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Tax on linking = less linking. The whole thing smells like wealth distribution ("hmm, the journalism industry is struggling, but the tech industry is booming.

by umvi 3y ago

Tax on linking = less linking. The whole thing smells like wealth distribution ("hmm, the journalism industry is struggling, but the tech industry is booming. The tech industry interacts with the journalism industry, maybe we can help the journalism industry by mandating a new wealth gradient flowing from one to support the other?")

paxys 3y ago
Laws like these help the top media conglomerates (who are the ones lobbying for them), not the journalism industry at large.
blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
I’m very pro capitalism but I do think redistribution makes sense in the context of giant corporations that are effectively immune to competition. Why do you think Google and Amazon and others can create entire products that never make a profit for years and then unceremoniously shut them down or reduce their investments in them? Everyone else has to try to survive based on their merits and actually make money. Platform owners can be very abusive because those dependent on the platform can have no choice and no voice to speak up. We see this everywhere - whether it is Amazon’s abuse of third party sellers or Google’s abuse of content creators (including news) or Apple’s abuse of app developers. We don’t need to craft a bunch of very targeted laws to reign this in - we just need to split them up and tax any company with market cap above $500B heavily.
- warkdarrior 3y ago
  > Why do you think Google and Amazon and others can create entire products that never make a profit for years and then unceremoniously shut them down or reduce their investments in them? It seems like Google and Amazon shutting down or divesting some products would make room for a lot of competitors to step in and dominate that space.
  - blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
    Maybe, but a lot of the would-be companies often get starved of revenue and die before the big companies exit. Until then, the big companies are often giving things away for free, or at a loss, or bundling them in an anti-competitive way (see MS Teams). That doesn't leave much room for a startup to survive.

by umvi 3y ago

paxys 3y ago

Laws like these help the top media conglomerates (who are the ones lobbying for them), not the journalism industry at large.

blackeyeblitzar 3y ago

I’m very pro capitalism but I do think redistribution makes sense in the context of giant corporations that are effectively immune to competition. Why do you think Google and Amazon and others can create entire products that never make a profit for years and then unceremoniously shut them down or reduce their investments in them? Everyone else has to try to survive based on their merits and actually make money. Platform owners can be very abusive because those dependent on the platform can have no choice and no voice to speak up. We see this everywhere - whether it is Amazon’s abuse of third party sellers or Google’s abuse of content creators (including news) or Apple’s abuse of app developers. We don’t need to craft a bunch of very targeted laws to reign this in - we just need to split them up and tax any company with market cap above $500B heavily.

warkdarrior 3y ago
> Why do you think Google and Amazon and others can create entire products that never make a profit for years and then unceremoniously shut them down or reduce their investments in them? It seems like Google and Amazon shutting down or divesting some products would make room for a lot of competitors to step in and dominate that space.
- blackeyeblitzar 3y ago
  Maybe, but a lot of the would-be companies often get starved of revenue and die before the big companies exit. Until then, the big companies are often giving things away for free, or at a loss, or bundling them in an anti-competitive way (see MS Teams). That doesn't leave much room for a startup to survive.