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Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

proton.me

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Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#81

Post by anticorporate »

hef19898 wrote: post #69
anticorporate wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think TFA failed to differentiate revenue and profit, though. I think the point is these companies have enough revenue to pay off the fines, and 358 days to return to profitability for the year, even starting out with an operating loss.

And now you are mixing free cash flow, with revenue, with profits...

No one expects them to actually pay the fines with the exact pile of cash they've made in revenue this year (which, of course, isn't actually a pile of cash).

You're missing the point, that the fines are nowhere large enough to be consequential. If the fines were anywhere close to large enough, the company would no longer able to operate their criminal business model profitably, and I would shed zero tears, even if it meant complete failure of the business. Any fine that merely reduces profit is effectively just a tax.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#82

Post by hiq »

anticorporate wrote: post #61
Chris2048 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not higher fines? % of profit that increases each time?

Once you reach a certain level of wealth, fines are no longer consequential. When you can restructure both your corporate and personal assets to span multiple countries with different regulations and poor cooperation, you've effective avoided them.

What about the 4% of the global turnover of a company as mentioned in https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/fines-penalties/?

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#83

Post by hef19898 »

Ekaros wrote: post #75
hef19898 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because as a shareholder, I have zero influence on whether or not the company violates laws?

Your shares can have voting rights. And it is up to you to utilize them. Or choose a way to invest that they are correctly utilized.

So, I hold, I am super rich you know, 10% of Airbus. Now Airbus is fined billions by authorities for violating export control laws, engaged in bribery and other stuff. Some that was done by local sales entities. How exactly can I, even as one of the biggest shareholders, influence those operational daily decisions?

Also, you are aware of the idea of having limited liability companies?

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#84

Post by dox_shepherd »

ycdxvjp wrote: post #74
tokai wrote: post #40

The only way to tackle this is to put leadership in prison. If that is not possible give them the oligarch experience; frozen assets, interpol warrant, etc. It makes no sense that breaking the law gives milder consequences just as long as your crime is transnational and very extensive in scope.

There is an endless supply of corporate robots to replace them. Instead there are options: 1. Govt walks in and just nationalizes them ala Japan post world war 2 where Mitsubishi, Sumimoto etc where just turned into puppets over night As in hostile takeover to influence how they use their loot. 2. Govt can then use the SpaceX model to disrupt brick and mortar sectors world wide (cement, steel, ships, planes, energy,…

Yeah but is government really less corrupt than big tech?

Its very human to want a hero come save the day but I fear that we'd just be replacing one bad actor with another.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#85

Post by Oarch »

tokai wrote: post #40

The only way to tackle this is to put leadership in prison. If that is not possible give them the oligarch experience; frozen assets, interpol warrant, etc. It makes no sense that breaking the law gives milder consequences just as long as your crime is transnational and very extensive in scope.

How about we start invalidating their patents as punishment? Investors take IP very seriously.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#86

Post by hef19898 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #79
hef19898 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now you are mixing free cash flow, with revenue, with profits...

Instead of bikeshedding, you might suggest an alternative time-vs-income-based measurement that you think is better? It's obviously not profit, which it would be crazy to "require" to pay fines when looking at companies. So what would you suggest using as a meter stick?

Revenue. Hard to manipulate (and doing so is illegal in itself), easy to measure and the top line is where it hurts. And no, I don't think fines should be high enough to destroy businesses the same way a speeding or parking ticket shouldn't bankrupt people.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#87

Post by chiefalchemist »

ycdxvjp wrote: post #74
tokai wrote: post #40

The only way to tackle this is to put leadership in prison. If that is not possible give them the oligarch experience; frozen assets, interpol warrant, etc. It makes no sense that breaking the law gives milder consequences just as long as your crime is transnational and very extensive in scope.

There is an endless supply of corporate robots to replace them. Instead there are options: 1. Govt walks in and just nationalizes them ala Japan post world war 2 where Mitsubishi, Sumimoto etc where just turned into puppets over night As in hostile takeover to influence how they use their loot. 2. Govt can then use the SpaceX model to disrupt brick and mortar sectors world wide (cement, steel, ships, planes, energy,…

> Tech is supposed to fuck prices up. Google once upon a time did it for email, chat, video, search etc. I don't see why it can't happen with everything. We need grand goals not just how to add 6 more cameras into another fucking phone.

Which raises the question: Are these actually tech companies? Or simply 21st Century advertising (platform) companies - dependant on technology - whose primary goal is to exploit human nature for profit?

Abandon the idea that these are still tech companies and the world makes more sense (and gets more dystopian).

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#88

Post by ethbr1 »

BirAdam wrote: post #55
bko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, alternative explanation, the fines aren't meant to deter behavior but serve as a way of rent seeking, signaling by politicians and bureaucrats and capturing ever more regulatory authority by various groups

It also serves as deterrent for smaller companies, and as regulatory capture occurs pulls the ladder up behind the big tech companies.

The fines aren't large enough to be materially impactful to governments. So if it's rent seeking, it's a poor job of it.

I'd expect they're at the levels they are because laws atrophied during the 80s - 00s, and this is indeed the maximum remedy that can currently be sought.

Providing for tighter penalty scaling with relation to company size would go a long way to fixing this, including for small firms.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#89

Post by ethbr1 »

hef19898 wrote: post #86
ethbr1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of bikeshedding, you might suggest an alternative time-vs-income-based measurement that you think is better? It's obviously not profit, which it would be crazy to "require" to pay fines when looking at companies. So what would you suggest using as a meter stick?

Revenue. Hard to manipulate (and doing so is illegal in itself), easy to measure and the top line is where it hurts. And no, I don't think fines should be high enough to destroy businesses the same way a speeding or parking ticket shouldn't bankrupt people.

> The moment people fail to differentiate between revenue and profit, one can safely ignore the rest of the article.

I assumed from your earlier comment you had a problem with the article using revenue.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#90

Post by hef19898 »

jsnell wrote: post #73
kmlx wrote: post #38

from the article: > As of seven days and three hours into 2024, they had already earned enough revenue to pay it all off. revenue is not the same as profit. this is basic stuff. from the same article: > Still, revenue is a more accurate depiction of a company’s size and profitability. it seems like this is rookie hour. then we look at the author's previous posts: https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-ipef With new trade de…

I don't expect it's about having an axe to grind, but about running a content marketing mill where neither factual correctness nor originality matters. (The proposed call to action for the "fines aren't big enough" problem is, after all, to sign up for a paid email service.) The poor guy has a quota to meet, and there was nothing in the news this week to use for rabble rousing, so the only option was to recycle some…

That is one field LLMs can disrupt for sure.
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