By "we" does he mean the UK? How do you nationalise a multinational?
We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
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Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#12Imagine 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.
There are already national regulations and taxes that apply to Google, Facebook and Amazon. Hell, there's a story on the front page right now about that.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#13The politics of this discussion is really interesting. I think this might be the only substantial policy topic where The (progressive leaning) Guardian and (fairly right-wing) Breitbart[1] both push roughly the same approach.
The thing both have in common is that they are media destinations, and are deadly afraid of the the power Google and Facebook have to direct traffic.
Not sure why Amazon is included in this though..
[1] http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/07/28/report-steve-bannon...
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#14That'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.
You keep saying "not something that free societies do" as though that phrase in itself has meaning, but fail to explain why. From a socialist's pov putting a profitable industry in the domain of _everyone_ and sharing the profits is freeing capital from the few and providing an (more)equal share to all. It's not capitalism but that does not mean it isn't "freedom".
What is "freedom"? Market competition The way Amazon, Uber etc have been set up, using hundreds of millions in investment, able to operate against smaller competitors for literally years without breaking even until the opposition is crushed and consumers are herded into being customers... is that freedom? Maybe for the already established wealthy. For everyone else it's an unfair advantage. There is no freedom for the average Joe to start a publishing an distribution powerhouse
I agree it's a terrible idea to nationalize these companies, but citing 'freedom' as the reason why is not why it's a bad idea. It's a bad idea because it would lead to excessive bureaucracy, higher prices and is unlikely to benefit the competition much. It might help governments get those companies to pay some tax though.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#15That'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.
Regulation, e.g. of utilities, in the in U.S. is sort of a form of nationalization. Technically they are not nationalized, but since they have all kinds of requirements, including needing to apply for rate changes, they aren't exactly normal, either. And if you don't have control of your prices, do you really have a capitalistic business?
But aside from that, 3 people at Google get to effectively dictate what the world will see on the Internet via the top 10 on the search. 1 guy at Facebook gets to dictate what is on my Facebook page. (I certainly don't get any choice in the matter, beyond banning people) This sounds a lot like a dictatorship, and is this what a free society does? Might a free society decide that it is in the society's best interest to have social media be governed by elected officials, and to not be scientifically designed (via A/B testing) to be addictive?
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#16I 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?…
It's more than who has access to the data, it's also who sets the policies for acceptable content and the direction of the products.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#17Actually, I think behind the nationalisation idea, which doesn't seem workable given the circumstances, there's an interesting thought: these companies are sitting on basic infrastructure so instead of treating them like other companies, perhaps we should treat them like utilities.
Note that this piece appears in The Guardian. I don't know how it works in the US, but I'm of the impression that in many European countries, basic infrastructure like energy or transportation or communication links is either very tightly regulated or owned by a non-profit organisation that in turn is owned by either the local consumers, the local authorities, or by the state.
DNS operates in this way, as far as I'm aware.
Can we move in this direction with things like search (Google) and personal publishing (Facebook)?
Perhaps if the tech community delivers the software, and the societies themselves start a serious discussion about it and delivered the users?
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#18I think a lot of the "oh my gosh nationalisation is such an awful idea" / "not in my free society" comments are missing the point.
I too believe nationalisation is a bad idea in this case, but given the enormous reaction it would bring, can you imagine how awful the situation appears to be from the authors (any many other non-tech-bubble) peoples perspective to even contemplate such a thing? Let alone write an opinion piece in a national news paper. You can argue it is a bad idea all you like, but ultimately, Facebook Google and Amazon are building something that scares people. Scared people do stupid things.
If the tech bubble does not look at articles like this as symptoms of a growing scepticism, or a check on the implicit (and often abused) trust of their users, then the backlash is only going to grow. The tech bubble inhabitants will have only themselves to blame.
You can argue all you like about whether people are logically correct to fear the big three. What matters is that they are fearful, and how the bubble reacts to that.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#19That'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.
Regulation, e.g. of utilities, in the in U.S. is sort of a form of nationalization. Technically they are not nationalized, but since they have all kinds of requirements, including needing to apply for rate changes, they aren't exactly normal, either. And if you don't have control of your prices, do you really have a capitalistic business? But aside from that, 3 people at Google get to effectively dictate what the wor…
>This sounds a lot like a dictatorship, and is this what a free society does?
Rediculous, nobody is forcing you to use Google or Facebook.
Re: We Need to Nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon
#20That'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.
Agreed 100%.
Does this mean if you ever built a company, and it gets too big, it will get nationalized?
And what will keep the law from evolving to nationalizing slightly smaller businesses as time goes.