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It's both good and bad. On one hand, it's sad that there's no access. On the other hand, it increases the diversity of tools and services worldwide. Google, for

It's both good and bad. On one hand, it's sad that there's no access. On the other hand, it increases the diversity of tools and services worldwide. Google, for example, is well known for buying startups just to kill them. In Russia and China, they have their own search engines, social networks, eBay/Amazon alternatives, and so on. These companies have produced great free software like LLMs, databases, development tools, etc. Seeing a corporation lose control over the Internet is usually good news for us, the small people - even if that change is coming from the government.

shevy-java 10mo ago
> Seeing a corporation lose control over the Internet But the state controls the flow of information in a dictatorship. So to me this seems more a lose-lose scenario than a lose-win or win-win.
- Atlas667 10mo ago
  You're simplifying too much. So to you its the state VS who? The rich billionaires + us? The rich billionaires are the state. We're the ones with no real representation. The fundamental divide is workers vs capitalists, not simply people vs government.
  - theshrike79 10mo ago
    A rich billionaire can still be affected by shareholders. If they stop providing shareholder value (due to mass boycotts or public scandals), they have to change. If it's a Putin-style dictator who has spent a quarter century digging his claws into every facet of the country, there's literally nothing you can do that doesn't involve physical violence to change things.
    - M95D 10mo ago
      > A rich billionaire can still be affected by shareholders. A rich billioneaire is a shareholder. > If they stop providing shareholder value [...] they have to change. But we (the small people) don't care about the shareholder value. Shareholder value is often contrary to what we (the small people) value, so expect change for the worse. > due to mass boycotts or public scandals Sorry, what? > has spent a quarter century digging his claws into every facet of the country Well, capitalists (as a group) spent 100+ years doing the same, so ...
      - notarget137 10mo ago
        It's baffling for me living in Russia that modern western societies see everything wrong with dictatorship from a goverment but nothing or almost nothing wrong with dictatorship from big capital. E.g. you can't change your break pads unless you go to authorized repair (literal control over your private property and how you use it) and big platforms banning you from multiple public forums because you said a big no-no word (deplatforming and cross-platform restrictions are a thing)
        mingus88 10mo ago
        You don’t have to look very hard to see an enormous number of people expressing discontent at the latter. To speak to your examples, the right to repair, farmers vs John Deere, the exodus from X to Bluesky, the rise of alternative messaging platforms, the outright murder of CEOs on the street and the beatification of the primary suspect on social media…just to scratch the surface These are all headlines straight from HN and the fact that you even know about them is the difference. The fundamental difference is while we both lack any real power to change this, under an actual dictatorship people get jailed or worse for that expression. Let’s touch base on this again when Dictatorship from big capital means Disney puts me in prison for dissent against the mouse and then offers me clemency if I go to the front lines in their next special military operation.
        micik 10mo ago
        oh boy. you served GP a portion so generous they'll have plenty left over to take home and chew on for a while. that last sentence rung like a bell & will reverberate until Larry Ellison's police drones follow you home because you blocked the drive-in of a Larry-owned fastfood franchise by way of a peaceful sit-in, protesting the mistreatment of human workers by robot overseers at Larry's Lasagna, nation-wide. orwell it not come to that?
        FeloniousHam 10mo ago
        "big capital" does not have the monopoly on violence (except in a dictatorship, through connections to the "big man").
    - Atlas667 10mo ago
      A rich billionaire has millions of times more political power than you. You are living in a dictatorship right now. The dictatorship of capital. And just because our culture does not draw a line to differentiate capitalists and workers doesnt mean a difference doesnt exist. Capitalists arent "just another citizen like you or me", but thats what they want us to think. It keeps the dream alive and the story going. Oh "its us against the government". lol. Really? Im telling you. The capitalists, the wealthy are the government.
