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Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

nytimes.com

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Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#71

Post by jeffreyrogers »

I'm probably in the minority, but the negatives don't seem that bad when compared to the benefits we get from the tech companies: free email, free or cheap access to information on almost anything you could be interested in, junk entertainment that people seem to enjoy. The negatives are less tangible: giving up your personal data (this is complicated by the fact that the data didn't exist until you used their services), targeted advertising, I'm not sure what else there is.

It's easy to criticize things, but it's harder to come up with an alternative system that would provide many of the same benefits. I'm not defending the current legal and regulatory system that large corporations operate in. I think they receive large amounts of corporate welfare from the government that are harmful overall, but that's an economy wide problem, not one confined to the tech industry. It also has more straightforward solutions: begin eliminating some of the subsidies these businesses receive.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#72

Post by Caillebotte »

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #64
fredley wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A viewpoint: charity is power. These companies have control over where this money goes, and are likely to spend more on things that make them look good, or provide long term benefit to the company over things that don't. Another approach might be to take the charity money away from the companies, and have those funds distributed to worthy causes by a democratically appointed body instead: giving the money to causes t…

> A viewpoint: charity is power. These companies have control over where this money goes, and are likely to spend more on things that make them look good, or provide long term benefit to the company over things that don't. They are more likely to spend it on things that make them look good, which has absolutely nothing to do with my point that these companies are helping people , even if their primary goal is not to…

Yes, I agree they are helping people. But who are they helping? They don't seem to be helping the little people like that Tanzanian hospital the way the developers did who found a free software solution. It seems we weaponize situations of desperate need in order to accomplish our own means. If these companies truly cared for the people they are helping, they wouldn't even bother with the PR side of it at all. Their help certainly makes a huge difference, I agree, but intention is everything, and if they intend to aid their own purposes, that is what will see the most benefit from their efforts.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#73

Post by nkozyra »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #71

I'm probably in the minority, but the negatives don't seem that bad when compared to the benefits we get from the tech companies: free email, free or cheap access to information on almost anything you could be interested in, junk entertainment that people seem to enjoy. The negatives are less tangible: giving up your personal data (this is complicated by the fact that the data didn't exist until you used their servic…

> free email, free or cheap access to information on almost anything you could be interested in, junk entertainment that people seem to enjoy.

> giving up your personal data

You just described precisely why it's not free.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#74

Post by wilsonnb2 »

Caillebotte wrote: post #72
wilsonnb2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A viewpoint: charity is power. These companies have control over where this money goes, and are likely to spend more on things that make them look good, or provide long term benefit to the company over things that don't. They are more likely to spend it on things that make them look good, which has absolutely nothing to do with my point that these companies are helping people , even if their primary goal is not to…

Yes, I agree they are helping people. But who are they helping? They don't seem to be helping the little people like that Tanzanian hospital the way the developers did who found a free software solution. It seems we weaponize situations of desperate need in order to accomplish our own means. If these companies truly cared for the people they are helping, they wouldn't even bother with the PR side of it at all. Their…

> intention is everything

I'm sure the people that received Google's millions of dollars would disagree with that statement.

> If these companies truly cared for the people they are helping, they wouldn't even bother with the PR side of it at all.

Why? Does getting good PR from helping someone diminish the help that said person receives?

> if they intend to aid their own purposes, that is what will see the most benefit from their efforts.

I have not once disagreed with this statement - companies primary goal is to make a profit. However, they also provide a tremendous amount of help to those who need it and I don't think people should dismiss that so easily.

> They don't seem to be helping the little people like that Tanzanian hospital the way the developers did who found a free software solution.

It's easier for us to grasp a situation in which a few developers help out a few people who need it. It's not easy for us to parse "$150 million in charitable donations" in the same way, but I assure you there are thousands of "helping the little guy" stories you can craft out of $150 million.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#75

Post by randcraw »

nine_k wrote: post #50
white-flame wrote: post #26

The "tech giants" are creating and controlling core forms of communication, both interpersonal and broadcast/public. That's too important and fundamental to the health of society to allow it to be arbitrarily engineered, filtered, and slanted for maximizing profit. If they were acting like common carriers, it would be a completely different issue. But they're not; they have business models that necessitate the manipu…

I don't buy this argument. The internet providers are de facto pretty close to the common carrier status (except maybe in cases of huge scale, like Netflix or google, where explicit net neutrality might be desirable). There are no huge technical or financial barriers to entry if you want to build a platform for communication over the internet, nothing comparable to e.g. telecom networks (either in 1950s or now). The…

> Would you like newspapers (e.g. that very NYT) be governmentally regulated...

