6 ms·

> This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised. No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome y

> This is why massive companies like Meta and Alphabet needs to be nationalised. No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome you want. When something becomes too powerful, the solution is not to further concentrate that power into less accountable hands.

kyleyeats 4y ago
It might be the only way to make Facebook worse.
psychoslave 4y ago
Nationalization is not necessary more concentration and less many accountable hands. Well, it depends on the governance obviously. If you talk some autocratic regime, where the king proclaimed "I am the state", that fits your description for sure. On the other hand, if you are looking at a direct democracy regime, you could hardly make the power more pervasive, and every citizen has to carry its part of accountability on every social matter.
- indymike 4y ago
  > Well, it depends on the governance obviously. Three reasons why nationalization is a bad idea: * Power disparity. As it is, Facebook is destroying people and business without any accountability. Now we hand that to the state who: * Has all the incentive to destroy anything that competes, and the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition. If you think the product is bad today, imagine how fantastic it will be in 10 years of no competition. * Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy! All in all, nationalization of a social network is one of the worst directions we can take, regardless of politics. It's just a bad idea.
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    > the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition > So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet.
    - indymike 4y ago
      > These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet. Most functioning democracies outlaw competing with the postal service - as the US has for centuries.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    > Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy! Any examples of this? The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.
    - indymike 4y ago
      > The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright. Last I looked UPS and Fedex are legally barred from competing for letter postage and can only ship parcels (so the hack is the overnight envelope which packages your letter in a parcel. Bonus: The postal service can arrest you and prosecute you. Last I looked, UPS and FedEx cannot.
      - DangitBobby 4y ago
        Last I checked, UPS and FedEx literally (ab)use USPS as cheap last-mile delivery service which it is obligated to fulfill (at a loss). And they _certainly_ can and do deliver letters. They just don't often (and not to mailboxes, which are reserved for USPS), because people aren't willing to pay for it under normal circumstances. Despite these things... UPS and FedEx seem to do pretty good business, don't they? Remind me of the problem? And uh... I can count on 0 hands the number of times I've heard of the USPS arresting anyone. Bet you can too. The USPS is a bit of an anomaly in that its responsibilities are carved out in the constitution! Still interested to hear of other real world examples.
  - orwin 4y ago
    It's because our nationalization used to ressemble the Soviet model, for various reasons (one that governments were far more authoritarian in the 40s, 50s and 60s that they are now). You have other options. One is the following: - 1/3 government (adapted to the size of the business: federal for Facebook, but local for a sawmill) - 1/3 workers (including the owner if he's working his business) - 1/3 investors (owner or shareholders). That would makes the owner who also work at the company the final decision maker for stuff that doesn't involve the government (like investment), but allows more balanced power balance.
holoduke 4y ago
Maybe the service itself will be crap once run by governments. But at least things are covered by law. things like fair hearings and proper customer support. Now you can be banned from those ecosystems just like they do in dictorial states.
- djschnei 4y ago
  ummmm, have you seen our criminal justice system?
  - barbariangrunge 4y ago
    Can ordinary citizens without millions of dollars even access the basic torte system against somebody bigger than themselves? The legal system is effectively unavailable to most citizens outside of small claims court because of the combination of precedent (ie, the need to spend a million dollars researching to know what the law is), and the stalling/creating expensive burdens tactics etc
- Bud 4y ago
- Bud 4y ago
  I'm especially entertained by this notion that making a company government-owned will magically ensure "proper customer support". That might be the funniest thing I've read in weeks, actually.
  - holoduke 4y ago
    Have you ever dealt with business support from Google? If you can get support at all, it's basically bots and auto replies. Even the worst state in the US has better support than Google or any other big software company out there.
    - Bud 4y ago
      I certainly was not claiming that Google has good support. I'm aware of basic reality. ;) But your response does not address my point at all.
jrochkind1 4y ago
> into less accountable hands. While I'm not totally behind "nationalize all the things", do you really think the government is less accountable than Meta? (or Alphabet etc?) I guess that raises the question "accountable to whom", but in general, for all it's problems with accountability (and there are many), and acknolwedging that different US governments can stack up differently (say local vs federal) -- I'd still say that the government is in general definitely more accountable to "society", or the population at large, than giant corporations are. If I were king of the world, maybe I'd try having 1/3rd of board members appointed by government, 1/3rd elected by users, 1/3rd elected by employees. Oh, right, there's stockholders too I guess... ok, 1/4th all around. I know this is only my utopian fantasy.
- rmah 4y ago
  Why would you risk everything to start a company only to be forced to give up most of it to other people? Why would others invest (i.e. buy stock) in your company only to give up control to non-owners?
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    The founders and the employees are still being paid for their hard work building it up; it's not like a hostile government takeover where Mark Zuckerberg is woken up in his bed one night and asked by some men in uniform to hand over the keys to Facebook.
    - rmah 4y ago
      Actually, that's exactly what it's like.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    That's a different question than talking about "less accountable hands" but yes that would have to be figured out in any hypothetical utopian system. The employees work for a paycheck of course, but I suppose there needs to be sufficient incentive to start a company. It probably doesn't need to be multi-billion-dollar payout possible to incentivize though. And talking about an already existing company like facebook, I think founders and early investors have already received quite enough reward to incentivize, being able to make as much money as they've made off meta up to this point is plenty of incentive to start a company. (There are also other incentives than money to start a company). Anyway, I was mostly responding to the suggestion that the government is "less accountable hands" than Meta -- I really don't think so, if we're talking about accountability to society at large. I think it's actually a problem that an entity with so much power over society isn't accountable to it; the first step is admitting we have a problem.
piaste 4y ago
> less accountable Governments are always more accountable than private companies, because the only way an ordinary citizen can force a private entity to cease its abuse is... through the government. (No, "voting with your wallet" isn't a thing, especially when the abuse is profitable.)
unity1001 4y ago
> No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome you want. Giving more power to the government on INFRASTRUCTURE at this scale always gives the desired outcome everywhere arount the world except the US. I stressed the word infrastructure. Because at this level, these companies are literally the gatekeepers of the Internet. Who control literally 70%-80% of what we see, hear and do among themselves. Especially when doing business as a small business, there is no way to avoid them. And they can make or break their business within a day with their arbitrary decisions. Imagine that your local road network was owned by a private, unaccountable company that was able to change the traffic flow within one day at a whim. Literally breaking all the logistics of your small shop by causing it to be much more expensive. Or your local power company doing the same thing. To avoid such things, we keep infrastructure in the hands of public companies or we VERY tightly regulate them. Allowing a society's infrastructure to be controlled by private actors is as crazy as it gets.

