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The battle is lost already in many ways... We have let many companies become so embedded that if they backed out there would be no other options for the service

The battle is lost already in many ways... We have let many companies become so embedded that if they backed out there would be no other options for the services and infrastructure they provide (this even includes news services, and especially includes social media services). Right now ELon Musk is applying dangerously dictatorial tactics in turning Twitter from a free service into a paid service.. Years after the entire world has become invested into it as a new and communication tool... Many will say it's his right to do whatever he wants, but those are the same people too short sighted to understand how Nestle controls water in foreign countries... We are all plagued by that short sightedness and greed, while there are far better answers to things like this while still operating in a capitalistic system. We all give far too much credit to the authoritarian elitist crowd. If you are born into so much money that you can fail multiple times and simply rebuild, you're NOT a genius. We need to stop deluding everyone with this supremacy narrative, because it's just fueling monopolies and inequality and destroying opportunity in our world. Just being aware about how news is being manipulated, and scanning multiple sources to determine truth isn't enough... We need to place proper expectations on government to reign in companies and tax the wealthy properly, while also reducing lower and middle class tax rates, otherwise, this is all a new version of covert mental control and opportunistic indentured labor. Get rid of "bosses" that ideal is far too outdated for progress, Not even the president is properly respected by congress anyway, so we need to update our business models to a more democratic leadership ecosystem.

noelherrick 3y ago
Something I've been chewing on is legitimacy by process vs. outcome (means vs. end). We have far too long said if the means are done fairly (Musk bought Twitter legitimately, Zuck founded and unilaterally controls Facebook mostly legally), then we have to accept the outcome, even if that outcome is detrimental to the wider society. We just have to stop accepting that. Corporate law, money, etc. are all made up and are sold to the wider population as net boons to society. Why can't we dissolve and/or nationalize companies when they cease to be beneficial or have distinct negatives? Copyright, patents, LLCs, publicly-traded companies, etc., all nominally exist to benefit society at large. They're not supposed to be this game of "I called shotgun so suck it!"
- whythre 3y ago
  This is so naive in the extreme. Who decides the ‘societal good?’ Some centralized moralizing force, that will no doubt be in disagreement with large swathes of the rest of the nation. Thinking that FB is some kind of powerful national threat that must be managed by the government seems absurd.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    Many of the alternatives to "a majority vote decides what's good or bad" are even worse. Lots of ink spilled on the downsides of kings or on anarchy vs some sort of democratic system. What the poster is proposing about cracking down on large powerful companies isn't even particularly troublesome Constitutionally in the US; but even then, as with any other sort of regulations, Constitutional restrictions on what the legitimate government can and can't do can be taken too far, or can get outdated.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Hacker News is one of the most communist leaning forums online, while at the same time strongly supportive of US government policy. How those two go together you'll have to ask somebody else. Any thread you read will have "regulation and government nationalization" as the answer. It's the modern day equivalent of "God will fix it"
    - noelherrick 3y ago
      HN is one of the most pro-capitalist forums ever. Literally created by venture capitalists to promote capitalism and further capitalists' aims. I visit this site because sometimes Reddit is too much of a progressive echo-chamber. Since I have you, what do you consider communism?
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        > Since I have you, what do you consider communism? To start with, nationalizing mass media and the press. > Literally created by venture capitalists to promote capitalism and further capitalists' aims. Capitalism and communism go hand in hand. If you don't believe me, read the communistic manifesto. Marx writes again and again that they need capitalism first before they can introduce communism. The ideologies are not each other's opposite.
swamp40 3y ago
> dangerously dictatorial tactics in turning Twitter from a free service into a paid service Don't you see that's the way to eliminate the power of the bots, which influence you by legitimizing tweets by the thousands. It's still free to join, but only paid users get influence.
- toss1 3y ago
  >>Don't you see that's the way to eliminate the power of the bots That's the sales line. The reality is that "verification" now means nothing more than you have an email and a credit/debit with a limit more than $8, and you can claim to be anyone you want. Within hours, scores of fake "official" govt accounts are up [0]. If you don't think that is somehow beneficial to scammers and disruptive bots, I'd like to talk to you about some great oceanfront property in Kansas! There is also the Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum account being unverified while the account of a prominent Nazi propagandist is [1]. The result is that anyone running a bot/troll account can put up any face they want and purchase amplified reach (not merely speech) for $8/month - an astonishing deal Beyond effectively destroying the value of the Blue Check verification status to convey validation, it has now turned into a badge of shame that no serious person wants. Musk already knows this, and is trying to counteract it by leaving legacy valuable badges on certain celebrities, such as Stephen King, who explicitly denies paying [2] The Blue Check has become a toxic symbol, and this is reflected in new terms o service [3], where you cannot turn it off, even by cancelling the subscription. The economic reality is that Twitter's core value proposition was the presence of verified and active govt accounts, news accounts, and celebrity accounts. It was their content that people came to see and interact. By allowing anyone to pay a small fee to impersonate anyone, Musk has made verification worthless and even toxic. It literally renders nearly worthless the very thing Musk wants people to pay for. And, beyond doing nothing to suppress bots, this enables them as never before. Masterful strategy there... (/s) [0] https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1649146273121857554 https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1649146273121857554 [1] https://twitter.com/EladNehorai/status/1649262025296744450 https://twitter.com/EladNehorai/status/1649262025296744450 [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649181726395052039 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649181726395052039 [3] https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1649449653098668032 https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1649449653098668032
majormajor 3y ago
Media companies, including Twitter and Facebook and CNN, aren't that hard to replace. The replacement doesn't need to look exactly the same, or run at the same scale, or have all the same features, people will adapt just as they did to move to those platforms in the first place.