Specious argument. Internet providers are not content providers. Regulating content is not what's proposed. Those who provide access to content most certainly SHOULD be regulated. They're a common carrier, and no one with a profit motive has any business constraining access to content provided by others. That attitude befits each castle independently taxing passer-by river traffic.

If we're going to allow ISPs to tax us arbitrarily, we'd damned well better have more of them to choose from than the monopoly most of us 'enjoy' now.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#77

Post by fosk »

Confiks wrote: post #65
nine_k wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy this argument. The internet providers are de facto pretty close to the common carrier status (except maybe in cases of huge scale, like Netflix or google, where explicit net neutrality might be desirable). There are no huge technical or financial barriers to entry if you want to build a platform for communication over the internet, nothing comparable to e.g. telecom networks (either in 1950s or now). The…

> Would you like newspapers (e.g. that very NYT) be governmentally regulated because they are "too important for society"? It's dangerously close to the late Soviet Union. I can agree with the first part of your argument, but you're going overboard here by declaring any form of regulation to be totalitarian in nature. Considerations on the interests of companies versus the interests of society as a whole can be made…

> any form of regulation to be totalitarian in nature

If something can be done, it will eventually be done.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#78

Post by lumberjack »

dapf73 wrote: post #67
white-flame wrote: post #26

The "tech giants" are creating and controlling core forms of communication, both interpersonal and broadcast/public. That's too important and fundamental to the health of society to allow it to be arbitrarily engineered, filtered, and slanted for maximizing profit. If they were acting like common carriers, it would be a completely different issue. But they're not; they have business models that necessitate the manipu…

It's not like they are pointing guns at people, are they?

Facebook and Google alone could effectively change "facts" to suit their political agendas. They alone could easily heavily influence the democratic process all over the world. That is far more dangerous than some guys with guns.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#79

Post by tomjen3 »

white-flame wrote: post #26

The "tech giants" are creating and controlling core forms of communication, both interpersonal and broadcast/public. That's too important and fundamental to the health of society to allow it to be arbitrarily engineered, filtered, and slanted for maximizing profit. If they were acting like common carriers, it would be a completely different issue. But they're not; they have business models that necessitate the manipu…

That has been true ever since "I supply the pictures, you supply the war"; "if it leads it bleeds" and lets not forget the main.

The only reason people are talking about it now is that newspapers are no longer in a position to dictatate terms and that, gasp, ugly discusting nerds have finally gotten a say.

Of course there are problems with the current crop of corporations in charge (and it is going to get worse, since you could have many large newspapers in the US, but there is only going to be one dominating social media platform, although which one it is can change and most certainly will), but that doesn't mean the solution is to hand power back to NYT.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#80

Post by bobbygoodlatte »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #71

I'm probably in the minority, but the negatives don't seem that bad when compared to the benefits we get from the tech companies: free email, free or cheap access to information on almost anything you could be interested in, junk entertainment that people seem to enjoy. The negatives are less tangible: giving up your personal data (this is complicated by the fact that the data didn't exist until you used their servic…

I agree, except for one potentially huge negative: they might be eroding our ability to have functional democracies.

The tech giants' business models strongly incentivize maximizing the time a user spends within their app. To do that, their algorithms try to find the most engaging content to show you.

The most engaging political content is often hyper-partisan, outrage-driven, and unconcerned with truth. These algorithms encourage bad faith participation by all players: media outlets, individuals, and politicians. Political ideas are often shared not out of deep seated belief, but in hopes of distribution.

Democracy seems predicated on the idea that most participants will engage in good faith. Whether we like it or not, our civic discourse has moved over to platforms that seem to incentivize bad faith participation. I think that's cause for alarm.

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