Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful? • Hacker News Board

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#131

Post by forgottenpass » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #101

super-serial wrote: post #99

The ISPs and mobile carriers are too powerful. At least Google/Facebook have to innovate, or buy companies like Instagram or Whatsapp that innovate. ISPs get their billions in revenue from monopoly. All they have to do is buy off politicans and put people like Ajit Pai in power. Now that they've started to acquire tech companies like Yahoo, no one can stop them from giving preferential treatment to their content and…

I'm still baffled by the focus on FANG as too powerful and inescapable, especially from generally left/liberal writers. They're not always friendly or easy to avoid, certainly, but they're far more escapable and far less legislatively malicious than Comcast, AT&T, and their ilk. Obviously lots of people are mad at those companies too, but it's frustrating to see "hit Google with antitrust suits!" getting high-profile…

I'm still baffled by the focus on FANG as too powerful and inescapable

I can stand up an encrypted session to prevent ISPs from having incidental access to my data. I get the exact same service (a dumb bit pipe). Moving from one ISP to another is a lightweight operation that doesn't limit what I can do beyond throughput and latency. I've already switched between 3 different isps today without even noticing, and it will be 5 by the time I go to bed.

The Facebook/Apple/Googles of the world are all designed around vendor lock-in, designing tools such that they always get incidental access to my data, then exploiting that access to the hilt.

Oh, and ISPs get beat up plenty too.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#132

Post by brennanc » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:24 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #123

Am I surprised that the New York times doesn't ask "Have the banking giants grown too powerful?" No I am not. I am also not sure why the NYT feels compelled to bash the Bay Area from time to time but whatever. Do I think there should be more privacy reform? Yes. Do I think there should be more banking reform? Yes. Do I think for a minute that the current state of the world will persist for a decade? Not really.

I don't know if it's necessarily a NY vs. SF thing. I see it as the NYT trying to push a conversation.

Everyone knows that the financial sector is too powerful, and attempts have been made to take action on it (i.e. regulation, albeit relatively unsuccessful). I think this is the first time we're really seeing a public conversation about the power of software fueled by advertising and its implications on privacy and speech - discussion about regulation and policies is coming around for the first time, making it pretty important news to cover.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#133

Post by s73v3r_ » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

sqdbps wrote: post #128

s73v3r_ wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe it's self-destructive to hold our companies accountable for what they do. Many of us also agree with what the EU is doing, and wish our government would get up off it's ass and do the same thing.

The EU is targeting US firms as a protectionist measure, you can read transcripts of their politicians' grandstanding and parroting local lobbyist to get the picture, they're not shy about it.

They're targeting those firms because they're the ones running roughshod over users.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#134

Post by tnecniv » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #68

viridian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American corporations have only been powerhouses capable of dominating the policy aspect of public life for 95-110 years. I know it seems pedantic, but it's annoying to watch people rewrite history. The industrial revolution weakened the power base of a strong American aristocracy, the majority of which had already been crippled after a brutal civil war. These were the ashes upon which corporate America was built.

America didn't really have an aristocracy. It had something that if left unchecked would probably become an aristocracy, but it didn't exist in that form yet.

Depends on your definition of aristocracy. Remember, you used to have land to be able to vote.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#135

Post by bobbygoodlatte » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

fjsolwmv wrote: post #94

bobbygoodlatte wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 algori…

Look up the history of "political machines", "yellow journalism", "fascism". Democracy has always been corrupted because people are inherently not very good.

Sure, but smart phones & social networks see far more user adoption and time spent than any newspaper during the era of yellow journalism. The scale is just incomparable, and potential consequences far greater.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#136

Post by s2g » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

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…

A lot more regulation could be done without actually resorting to censoring media.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#137

Post by s2g » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #87

lumberjack wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Far more dangerous than some guys with guns huh. You mean the hundred million people butchered in the 20th century by governments with guns is better than Google influencing a democratic process. Laughable. There are no public persons or entities that don't change facts to suit their political agendas. That's true at the partisan individual level, that's true at the politician level, that's true at the federal agency…

Yes, far more dangerous.

Control information and you control the populace. You don't need to use guns because the people don't know whats going on, you can prevent people from organizing, you can use misinformation and propaganda to control people. Control of information and control of speech is a massive amount of power. I'd rather google had access to a few nukes, honestly.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#138

Post by s2g » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

fjsolwmv wrote: post #92

tomjen3 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, sinc…

Newspapers were run by the OG ugly disgusting nerds.

Seriously, what an odd comment. OH I'LL SHOW THOSE DUMB JOCKS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Nonsense.

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#139

Post by s2g » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 7:41 PM UTC

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…

Would my life be that much worse if I paid 10 bucks a month for google search?

Re: Have the Tech Giants Grown Too Powerful?

#140

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 8:34 PM UTC

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…

Well it is more the regulation of their constraints on power that is inherently totalitarian exploitable as a power consolidating move - even if the passers don't do it with bad intentions it /will/ be exploited for all it is worth later. Operating under the assumption that every bill should be evaluated as if it will be done in bad faith is wise for the same reason the first rule of networking security is never trust the client.

It would be like ammending the constitution to allow punishing the supreme court for making bad decisions - technically it holds others accountable but that is not what it will be used for.