4 ms·

Yes to everything except the first statement: > The answer is antitrust. Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly, I agree But anoth

by worik 1y ago

Yes to everything except the first statement: > The answer is antitrust. Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly, I agree But another answer is "Firefox"

gg82 1y ago
I would love to say another answer is "Firefox" (which is my default browser), but Mozilla have gotten fat of Googles money over the years and got distracted by other things.
- al_borland 1y ago
  I would love if some of these projects that fall backward into loads of money would stay lean, and invest that money in a way that allowed them to become truly independent. So when the money dries up, or the funding becomes dirty, they have the freedom to cut ties and continue their lean operations, self-funded by the interest from their investments.
  - bigfatkitten 1y ago
    They instead shovel increasing amount of money into the pockets of ‘leadership’, despite showing signs of nothing but failure at everything they do.
  - account42 1y ago
    Yes but that isn't optimal for the personal profit of the leadership making those decisions.
hkt 1y ago
It isn't a coincidence that Google continue to fund Mozilla: Firefox is, arguably, a fig leaf. A few hundred million a year is a small price to pay to Google if they have even a semi-willing participant in allowing them to bulldoze through the standards bodies.
lenkite 1y ago
Controlled opposition to avoid anti-trust is a MegaCorp's standard operation procedure.
bborud 1y ago
So why do people choose Chrome? (I use chrome, but I am unable to articulate why. Surely some of you know why you use Chrome :-))
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  > So why do people choose Chrome? It’s actually kinda simple: they don’t, at least not continuously. It’s “what you use” because you decided that’s true at some point in the past. All you have to do now is decide that some other browser is “what you use”. You can even take it a step further and decide that Chrome is “not what you use”. (And actually, if you go through with it, you might discover reasons for why you don’t want to switch like “bookmarks” and “saved passwords”. In my opinion, if it is not easy to transfer those things, that is further reason to switch because vendor lock-in is user-hostile.)
  - jpc0 1y ago
    Chrome is explicitly “not what I use” however there are literally services I cannot use on a firefox derived browser so I must have a chromium derived browser installed and occasionally use it. For a normal user they would just switch back to chrome because that is what works, they don’t care about our complaints, they care that what they want to use works.
- Filligree 1y ago
  Because, last time I tried it, Firefox decided to force Pocket integration and I accidentally uploaded some of my bookmarks. Also performance, but the behaviour of Mozilla is the main reason I keep away.
  - bornfreddy 1y ago
    Pocket - fair enough (though Google probably uploads all it can). But performance? No way. Unless you are talking about Google properties which are specifically un-optimized for Firefox, in which case I don't think it is Firefox you should avoid.
orwin 1y ago
> Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly No it isn't. If you want your capitalism to be liberal, you need antitrust, true. If you only want capitalism, and don't really care about the 'liberty' part, you can check the mercantile capitalism of old. It worked quite well for people with power.
- Ygg2 1y ago
  > If you only want capitalism Yeah, I prefer not to die in a coal mine at ripe age of 14, so a coal baron can increase their wealth by 0.001%.
  - worik 1y ago
    Totally Capitalism is defensible as an economic system It is indefensible as a social system. It must be subordinate to the social arrangements
    - Ygg2 1y ago
      I agree. The endgame for capitalism is a mega-corp roleplaying as state. You get food, housing, and so on, but you may never leave it. You will live however long the CEOs need you to live and not a second more.
- echelon 1y ago
  Capitalism is a great model that results in evolutionary pressures for the efficient development of goods and services. One failure mode of unchecked and unregulated capitalism is the establishment of monopolies that can starve oxygen from the rest of the ecosystem. In order to have maximally efficient and broadly beneficial capitalism, you need strong anti-trust mechanisms to reoxygenate the environment for new competition. Regular enforcement also means that labor and investment capital reap the most rewards instead of calcified, legacy incumbents. Companies need to be constantly fighting to survive. If they're sitting comfortable and growing without controls, something went wrong and the rest of the fitness landscape is being distorted by an invasive species. Antitrust Regulation is incredibly pro-market and pro-competition.

