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The problem is that companies that successfully become monopolies like this - especially over critical public functions like communication - shouldn't be allowe
by dbingham 3y ago
The problem is that companies that successfully become monopolies like this - especially over critical public functions like communication - shouldn't be allowed to be private. At that point, they've made themselves utilities.
But the free marketeers have such a grip on public policy here in North America that the governments aren't able to take the appropriate regulatory action: Either nationalize them and make them a utility or break up the monopoly so you don't have a behemoth with so much power over a critical function like communication.
- twoodfin 3y agoSorry, but the idea that Facebook, or even Meta generally, has a monopoly on communication is absurd on its face.
- dbingham 3y agoIt has a monopoly on certain forms of connection and communication. You could easily say the same thing about telephone companies, that it was "absurd" that they had a monopoly on communication - after all, people communicate in many other ways beyond the telephone: mail, face to face, telegram, and so forth. But we still treated the telephone companies as having a monopoly on a critical form of communication. And we took the appropriate steps: broke them up or treated them as utilities. Facebook has over 3 billion users. Nearly 40% of Earth's population. Many of whom communicate more actively through it than they do with telephones, mail, or any of the other forms of communication that we treat as public utilities. It absolutely fits the bill.