal with IBM is a bit different than someone else without a well connected mom. And looking at tax rates companies like facebook pay, I think corruption is very well alive in USA too.
- immibis 4y agoStarted equally, quickly became unequal, but nowhere near as quickly as Russia, which started at maximum inequality.
- vixen99 4y agoPerhaps when make a similar comment in future you could expand a bit and sketch out a possible alternative to that of people being free to to trade things of value with other people under the aegis of a dynamic regulatory system? I guess you mean a specific meaning of 'capitalism' but the nature of that is not clear at all.
- catach 4y agoConsider: Option 1: the definition of "capitalism" requires that zero regulation be applied. In that case, abandon "capitalism" and replace it with whatever you'd call the same model but with regulation. Option 2: a significant amount of regulation actually is enough alone to fatally destabilize capitalism. I do not believe this to be the case, but if it were, then it should very likely be abandoned, but it's difficult to know how other options might behave in this hypothetical universe.
- josefx 4y agoIf that was how the world worked then Blizzard would have lost the rights for Diablo to a hand full of wales. Dumping a ton of money down the toilet doesn't mean you own the toilet.
- xg15 4y agoOk, so wanting to stop Google from messing with my system is communism?
- croes 4y agoDepends on who you ask.
- dontlaugh 4y agoThat’s not entirely inaccurate. Capitalism requires that the capitalists (who own for a living) are in control of the state, so it has little incentive to stop Google from messing with your system. The only certain way to stop them is for workers (who work for a living, the majority of us) gain control of state power through a socialist revolution. Those historically are led by communists or similar. So if you want control over your computer and ultimately life, join us in conspiring to overthrow capitalism.
- feet 4y agoThe way I see it is that forms of socialism and communism are true democracies in that when everyone is part of the state we should all have equal say, an equal vote in deciding policy
- christophilus 4y agoThe opposite throughout history seems to be the State becomes both the government, and those who “own for a living”. You go from a mixture of corrupt powers to one corrupt, almost absolute power. I choose neither. Is there another alternative?
- dontlaugh 4y agoThat can happen, but it’s debatable how common it has been historically. But it’s worth keeping in mind that the capitalists also control the media, school curriculums, academia (including economics and history), etc. It’s not hard for them to portray all socialist countries as far worse than they are, in order to discourage workers from rising up. And of course it is in the capitalists interest to do so.
- ClassyJacket 4y ago>you will watch American capitalism die. That's one of my explicit goals, so good.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoSo, which system do you recommend then? I'm from a former socialist country (both former socialist, and former country, since neither exist anymore).
- StingyJelly 4y agoGoogle has achieved high economies of scale in many areas but mainly in skirting taxation and government regulation. That's corrupt cronyism, not capitalim. The positive quality of capitalism is it's efficiency, good luck finding that inside bureaucratic google.
- brnzh 4y agoIt's literally just capitalism lmao
- StingyJelly 4y agoCapitalism requires competition and there is little competition in anything google does. That's in large part due to how heavily "subsidized" they became thanks to governments "overlooking" blatant tax avoidance.
- immibis 4y agoPutin has invested much more into owning Russia. According to your logic, we must allow Putin to own Russia.
- Kamq 4y agoI mean, for the most part we did. It was when he wanted to own Ukraine that it rose to the level of significant intervention by the outside world.
- immibis 4y agoPutin has invested significant resources into owning Ukraine, too, so if people have a right to own whatever they invest significant resources into, then Putin has a right to own Ukraine.
- Kamq 4y agoYes, but (continuing the argument) the rest of the world has also invested significant resources into Ukraine to counter his ownership claim (in a way that never really happened while he was solidifying his hold on Russia).
- paledot 4y agoOoh, that's all I have to do to watch American capitalism die?