noelherrick 3y ago

Something I've been chewing on is legitimacy by process vs. outcome (means vs. end). We have far too long said if the means are done fairly (Musk bought Twitter legitimately, Zuck founded and unilaterally controls Facebook mostly legally), then we have to accept the outcome, even if that outcome is detrimental to the wider society. We just have to stop accepting that. Corporate law, money, etc. are all made up and are sold to the wider population as net boons to society. Why can't we dissolve and/or nationalize companies when they cease to be beneficial or have distinct negatives? Copyright, patents, LLCs, publicly-traded companies, etc., all nominally exist to benefit society at large. They're not supposed to be this game of "I called shotgun so suck it!"

whythre 3y ago
This is so naive in the extreme. Who decides the ‘societal good?’ Some centralized moralizing force, that will no doubt be in disagreement with large swathes of the rest of the nation. Thinking that FB is some kind of powerful national threat that must be managed by the government seems absurd.
- majormajor 3y ago
  Many of the alternatives to "a majority vote decides what's good or bad" are even worse. Lots of ink spilled on the downsides of kings or on anarchy vs some sort of democratic system. What the poster is proposing about cracking down on large powerful companies isn't even particularly troublesome Constitutionally in the US; but even then, as with any other sort of regulations, Constitutional restrictions on what the legitimate government can and can't do can be taken too far, or can get outdated.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  Hacker News is one of the most communist leaning forums online, while at the same time strongly supportive of US government policy. How those two go together you'll have to ask somebody else. Any thread you read will have "regulation and government nationalization" as the answer. It's the modern day equivalent of "God will fix it"
  - noelherrick 3y ago
    HN is one of the most pro-capitalist forums ever. Literally created by venture capitalists to promote capitalism and further capitalists' aims. I visit this site because sometimes Reddit is too much of a progressive echo-chamber. Since I have you, what do you consider communism?
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      > Since I have you, what do you consider communism? To start with, nationalizing mass media and the press. > Literally created by venture capitalists to promote capitalism and further capitalists' aims. Capitalism and communism go hand in hand. If you don't believe me, read the communistic manifesto. Marx writes again and again that they need capitalism first before they can introduce communism. The ideologies are not each other's opposite.

swamp40 3y ago

> dangerously dictatorial tactics in turning Twitter from a free service into a paid service Don't you see that's the way to eliminate the power of the bots, which influence you by legitimizing tweets by the thousands. It's still free to join, but only paid users get influence.

toss1 3y ago
>>Don't you see that's the way to eliminate the power of the bots That's the sales line. The reality is that "verification" now means nothing more than you have an email and a credit/debit with a limit more than $8, and you can claim to be anyone you want. Within hours, scores of fake "official" govt accounts are up [0]. If you don't think that is somehow beneficial to scammers and disruptive bots, I'd like to talk to you about some great oceanfront property in Kansas! There is also the Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum account being unverified while the account of a prominent Nazi propagandist is [1]. The result is that anyone running a bot/troll account can put up any face they want and purchase amplified reach (not merely speech) for $8/month - an astonishing deal Beyond effectively destroying the value of the Blue Check verification status to convey validation, it has now turned into a badge of shame that no serious person wants. Musk already knows this, and is trying to counteract it by leaving legacy valuable badges on certain celebrities, such as Stephen King, who explicitly denies paying [2] The Blue Check has become a toxic symbol, and this is reflected in new terms o service [3], where you cannot turn it off, even by cancelling the subscription. The economic reality is that Twitter's core value proposition was the presence of verified and active govt accounts, news accounts, and celebrity accounts. It was their content that people came to see and interact. By allowing anyone to pay a small fee to impersonate anyone, Musk has made verification worthless and even toxic. It literally renders nearly worthless the very thing Musk wants people to pay for. And, beyond doing nothing to suppress bots, this enables them as never before. Masterful strategy there... (/s) [0] https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1649146273121857554 https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1649146273121857554 [1] https://twitter.com/EladNehorai/status/1649262025296744450 https://twitter.com/EladNehorai/status/1649262025296744450 [2] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649181726395052039 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649181726395052039 [3] https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1649449653098668032 https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1649449653098668032

majormajor 3y ago

Media companies, including Twitter and Facebook and CNN, aren't that hard to replace. The replacement doesn't need to look exactly the same, or run at the same scale, or have all the same features, people will adapt just as they did to move to those platforms in the first place.