- r00fus 10mo ago
  What form of government do you think we live in? Where laws are routinely ignored by our "leadership" and bribery is essentially legal and we have our own "oligarchs"? The US initiates wars and supports war crimes as policy - dictatorship? We're far beyond that.
  - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
    This is a strange response to a comment about censorship and nationalization of the media.
    - KetoManx64 10mo ago
      Considering the Biden administration pressured Facebook and Twitter to shadownban people/organizations they didn't like, TikTok being forced to sell to a US company, which has a literal shitton of goverment contracts and CIA ties.. the US is not that far away from Russia. Russia is just more open about it.
      - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
        It is funny that you are comparing the scope of covid misinformation bans to Russia's broad censorship of international media. Ultimately, though, you should evaluate the system rather than the efforts of a single individual. Because the social media bans were litigated. Wouldn't TikTok being sold to a company that the government trusts be an indication that the concern over access to Americans' data (rather than the message) is a genuine one?
        KetoManx64 10mo ago
        They're both censoring what individuals and organizations are allowed to say online and what their citizens are allowed to read/hear..? Just because they took a different approach and pressured companies without telling the public doesn't change that fact. So you think the government forced TikTok to sell it's US operations to Oracle, the company with CIA ties, that has been caught spying on it's customers data before, and who's CEO proudly said "Citizens will be on their best behavior,” and “because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” is about" data privacy"? https://www.iccl.ie/news/class-action-against-oracle/ https://www.iccl.ie/news/class-action-against-oracle/
benterix 10mo ago
I have mixed feelings about this. On the other hand, developments like Deepseek are clearly marks of progress and practically a gift to the society, and it's a good thing. The Chinese are also creating and maintaining many valuable open source projects (although they might not be that popular in the West due to security concerns, which is a different lengthy topic). So everybody wins, right? On the other hand... People in the West rarely get the taste of what happens if someone deeply immoral gets to the top. The closest we got is Trump who might be an arrogant egoistic asshole, but he's very far from deciding to kill thousands of people to fulfill his ambitions. Nevertheless, normal sensitive people feel abhorred when they hear or see how immigrants are treated and so on. Imagine this developed decade after decade, also using modern tech, into a cold machine an ordinary person is powerless against. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it but imagine your whole life, and often of your family, can be destroyed in an instant because you found yourself in a wrong place, you made a wrong comment, you expressed your opinion too openly. You were relaxed because maybe you did similar things in the past but you still lived a normal life; then at that particular moment it ended abruptly and there is no recourse. Nobody can save you and you know it's all finished. In the West there is nothing close to that.
- RomanPushkin 10mo ago
  > In the West there is nothing close to that. Well, actually, the whole cancel culture dynamic is a softer alternative to what you just described. And it doesn’t even require you to be the actor — it can be your spouse, your child, whoever. One tweet and you can lose your job, your house, your marriage, especially in an economy like this it hits hard. It really is the same idea: "your whole life, and often your family’s life, can be destroyed in an instant." You won’t go to jail, but your life can still become miserable. Of course, the big difference is jail time — and that matters. I'm familiar with cases where a 30-year-old woman was sentenced to more than 10 years just for donating $20 to Ukrainian forces (she was traveling to her mom's funeral and got caught). And at the end of the day, all of this is politics. If you're smart enough and in Russia or China, you can learn to navigate it. But there's never a guarantee. You can still end up as "лёд под ногами майора" ("ice under the major's feet"), as the famous Russian punk rock singer put it.