kyleyeats 4y ago

It might be the only way to make Facebook worse.

psychoslave 4y ago

Nationalization is not necessary more concentration and less many accountable hands. Well, it depends on the governance obviously. If you talk some autocratic regime, where the king proclaimed "I am the state", that fits your description for sure. On the other hand, if you are looking at a direct democracy regime, you could hardly make the power more pervasive, and every citizen has to carry its part of accountability on every social matter.

indymike 4y ago
> Well, it depends on the governance obviously. Three reasons why nationalization is a bad idea: * Power disparity. As it is, Facebook is destroying people and business without any accountability. Now we hand that to the state who: * Has all the incentive to destroy anything that competes, and the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition. If you think the product is bad today, imagine how fantastic it will be in 10 years of no competition. * Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy! All in all, nationalization of a social network is one of the worst directions we can take, regardless of politics. It's just a bad idea.
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  > the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition > So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet.
  - indymike 4y ago
    > These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet. Most functioning democracies outlaw competing with the postal service - as the US has for centuries.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  > Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy! Any examples of this? The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.
  - indymike 4y ago
    > The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright. Last I looked UPS and Fedex are legally barred from competing for letter postage and can only ship parcels (so the hack is the overnight envelope which packages your letter in a parcel. Bonus: The postal service can arrest you and prosecute you. Last I looked, UPS and FedEx cannot.
    - DangitBobby 4y ago
      Last I checked, UPS and FedEx literally (ab)use USPS as cheap last-mile delivery service which it is obligated to fulfill (at a loss). And they _certainly_ can and do deliver letters. They just don't often (and not to mailboxes, which are reserved for USPS), because people aren't willing to pay for it under normal circumstances. Despite these things... UPS and FedEx seem to do pretty good business, don't they? Remind me of the problem? And uh... I can count on 0 hands the number of times I've heard of the USPS arresting anyone. Bet you can too. The USPS is a bit of an anomaly in that its responsibilities are carved out in the constitution! Still interested to hear of other real world examples.
- orwin 4y ago
  It's because our nationalization used to ressemble the Soviet model, for various reasons (one that governments were far more authoritarian in the 40s, 50s and 60s that they are now). You have other options. One is the following: - 1/3 government (adapted to the size of the business: federal for Facebook, but local for a sawmill) - 1/3 workers (including the owner if he's working his business) - 1/3 investors (owner or shareholders). That would makes the owner who also work at the company the final decision maker for stuff that doesn't involve the government (like investment), but allows more balanced power balance.