by worik 1y ago

Yes to everything except the first statement: > The answer is antitrust. Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly, I agree But another answer is "Firefox"

gg82 1y ago

I would love to say another answer is "Firefox" (which is my default browser), but Mozilla have gotten fat of Googles money over the years and got distracted by other things.

al_borland 1y ago
I would love if some of these projects that fall backward into loads of money would stay lean, and invest that money in a way that allowed them to become truly independent. So when the money dries up, or the funding becomes dirty, they have the freedom to cut ties and continue their lean operations, self-funded by the interest from their investments.
- bigfatkitten 1y ago
  They instead shovel increasing amount of money into the pockets of ‘leadership’, despite showing signs of nothing but failure at everything they do.
- account42 1y ago
  Yes but that isn't optimal for the personal profit of the leadership making those decisions.

hkt 1y ago

It isn't a coincidence that Google continue to fund Mozilla: Firefox is, arguably, a fig leaf. A few hundred million a year is a small price to pay to Google if they have even a semi-willing participant in allowing them to bulldoze through the standards bodies.

lenkite 1y ago

Controlled opposition to avoid anti-trust is a MegaCorp's standard operation procedure.

bborud 1y ago

So why do people choose Chrome? (I use chrome, but I am unable to articulate why. Surely some of you know why you use Chrome :-))

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
> So why do people choose Chrome? It’s actually kinda simple: they don’t, at least not continuously. It’s “what you use” because you decided that’s true at some point in the past. All you have to do now is decide that some other browser is “what you use”. You can even take it a step further and decide that Chrome is “not what you use”. (And actually, if you go through with it, you might discover reasons for why you don’t want to switch like “bookmarks” and “saved passwords”. In my opinion, if it is not easy to transfer those things, that is further reason to switch because vendor lock-in is user-hostile.)
- jpc0 1y ago
  Chrome is explicitly “not what I use” however there are literally services I cannot use on a firefox derived browser so I must have a chromium derived browser installed and occasionally use it. For a normal user they would just switch back to chrome because that is what works, they don’t care about our complaints, they care that what they want to use works.
Filligree 1y ago
Because, last time I tried it, Firefox decided to force Pocket integration and I accidentally uploaded some of my bookmarks. Also performance, but the behaviour of Mozilla is the main reason I keep away.
- bornfreddy 1y ago
  Pocket - fair enough (though Google probably uploads all it can). But performance? No way. Unless you are talking about Google properties which are specifically un-optimized for Firefox, in which case I don't think it is Firefox you should avoid.

orwin 1y ago

> Anti-trust is crucial to make the capitalist economy work prperly No it isn't. If you want your capitalism to be liberal, you need antitrust, true. If you only want capitalism, and don't really care about the 'liberty' part, you can check the mercantile capitalism of old. It worked quite well for people with power.

Ygg2 1y ago
> If you only want capitalism Yeah, I prefer not to die in a coal mine at ripe age of 14, so a coal baron can increase their wealth by 0.001%.
- worik 1y ago
  Totally Capitalism is defensible as an economic system It is indefensible as a social system. It must be subordinate to the social arrangements
  - Ygg2 1y ago
    I agree. The endgame for capitalism is a mega-corp roleplaying as state. You get food, housing, and so on, but you may never leave it. You will live however long the CEOs need you to live and not a second more.
echelon 1y ago
Capitalism is a great model that results in evolutionary pressures for the efficient development of goods and services. One failure mode of unchecked and unregulated capitalism is the establishment of monopolies that can starve oxygen from the rest of the ecosystem. In order to have maximally efficient and broadly beneficial capitalism, you need strong anti-trust mechanisms to reoxygenate the environment for new competition. Regular enforcement also means that labor and investment capital reap the most rewards instead of calcified, legacy incumbents. Companies need to be constantly fighting to survive. If they're sitting comfortable and growing without controls, something went wrong and the rest of the fitness landscape is being distorted by an invasive species. Antitrust Regulation is incredibly pro-market and pro-competition.