shevy-java 10mo ago

> Seeing a corporation lose control over the Internet But the state controls the flow of information in a dictatorship. So to me this seems more a lose-lose scenario than a lose-win or win-win.

Atlas667 10mo ago
You're simplifying too much. So to you its the state VS who? The rich billionaires + us? The rich billionaires are the state. We're the ones with no real representation. The fundamental divide is workers vs capitalists, not simply people vs government.
- theshrike79 10mo ago
  A rich billionaire can still be affected by shareholders. If they stop providing shareholder value (due to mass boycotts or public scandals), they have to change. If it's a Putin-style dictator who has spent a quarter century digging his claws into every facet of the country, there's literally nothing you can do that doesn't involve physical violence to change things.
  - M95D 10mo ago
    > A rich billionaire can still be affected by shareholders. A rich billioneaire is a shareholder. > If they stop providing shareholder value [...] they have to change. But we (the small people) don't care about the shareholder value. Shareholder value is often contrary to what we (the small people) value, so expect change for the worse. > due to mass boycotts or public scandals Sorry, what? > has spent a quarter century digging his claws into every facet of the country Well, capitalists (as a group) spent 100+ years doing the same, so ...
    - notarget137 10mo ago
      It's baffling for me living in Russia that modern western societies see everything wrong with dictatorship from a goverment but nothing or almost nothing wrong with dictatorship from big capital. E.g. you can't change your break pads unless you go to authorized repair (literal control over your private property and how you use it) and big platforms banning you from multiple public forums because you said a big no-no word (deplatforming and cross-platform restrictions are a thing)
      - mingus88 10mo ago
        You don’t have to look very hard to see an enormous number of people expressing discontent at the latter. To speak to your examples, the right to repair, farmers vs John Deere, the exodus from X to Bluesky, the rise of alternative messaging platforms, the outright murder of CEOs on the street and the beatification of the primary suspect on social media…just to scratch the surface These are all headlines straight from HN and the fact that you even know about them is the difference. The fundamental difference is while we both lack any real power to change this, under an actual dictatorship people get jailed or worse for that expression. Let’s touch base on this again when Dictatorship from big capital means Disney puts me in prison for dissent against the mouse and then offers me clemency if I go to the front lines in their next special military operation.
        micik 10mo ago
        oh boy. you served GP a portion so generous they'll have plenty left over to take home and chew on for a while. that last sentence rung like a bell & will reverberate until Larry Ellison's police drones follow you home because you blocked the drive-in of a Larry-owned fastfood franchise by way of a peaceful sit-in, protesting the mistreatment of human workers by robot overseers at Larry's Lasagna, nation-wide. orwell it not come to that?
      - FeloniousHam 10mo ago
        "big capital" does not have the monopoly on violence (except in a dictatorship, through connections to the "big man").
  - Atlas667 10mo ago
    A rich billionaire has millions of times more political power than you. You are living in a dictatorship right now. The dictatorship of capital. And just because our culture does not draw a line to differentiate capitalists and workers doesnt mean a difference doesnt exist. Capitalists arent "just another citizen like you or me", but thats what they want us to think. It keeps the dream alive and the story going. Oh "its us against the government". lol. Really? Im telling you. The capitalists, the wealthy are the government.
r00fus 10mo ago
What form of government do you think we live in? Where laws are routinely ignored by our "leadership" and bribery is essentially legal and we have our own "oligarchs"? The US initiates wars and supports war crimes as policy - dictatorship? We're far beyond that.
- cosmicgadget 10mo ago
  This is a strange response to a comment about censorship and nationalization of the media.
  - KetoManx64 10mo ago
    Considering the Biden administration pressured Facebook and Twitter to shadownban people/organizations they didn't like, TikTok being forced to sell to a US company, which has a literal shitton of goverment contracts and CIA ties.. the US is not that far away from Russia. Russia is just more open about it.
    - cosmicgadget 10mo ago
      It is funny that you are comparing the scope of covid misinformation bans to Russia's broad censorship of international media. Ultimately, though, you should evaluate the system rather than the efforts of a single individual. Because the social media bans were litigated. Wouldn't TikTok being sold to a company that the government trusts be an indication that the concern over access to Americans' data (rather than the message) is a genuine one?
      - KetoManx64 10mo ago
        They're both censoring what individuals and organizations are allowed to say online and what their citizens are allowed to read/hear..? Just because they took a different approach and pressured companies without telling the public doesn't change that fact. So you think the government forced TikTok to sell it's US operations to Oracle, the company with CIA ties, that has been caught spying on it's customers data before, and who's CEO proudly said "Citizens will be on their best behavior,” and “because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” is about" data privacy"? https://www.iccl.ie/news/class-action-against-oracle/ https://www.iccl.ie/news/class-action-against-oracle/

benterix 10mo ago

I have mixed feelings about this. On the other hand, developments like Deepseek are clearly marks of progress and practically a gift to the society, and it's a good thing. The Chinese are also creating and maintaining many valuable open source projects (although they might not be that popular in the West due to security concerns, which is a different lengthy topic). So everybody wins, right? On the other hand... People in the West rarely get the taste of what happens if someone deeply immoral gets to the top. The closest we got is Trump who might be an arrogant egoistic asshole, but he's very far from deciding to kill thousands of people to fulfill his ambitions. Nevertheless, normal sensitive people feel abhorred when they hear or see how immigrants are treated and so on. Imagine this developed decade after decade, also using modern tech, into a cold machine an ordinary person is powerless against. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it but imagine your whole life, and often of your family, can be destroyed in an instant because you found yourself in a wrong place, you made a wrong comment, you expressed your opinion too openly. You were relaxed because maybe you did similar things in the past but you still lived a normal life; then at that particular moment it ended abruptly and there is no recourse. Nobody can save you and you know it's all finished. In the West there is nothing close to that.

RomanPushkin 10mo ago
> In the West there is nothing close to that. Well, actually, the whole cancel culture dynamic is a softer alternative to what you just described. And it doesn’t even require you to be the actor — it can be your spouse, your child, whoever. One tweet and you can lose your job, your house, your marriage, especially in an economy like this it hits hard. It really is the same idea: "your whole life, and often your family’s life, can be destroyed in an instant." You won’t go to jail, but your life can still become miserable. Of course, the big difference is jail time — and that matters. I'm familiar with cases where a 30-year-old woman was sentenced to more than 10 years just for donating $20 to Ukrainian forces (she was traveling to her mom's funeral and got caught). And at the end of the day, all of this is politics. If you're smart enough and in Russia or China, you can learn to navigate it. But there's never a guarantee. You can still end up as "лёд под ногами майора" ("ice under the major's feet"), as the famous Russian punk rock singer put it.