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We need to nationalise Google, Facebook and Amazon. Here’s why (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

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With Google's recent monopoly status being a topic a discussion recently. This article from 2017 argues that we should nationalize these platforms in the age of platform capitalism. Ahead of its time, in fact the author predicted the downfall of Ello.

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[–] rottingleaf 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Nationalizing ensures everyone gets fair and equal access and prevents a capitalist monopoly.

Some people live with a regulated market and think that it won't lead to monopoly no matter what.

Some people live without seeing what nationalization does and think that it will be something fair and equal.

Let's generally avoid being so certain about things we haven't seen.

It’s so easy to just say “they” and sound scary it’s harder to actually figure out why some solutions are good and others bad without resorting to a mysterious malevolent entity.

There's nothing mysterious in this.

If hard narcotics are highly illegal, but also still generally available in your country for those who seek, then somebody does that work with protection from sufficiently powerful people.

If prostitution is illegal in your country, then the same.

And so on and so forth.

Now we are talking about the government control over a large chunk of your communications. There's no need to sound scary, this is bullshit and you are either a shill or very inexperienced.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Some people live with a regulated market and think that it won't lead to monopoly no matter what.

It pretty much by definition has to be a monopoly. The point is that profit isn't the goal anymore. Serving the people is.

There's nothing mysterious in this.

If hard narcotics are highly illegal, but also still generally available in your country for those who seek, then somebody does that work with protection from sufficiently powerful people.

What? That's totally an unrelated topic.

Now we are talking about the government control over a large chunk of your communications. There's no need to sound scary, this is bullshit and you are either a shill or very inexperienced.

They already partially are in most places. Building infrastructure requires government consent or it'd be chaos. Having an option of a search engine being national does not put them in charge of all options though. It just creates a base version that people always have access to.

[–] rottingleaf 0 points 2 months ago

It pretty much by definition has to be a monopoly. The point is that profit isn’t the goal anymore. Serving the people is.

You can't possibly have any instrument to set that goal to people with more power than you or "the people". And idiots thinking they can have centralized power with "a different goal" somehow set are the ones who've lead us to the current state of things.

What? That’s totally an unrelated topic.

It's not. That's the kind of system you are suggesting to nationalize something under.

They already partially are in most places. Building infrastructure requires government consent or it’d be chaos. Having an option of a search engine being national does not put them in charge of all options though. It just creates a base version that people always have access to.

Having an option of Meta or Google doesn't put them in charge of all social networks too. But in practice it's different.