4 ms·

Sounds like what you're describing is that certain companies have become scapegoats. Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Tesla, and Microsoft all add a lot of value to

Sounds like what you're describing is that certain companies have become scapegoats. Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Tesla, and Microsoft all add a lot of value to people's lives both through the products they sell as well as the tax revenue they provide for the greater benefit of all. They aren't the primary drivers of any of our society's largest problems. We could quibble about exactly what those are, but they'd probably include: the high cost of health care, the high cost of housing, climate change, immigration, pollution, crime, etc. And yet these companies occupy the headlines constantly, and evidently the mindshare of our legislators instead of those issues!

grumple 4y ago
> Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Tesla, and Microsoft all add a lot of value to people's lives both through the products they sell as well as the tax revenue they provide for the greater benefit of all. That's a very bold claim, and one that I think is generally untrue and possibly extremely so. That might be true for a wealthy software engineer, but I don't think it's true for most people. For example, anyone who doesn't own a Tesla has benefited exactly 0 from the company's existence. If you don't order from Amazon or aren't doing lots of Google searches... same. And in fact, some of these companies - like Amazon, Meta - take far more than they give back. Amazon has killed local stores nationwide, on demand delivery and packaging is awful for the environment, etc. Meta just consumes attention and spreads misinformation. > They aren't the primary drivers of any of our society's largest problems. Except in some cases they quite obviously are. Amazon is the case study for abusive workplaces. It's the poster child for foreign-produced, cheap knockoffs. Meta is credited for spreading misinformation that has resulted in the near-destruction of our democracy. Apple, Microsoft, and many others have been implicated for using slave labor in their supply chains. How many products sold on Amazon are products of such labor? -- I think it's important that we examine these issues critically. These are not benevolent super-corporations. Sometimes they do good, sometimes they do evil, and either way it's generally on a huge scale due to the scale of the companies.

grumple 4y ago

> Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Tesla, and Microsoft all add a lot of value to people's lives both through the products they sell as well as the tax revenue they provide for the greater benefit of all. That's a very bold claim, and one that I think is generally untrue and possibly extremely so. That might be true for a wealthy software engineer, but I don't think it's true for most people. For example, anyone who doesn't own a Tesla has benefited exactly 0 from the company's existence. If you don't order from Amazon or aren't doing lots of Google searches... same. And in fact, some of these companies - like Amazon, Meta - take far more than they give back. Amazon has killed local stores nationwide, on demand delivery and packaging is awful for the environment, etc. Meta just consumes attention and spreads misinformation. > They aren't the primary drivers of any of our society's largest problems. Except in some cases they quite obviously are. Amazon is the case study for abusive workplaces. It's the poster child for foreign-produced, cheap knockoffs. Meta is credited for spreading misinformation that has resulted in the near-destruction of our democracy. Apple, Microsoft, and many others have been implicated for using slave labor in their supply chains. How many products sold on Amazon are products of such labor? -- I think it's important that we examine these issues critically. These are not benevolent super-corporations. Sometimes they do good, sometimes they do evil, and either way it's generally on a huge scale due to the scale of the companies.