We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
theguardian.com
We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
1–10 of 237 posts
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#2I totally agree that Google, Facebook and Amazon have too much power and too little accountability.
However they're all global companies and as bad as they are, I trust all of them more than I trust the US government (I am not American). Can you even imagine how their business would work when these are state entities? You're no longer buying ad placements from a marketing company, you're buying them from the US government. You're no longer selling product through a third-party storefront, you're selling through the US government. Google and Facebook, two of the most important information gateways, are now controlled by the US Congress and Senate. All that information on people all over the world is now in the hands of the US government.
The very thought of this terrifies me.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#3Wow this guy does not mention taxation and the huge advantage governments bestow upon large companies by making it possible to engineer taxes away, an opportunity much less open to small companies. Instead he wants a merger with the biggest responsibility-shirking enterprise of all: the state!
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#4The author spends a long time talking about how companies are planning to make money (shocking news!) on AI, and then concludes with "What’s the answer? Nationalization!"
But he forgot to ask the question he's trying to answer.
This article doesn't even make sense.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#5Governments have broken up large companies in the past, and that works out pretty well. Why suggest nationalization over that? The article only mentions “huge economies of scale”, but doesn’t do a good job convincing me that there isn’t room for broken up Amazons, Google’s, etc.
On the other hand, nationalization is a terrible idea for so many reason. It also goes against the fabric of the American economonic system.
I know it’s opinion, but hard to believe that the guardian published this with how poorly written it is.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#6That's the _worst_ idea I've heard this week.
First of all, "Nationalizing" corporations is not something that free societies do.
Second, the effect of this would be to further stifle competition from smaller businesses. Which is also not something that free societies do.
I question the motives of the author.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#7> For the briefest moment in March 2014, Facebook’s dominance looked under threat. Ello, amid much hype, presented itself as the non-corporate alternative to Facebook.
Okay, this is a terrible opener. Ello never appeared to have any greater traction than as a hipster fad, much less posing a material threat to Facebook.
Also, you can not nationalise any of the companies listed, because they are not British nor of Commonwealth country origin. Perhaps we could nationalize, but that's not really Trump's style.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#8Governments have broken up large companies in the past, and that works out pretty well. Why suggest nationalization over that? The article only mentions “huge economies of scale”, but doesn’t do a good job convincing me that there isn’t room for broken up Amazons, Google’s, etc. On the other hand, nationalization is a terrible idea for so many reason. It also goes against the fabric of the American economonic system.…
Considering their irresponsible painting of Whatsapp's end-to-end encryption re-key scheme as a "backdoor", I no longer can be surprised by The Guardian's lack of editorial quality.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#9Imagine there would only be only one car company where you could by good, affordable cars for some reason. Now image this car company would not be an American one. I'd say there were national regulations, taxations and tariffs in about zero seconds.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#10I totally agree that Google, Facebook and Amazon have too much power and too little accountability. However they're all global companies and as bad as they are, I trust all of them more than I trust the US government (I am not American). Can you even imagine how their business would work when these are state entities? You're no longer buying ad placements from a marketing company, you're buying them from the US gover…
I'm not sure it would be such a huge difference from now, when the US government can go through the NSA to acquire data from internet companies. Surely if you had a document the contents of which you wouldn't want the US government to know, you already wouldn't put it on Google Drive?
But you raise another important point. What happens to all the infrastructure and personnel that Google or Amazon have outside the US? Ireland and the Netherlands probably don't feel the same way about hosting a branch of the US Government as they do about a global corporation, and vice versa the US government wouldn't want the same level of scrutiny from foreign governments that Google does. Would European countries attempt to nationalize their local Facebook datacenters? Would it effectively break those colossi apart along national borders?