Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

United States vs. Google

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 353 posts

Re: United States vs. Google

#151

Post by bwilliams18 »

galimaufry wrote: post #138
rland wrote: post #109

> there is a strain of political thought in America, independent of political party (although traditionally associated with Democrats), that is inherently allergic to concentrated power — monopoly in the populist sense, if not the legal one. > Hatred of monopoly is one of the oldest American political habits and like most profound traditions In what country does the author live? Americans are so used to concentrated…

> In what country does the author live? Singapore, for what it's worth.

Taiwan.

Re: United States vs. Google

#152

Post by dudul »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #134
sudosysgen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just grappling with the question. How can we call this democracy if most Americans want many extremely important things for decades and they don't happen? Isn't the point of democracy that the people have power?

Democracy only works well with an informed and educated populace and we have been defunding education for a decade. Add in the power of lobbyists and the newfound power of tech giants to inflict misery on humanity and you get the current “corporate rule” we are experiencing. https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/a-punishi...

I see this argument mentioned often, but what would really change with a well informed and educated population? They would still need to elect representatives from 2 different parties. Representatives who would still operate in the current framework. We would still see lobbies, bad short term policies implemented to be reelected, etc.

Re: United States vs. Google

#153

Post by d1zzy »

bumblebritches5 wrote: post #95
wwwdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree, but part of me also thinks that if a company builds the world's best mobile OS and search engine and ad platform and video streaming service and internet browser and mapping service... well, good for them! They built the best products and it seems like it would ultimately be anti-consumer to do anything about it. It's different if a company like Google establishes its dominance via one great product…

Except Google didn't build those things except search. They bought Android in 2005, Youtube in 2004? and all of their other, non-search successes.

People say this as if the entire (or majority) of Android's success rests with what they initially purchased. In my opinion it has very little to do with that and a lot more to do with the billions of dollars invested into developing, extending the platform, creating and supporting APIs, establishing contracts with OEMs, developing apps, etc etc. Android wasn't some magic thing that anyone that purchased it would have been sure to be successful. Just look at how well MS did with Nokia's purchase.

So yes, Google did purchase Android but Google didn't purchase their mobile success story by purchasing Android.

Re: United States vs. Google

#154

Post by bobthepanda »

sudosysgen wrote: post #150
munk-a wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO democracy isn't working in the US since the political parties were whittled down to just two actors and they realized they can just fight over social issues and have nearly identical stances on economic issues. This is one of the reasons I've been advocating hard to keep IRV in my local district (Chittenden County VT) and why I'm so happy to see Democrats, Republicans and Progressives all competing in the electio…

Actually yes, this is a good point, a large part of it can be attributed to the FPTP system enforcing two parties that can endlessly justify themselves by being marginally better on some issues (in this case, social issues). Do you see a possible path for something like IRV nationwide?

States are expressly empowered to choose how they run elections, although the current FPTP (at least for the House) is actually a law of Congress.

That being said, the major issue with relying on states to do this, is that the first states to do this will probably lose out. In a parallel universe with orange and green parties, if, say, the orange state decides to move to proportional electoral college but the green state does not, then the green party will benefit because they get both split votes from the yellow state and the total votes for the green state.

Re: United States vs. Google

#155

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

munk-a wrote: post #145
sudosysgen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just grappling with the question. How can we call this democracy if most Americans want many extremely important things for decades and they don't happen? Isn't the point of democracy that the people have power?

IMO democracy isn't working in the US since the political parties were whittled down to just two actors and they realized they can just fight over social issues and have nearly identical stances on economic issues. This is one of the reasons I've been advocating hard to keep IRV in my local district (Chittenden County VT) and why I'm so happy to see Democrats, Republicans and Progressives all competing in the electio…

The rhetoric of electoralism and the idea that votes for a third party are "thrown away" is intensely corrosive to representative democracy. I agree that ranked-preference voting looks like the best fix for our current hyper-stable two-party system, but it's going to be an incredible uphill battle to expand this style of voting.

Re: United States vs. Google

#156

Post by NationalPark »

Jgrubb wrote: post #132
sudosysgen wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just grappling with the question. How can we call this democracy if most Americans want many extremely important things for decades and they don't happen? Isn't the point of democracy that the people have power?

I just really want to be the first to say "it's a republic, not a democracy!" because nobody can punch me while I'm quarantined.

Republics are a subset of democracy by the definitions the people original using those terms went by, that's why people punch you when you say this. Personally I think that's overkill, I prefer to issue backhanded anonymous admonitions via HN comment.

Re: United States vs. Google

#157

Post by d1zzy »

munk-a wrote: post #103
jabbanobodder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're not cornered in. You might think they have a large influence over what is happening online (and they do), but you as an individual have a choice if you want to use the services they provide. Also this large influence is additionally strengthened by the fact that no other company can offer services (above mentioned) that match the quality of the product Google is giving.

I can't speak to all of the points but when it comes to video hosting - no you don't. Content creators can't move off of youtube since it's more of a discovery service than a hosting service and it has locked viewers into its platform - it doesn't offer any way for dailymotion, vimeo, nebula, acorn, amazon, netflix, twitch or dlive to promote videos on their home page and due to their enormous market share content cr…

Twitch, however, seems to be doing great without being able to advertise their videos on Youtube.

This is more of a discussion of walled gardens than typical monopoly abuse.

Re: United States vs. Google

#159

Post by askl56 »

wonder_er wrote: post #102

At least Google's monopoly isn't based on coercion and threats of violence. I with the US Government didn't have a monopoly on coercion and threats of violence. It's hard for me to give a sh*t about the Department of Justice's take on _anything_ when they still prosecute drug possession. Repeat after me: - Google cannot legally kill people or put them in boxes. - The DoJ and it's subsidiaries kills people and puts th…

History has shown that the monopoly on violence always exists. If the government did not have it then someone else would. I would advise you to live somewhere outside of the West before you relish the possibility of the state relinquishing its monopoly on violence.

Re: United States vs. Google

#160

Post by Filligree »

bumblebritches5 wrote: post #95
wwwdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree, but part of me also thinks that if a company builds the world's best mobile OS and search engine and ad platform and video streaming service and internet browser and mapping service... well, good for them! They built the best products and it seems like it would ultimately be anti-consumer to do anything about it. It's different if a company like Google establishes its dominance via one great product…

Except Google didn't build those things except search. They bought Android in 2005, Youtube in 2004? and all of their other, non-search successes.

Didn't GMail start as a 20% project?
Post reply on HN