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> Things will only change when democratically elected governments across the world step in with regulation, drag Big Tech through the courts, and fine them bill
by akho 1y ago
> Things will only change when democratically elected governments across the world step in with regulation, drag Big Tech through the courts, and fine them billions of dollars.
How will that help you install Linux.
- adastra22 1y agoHow will it help anything, really? The law of unintended consequences will strike once again.
- bolognafairy 1y agoYep. Fuck laws. The fact that there are potential negative consequences means that we should throw them all out!
- adastra22 1y agoIt means we should engineer incentives rather than trying to regulate outcomes. Policy choices aren’t binary.
- aptj 1y agoWell, good laws should facilitate healthy incentives, also by restricting/discouraging bad behaviors, right? How do we engineer incentives for regulators to be willing to prioritize the broader and industrial engineering of healthier incentives?
- apercu 1y agoOh yea, the billionaire and shareholder class can totally be incentivized to be good global citizens. /s
- adastra22 1y agoYes, make it so they get more money by being better citizens. That’s the only way it will ever work. I fail to see the sarcasm here.
- akho 1y agoIn perfectly competitive markets noone makes a profit. As a result, capital is only allocated to imperfect markets, defined through various inefficiences: barriers to entry (monopolistic practices), information asymmetries (cheating), … If you regulate away bad practices, capital will flow elsewhere. The level of equity investment in IT (and the valuations) is largely due to bad practices; fixing that will take away the OP’s favorite toys.
- adastra22 1y ago> In perfectly competitive markets noone makes a profit Bit of an aside, but this is not true btw. Even in situations which most closely approximate what you describe, there is a positive, nonzero floor to profit taking. This is typically explained as the opportunity cost of allocating money, which is not just the known alternative investments you are giving up, but the unknown-unknown risks. Among certain schools of political economics, it is also taught that this is a built-in action bias towards holders of money. Essentially, the rich get richer (quantified).
- akho 1y agoZero economic profit for the marginal producer; i.e. investors could as well work for hire and buy an ETF. In the long run. My point on regulation shifting capital allocation away from a sector stands, regardless of detail.
- int_19h 1y agoThey won't be good citizens so long as there is a considerable power disparity that is enabled by them having a lot more money. Giving them even more money would only make things worse.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoWhy is democracy so universally worshipped? Do they realize evil people with business interests ALSO participate in a democracy?
- ethbr1 1y agoIt's the worst system of government, except for all the other ones.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoIt’s not. There are centralist countries that do better than Americans. I’m not criticizing democracy. It works and has good sides and downsides compared with say communism. But man does democracy like communism come with major downsides. The question is why is democracy worshipped? Don’t worship it. It’s one side of complex 6 sided die. I was going to say one side of a coin but the situation is much more complicated than that.
- ethbr1 1y agoWhich non-democratic, centralist countries would you say that of?
- ninetyninenine 1y agoChina. The country dominates the US in many many ways because of centralized decision making.
- suprfsat 1y agoWith the funds raised everyone can be assigned a Linux expert to sit next to them.
- switch007 1y agoNobody should have to learn anything for themselves, paying with your time is grossly unjust, the world owes them a hassle free operating system
- bustling-noose 1y agoWith the kind of funds raised by AI companies there should be 10 different ones sitting next to me competing with each other.
- fragmede 1y agoI have enough competing voices inside my head, I don't need the ones outside of it to have their own competition as well.
- dullcrisp 1y agoBecause they’re better than everyone else on the inside but are forced down to our level by minor inconveniences. But it’s okay because they know what we should do.
- lemagedurage 1y agoI think the point is that if the corporations are morally kept in check by governments, then installing Linux wouldn't be necessary.
- s1artibartfast 1y agohow about the government keep people in check by forcing them to install Linux?
- ethbr1 1y agoThe entire point of linux is that if a government did that, unlike closed source solutions, it would be end-user modifiable.
- oliwarner 1y agoIf we're praying for unicorns, they might also notice they're paying millions for licenses to software they can't self-support or even audit. Then reinvest money from fines into in-house, open development, and use that instead of closed solutions.
- spwa4 1y agoCan't? Governments most certainly CAN do this. The US government is by far the closest to doing this, but they are definitely not close to doing this entirely.