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United States vs. Google

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301–310 of 353 posts

Re: United States vs. Google

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overlooking many things: 1) You'd be surprised by what people want. As a background principle, Americans don't like government and don't like government regulation: https://news.gallup.com/poll/243662/americans-worry-less-gov... . The percentage of people who want more regulation "of business and industry" hovers around 25%. Even during most of the George W. Bush presidency, those who wanted less regulation su…

This post is well written, sourced, and highlights some of the tricky issues involved. Why is this post down voted?

[flagged]

Re: United States vs. Google

#302
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm pretty sure Youtube will overtake Twitch as a streaming platform within a year now. They have implemented the features they lacked a couple of years ago like premium subscriptions for channels. And since they advertise streams in your watch next recommendations in youtube you will get a lot of spontaneous people watching them easily, while you only go to Twitch if you specifically want to watch a stream. Some vid…

I think you make a very good point. I would add that in the short to mid-term, Twitch could also grow thanks to the pie getting bigger. Video streaming, I believe, is far from having peaked.

Re: United States vs. Google

#303

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.

> you as an individual have a choice if you want to use the services they provide. How would the common folk avoid Analytics or Ads? Google benefits from me even when I visit completely unrelated websites.

Ad blocking software is very easy to install. Also the EU more or less already gave this to us for free with GDPR.

Re: United States vs. Google

#305
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

I think something like the interstate voting compact is an extremely deft strategy for approaching a more proportional voting approach for the executive office - for congressional seats there might be a similar approach possible but I'm not certain - such an approach might need to be activated only when a much higher proportion of states sign on - I agree that the leaders would lose if they approached this individual…

The thing about the Interstate Voting Compact is that it's still winner-takes-all, so as long as a majority of states are on board it's fine.

The problem with doing it with proportional voting is that you need every single state on board; any state still doing winner-takes-all has much greater power.

Re: United States vs. Google

#306
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a note - in Canada there is a party generally called the Liberal party and another called the Conservative party - I've been careful in the text below to differential Liberal from liberal and Conservative from conservative - it can get a bit confusing (especially when the Liberals aren't liberal) but that's just Canada being confusing. As a Canadian - Canada is slipping into a two party system. There are, weirdl…

I think there's an important further distinction to be made here. The US has voting directly for the head of state, whereas Canada's head of state is of course the Queen, but the PM is selected incidentally to the vote via parliamentary procedure. The Canadian system has you pick your local representative for your riding (MP) and the party with the most MPs, traditionally™, gets to make their leader the Prime Ministe…

The problem is not really the relative vote weighting in the electoral college, but the fact that nearly all states in the EC are winners-takes-all.

If you instead awarded EC votes proportionally, you'd largely wind up aligning with popular vote entirely. It'd also make more states more competitive, since it is much easier to move the margin on one electoral vote rather than say 55.

Re: United States vs. Google

#307
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something like the interstate voting compact is an extremely deft strategy for approaching a more proportional voting approach for the executive office - for congressional seats there might be a similar approach possible but I'm not certain - such an approach might need to be activated only when a much higher proportion of states sign on - I agree that the leaders would lose if they approached this individual…

The thing about the Interstate Voting Compact is that it's still winner-takes-all, so as long as a majority of states are on board it's fine. The problem with doing it with proportional voting is that you need every single state on board; any state still doing winner-takes-all has much greater power.

Yea - but it should still be possible to structure such a compact in a way where you wouldn't create loser states - let's say you target 80% buy-in of states (by representative numbers) before activating and you're talking about the house (the same rule goes for the senate but the activation might fire at a different time) - The only scenario that would really flub the system is if the 20% of house seats not covered by the compact went all to one party (say the purple party) in close races while the green party and yellow party split the vote otherwise - in that case maybe the purple party won 11% of the popular vote and thus is over-represented by the 20% of control they have. Still the other states could balance the math to split the remaining 80% appropriately.

Additionally, as long as that proportion is significantly high enough (say above the 66% mark) the two parties that were partially disenfranchised would still be left sharing a strong majority in the house between them and, if something similar happened with the senate, they could coalition up and force through a congressional amendment that would bring the remaining portion of the country in line for the next election.

The Interstate Voting Compact couldn't be precisely similarly applied to congressional elections, it'd need more momentum behind it, but there is a way for the math to work out.

All that said, IANAL and I have no idea if the legal shenanigans used to make the IVC binding could also be utilized for a similar movement around the house and senate.

Re: United States vs. Google

#308

I think Google is the best search engine. I don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with them being the best search engine, top online ad platform and a developer of the top mobile OS, top video streaming service, top internet browser, top mapping/navigation service, among other things, at the SAME time. Their assets give them undue and unsupervised influence over a very big chunk of what's happening onli…

1) best search engine 2) top online ad platform 3) top mobile OS 4) top video streaming service 5) top internet browser 6) top mapping/navigation service Okay, you listed 6. What should the law say is the new limit for how many they should be able to have?

It's not like they are content dominating just those verticals. Agriculture anyone?

https://x.company/projects/mineral/

Re: United States vs. Google

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "directly" for the head of state, I mean, they vote, directly, for the head of state. Americans are picking on the ballot between "Trump" or "Biden," not "Republican Elector Steve Ruralson" vs "Democrat Elector Bill City-Slicker." The results are passed on via electors, but most electors are bound by law to vote alongside the popular vote of the state. Even when not bound, they have almost exclusively done so, mak…

> By "directly" for the head of state, I mean, they vote, directly, for the head of state. They don't, though, they vote for (mostly, there's a few exceptions) statewide slates of electors. > Americans are picking on the ballot between "Trump" or "Biden," not "Republican Elector Steve Ruralson" vs "Democrat Elector Bill City-Slicker." But that's because the ballot is a lie.

You are technically correct - but in actuality the electorate is intending to vote for the head of state - so I think in practice this technicality doesn't invalidate the general statement that folks are voting for a head of state.

The distinction you're highlighting is a very important piece when it comes to discussing election reform, but I think it's better to classify it as an inaccuracy in the manner in which the electorate votes for the head of state - rather than as the electorate not voting for a head of state.

Re: United States vs. Google

#310
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this oft repeated comment about Google acquiring YouTube, DoubleClick and Android. Yes they did. But the companies they acquired were tiny upstarts, which might have even died on their own. Google built them into what they are today, and deserve 90% of the credit for their current significance. The same applies to FB and Instagram as well, fwiw. Though imo, not as much for WhatsApp, which already had 400MM user…

YouTube was delivering an average of 100 million video views per day in July 2006, months before the Google acquisition for $1,650,000,000 that same year. It's inaccurate to characterize them as a "tiny startup."

How many views per day does YouTube now deliver per day?
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