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i used to feel this way and say “the government is terrible, look at example x, y, and z” until someone asked me a simple question, “using the same standards, h
by toofy 2y ago
i used to feel this way and say “the government is terrible, look at example x, y, and z” until someone asked me a simple question, “using the same standards, how many companies have we seen that are just plain awful?”
this simple question made me realize that honestly, i think far more often i see terrible customer service, terrible end product, etc… from companies than i do from various government projects—particularly the larger we go in scale. it feels like daily here in hn we see someone who is struggling with some company with literally no way to get help at all.
for every bad government project we can point to multiple awful corporate attempts.
at the end of the day i don’t think better or worse is inherent to either. there are positives and negatives to both but missteps, growing pains, corruption etc… are pretty clearly not limited to one or the other.
- baggy_trough 2y agoThe difference is that lousy companies get flushed away by the market (unless government keeps them around), but nothing next to a miracle can get rid of a government program no matter how bad it is.
- toofy 2y agoagain, if you keep the same metrics. there are plenty of just plain awful companies that have been around for decades. i’ve seen terrible restaurants, terrible construction companies, just awful search engines, etc… and we’ve all seen many government projects started and then abandoned.
- baggy_trough 2y agoI would posit that the number of failed companies exceeds the number of abandoned government projects by many orders of magnitude.
- SoftTalker 2y agoI can personally choose to not give my money to a company I don't like. I can't choose to not pay for government projects I don't like, or that are corrupt, or that never end, etc.
- beej71 2y agoYou can, though, vote your representatives out. And they don't want to be voted out.