holoduke 4y ago

Maybe the service itself will be crap once run by governments. But at least things are covered by law. things like fair hearings and proper customer support. Now you can be banned from those ecosystems just like they do in dictorial states.

djschnei 4y ago
ummmm, have you seen our criminal justice system?
- barbariangrunge 4y ago
  Can ordinary citizens without millions of dollars even access the basic torte system against somebody bigger than themselves? The legal system is effectively unavailable to most citizens outside of small claims court because of the combination of precedent (ie, the need to spend a million dollars researching to know what the law is), and the stalling/creating expensive burdens tactics etc
Bud 4y ago
Bud 4y ago
I'm especially entertained by this notion that making a company government-owned will magically ensure "proper customer support". That might be the funniest thing I've read in weeks, actually.
- holoduke 4y ago
  Have you ever dealt with business support from Google? If you can get support at all, it's basically bots and auto replies. Even the worst state in the US has better support than Google or any other big software company out there.
  - Bud 4y ago
    I certainly was not claiming that Google has good support. I'm aware of basic reality. ;) But your response does not address my point at all.

jrochkind1 4y ago

> into less accountable hands. While I'm not totally behind "nationalize all the things", do you really think the government is less accountable than Meta? (or Alphabet etc?) I guess that raises the question "accountable to whom", but in general, for all it's problems with accountability (and there are many), and acknolwedging that different US governments can stack up differently (say local vs federal) -- I'd still say that the government is in general definitely more accountable to "society", or the population at large, than giant corporations are. If I were king of the world, maybe I'd try having 1/3rd of board members appointed by government, 1/3rd elected by users, 1/3rd elected by employees. Oh, right, there's stockholders too I guess... ok, 1/4th all around. I know this is only my utopian fantasy.

rmah 4y ago
Why would you risk everything to start a company only to be forced to give up most of it to other people? Why would others invest (i.e. buy stock) in your company only to give up control to non-owners?
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  The founders and the employees are still being paid for their hard work building it up; it's not like a hostile government takeover where Mark Zuckerberg is woken up in his bed one night and asked by some men in uniform to hand over the keys to Facebook.
  - rmah 4y ago
    Actually, that's exactly what it's like.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  That's a different question than talking about "less accountable hands" but yes that would have to be figured out in any hypothetical utopian system. The employees work for a paycheck of course, but I suppose there needs to be sufficient incentive to start a company. It probably doesn't need to be multi-billion-dollar payout possible to incentivize though. And talking about an already existing company like facebook, I think founders and early investors have already received quite enough reward to incentivize, being able to make as much money as they've made off meta up to this point is plenty of incentive to start a company. (There are also other incentives than money to start a company). Anyway, I was mostly responding to the suggestion that the government is "less accountable hands" than Meta -- I really don't think so, if we're talking about accountability to society at large. I think it's actually a problem that an entity with so much power over society isn't accountable to it; the first step is admitting we have a problem.

piaste 4y ago

> less accountable Governments are always more accountable than private companies, because the only way an ordinary citizen can force a private entity to cease its abuse is... through the government. (No, "voting with your wallet" isn't a thing, especially when the abuse is profitable.)

unity1001 4y ago

> No. Giving this additional power to the government will not have the outcome you want. Giving more power to the government on INFRASTRUCTURE at this scale always gives the desired outcome everywhere arount the world except the US. I stressed the word infrastructure. Because at this level, these companies are literally the gatekeepers of the Internet. Who control literally 70%-80% of what we see, hear and do among themselves. Especially when doing business as a small business, there is no way to avoid them. And they can make or break their business within a day with their arbitrary decisions. Imagine that your local road network was owned by a private, unaccountable company that was able to change the traffic flow within one day at a whim. Literally breaking all the logistics of your small shop by causing it to be much more expensive. Or your local power company doing the same thing. To avoid such things, we keep infrastructure in the hands of public companies or we VERY tightly regulate them. Allowing a society's infrastructure to be controlled by private actors is as crazy as it gets.