5 ms·

The big reason it's "obvious" when tech megacorps do it is because big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up

The big reason it's "obvious" when tech megacorps do it is because big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up and running and legitimized like medical, civil engineering, energy, agriculture, chemical, etc, do. If this were 3M making nasty stuff for Northrop to put in bombs and drop on brown people or Exxon scheming up something bad in Alaska or bulldozing a national park for solar panels or some other legacy BigCo doing slimy things that are in the interests of them and the government but against the interest of the public they'd have 40yr of preexisting trade group publications, bought and paid for academic and media chatter, etc, etc, that they could point to and say "look, this is fine because the stuff we paid into in advance to legitimize these sorts of things as they come up says it is" though obviously they'd use very different words.

SecretDreams 6mo ago
> If this were 3M making nasty stuff for Northrop to put in bombs and drop on brown people or Exxon scheming up something bad in Alaska or bulldozing a national park for solar panels or some other legacy BigCo doing slimy things that are in the interests of them and the government but against the interest of the public they'd have 40yr of preexisting trade group publications, bought and paid for academic and media chatter, etc, etc, they could point to and say "look, this is fine because the stuff we paid into in advance to legitimize these sorts of things as they come up says it is" though obviously they'd use very different words. My friend, this paragraph needed some periods. I could not follow what you were trying to say - but it seemed interesting enough to consider retyping.
- Vachyas 6mo ago
  Good comment, and I agree lol I read it twice (admittedly quickly) but couldn't grasp the point even though I felt like it was there.
  - fwip 6mo ago
    It's not really hard to read. If this were a traditionally evil company, the work to legalize the evil things would have started forty years ago.
    - SecretDreams 6mo ago
      Ya I roughly understand that the OP wanted to convey this message, but it was absolutely a hard read the way they conveyed it.
GeekyBear 6mo ago
> big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up and running The career officials in the Obama FTC started proceedings for an antitrust lawsuit against Google over a decade ago. The political appointees (of both parties) shut it down. It seems to me that regulatory capture has been working for Google for some time now.
- tombert 6mo ago
  I mean it's basically an extremely high-stakes version of the (possibly apocryphal) Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Most people (at least the people I've talked to, which admittedly is somewhat of a lefty bubble but I think even more generally) agree that companies getting to or close to "monopoly" status is a pretty bad thing, and that they should be broken up. Political candidates get a lot of social credit for claiming that they're going to do exactly that. The moment that they actually get into a position where they actually could do something about it, they suddenly remember who their campaign contributors are, and can then create reasons to avoid actually solving any of these problems. Very occasionally we have successes in this field, like the breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T), but of course both of these sort of became toothless since we basically allowed both of these companies to re-acquire each other and form the same problems again. There are similar reasons as to why politicians will occasionally push for regulations to not allow themselves to invest in companies that their policies affect, but somehow manages to never get through. Politicians are very rarely punished for breaking political promises, but often rewarded for making the promises. They are also rewarded by their corporate overlords for breaking these promises.
  - Aerroon 6mo ago
    >they suddenly remember who their campaign contributors are, and can then create reasons to avoid actually solving any of these problems. There are very real concerns when you break up a company though. Rockefeller's wealth shot up a lot when Standard Oil was broken up. That could easily make a politician that's "politician out to get the big companies" into "politician making billionaires richer."

SecretDreams 6mo ago

> If this were 3M making nasty stuff for Northrop to put in bombs and drop on brown people or Exxon scheming up something bad in Alaska or bulldozing a national park for solar panels or some other legacy BigCo doing slimy things that are in the interests of them and the government but against the interest of the public they'd have 40yr of preexisting trade group publications, bought and paid for academic and media chatter, etc, etc, they could point to and say "look, this is fine because the stuff we paid into in advance to legitimize these sorts of things as they come up says it is" though obviously they'd use very different words. My friend, this paragraph needed some periods. I could not follow what you were trying to say - but it seemed interesting enough to consider retyping.

Vachyas 6mo ago
Good comment, and I agree lol I read it twice (admittedly quickly) but couldn't grasp the point even though I felt like it was there.
- fwip 6mo ago
  It's not really hard to read. If this were a traditionally evil company, the work to legalize the evil things would have started forty years ago.
  - SecretDreams 6mo ago
    Ya I roughly understand that the OP wanted to convey this message, but it was absolutely a hard read the way they conveyed it.

GeekyBear 6mo ago

> big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up and running The career officials in the Obama FTC started proceedings for an antitrust lawsuit against Google over a decade ago. The political appointees (of both parties) shut it down. It seems to me that regulatory capture has been working for Google for some time now.

tombert 6mo ago
I mean it's basically an extremely high-stakes version of the (possibly apocryphal) Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Most people (at least the people I've talked to, which admittedly is somewhat of a lefty bubble but I think even more generally) agree that companies getting to or close to "monopoly" status is a pretty bad thing, and that they should be broken up. Political candidates get a lot of social credit for claiming that they're going to do exactly that. The moment that they actually get into a position where they actually could do something about it, they suddenly remember who their campaign contributors are, and can then create reasons to avoid actually solving any of these problems. Very occasionally we have successes in this field, like the breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T), but of course both of these sort of became toothless since we basically allowed both of these companies to re-acquire each other and form the same problems again. There are similar reasons as to why politicians will occasionally push for regulations to not allow themselves to invest in companies that their policies affect, but somehow manages to never get through. Politicians are very rarely punished for breaking political promises, but often rewarded for making the promises. They are also rewarded by their corporate overlords for breaking these promises.
- Aerroon 6mo ago
  >they suddenly remember who their campaign contributors are, and can then create reasons to avoid actually solving any of these problems. There are very real concerns when you break up a company though. Rockefeller's wealth shot up a lot when Standard Oil was broken up. That could easily make a politician that's "politician out to get the big companies" into "politician making billionaires richer."