Big Tech CEOs grilled by Congress: Key moments from the historic antitrust meeting:
For five hours on Wednesday, the four Big Tech CEOs of the world's most powerful companies faced a grilling from US lawmakers in Washington, in an unprecedented hearing over alleged anti-competitive practices at their companies.
The hearing was the first time that Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google's parent Alphabet appeared together before Congress.
The Big Tech CEOs, appearing via video link, all faced moments in the spotlight from the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, with Pichai and Zuckerberg receiving the most attention. It was sixth and final hearing into competition in the digital market by the committee, and a culmination of more than 1.3 million documents and hundreds of hours of interviews and testimonies.
There are long-standing concerns that the four companies, worth a combined $4.85tn, have become too dominant for rivals to compete on the same level.
Antitrust regulators fear that a lack of competition will lead to higher prices for consumers. However, when digital platforms offer services for free – as Facebook and Google do – it is difficult for lawmakers to prove that consumers are worse off.
Another charge is that a lack of competition stifles innovation, which in theory could lead to subpar products and services for consumers. But given the four tech giants are known for being at the cutting edge of innovation, this is again difficult to prove.
As such, Congress is considering new antitrust laws that are appropriate for the digital age, which could prevent so much power being concentrated in so few companies.
Here are some of the key topics the Big Tech CEOs were grilled on.
Here's a couple YouTube streams of the hearing from Reuters (6½h) & C-SPAN3 (5½hr).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @11:55AM (17 children)
Look, I have no love to lose for the 4, but after reading TFS(umary) I have to say:
"As such, the Congress could prove no wrong towards the consumers, but they want a law anyway".
My immediate question: what are the chances their law won't actually make it worse for the consumers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @12:10PM (4 children)
100%. Any level of "worse for consumers" you specify, will be achieved and surpassed by the monopolies before long, given continued impunity. It is competition, not goodness of CEO's (nonexistent) heart, that stands between consumer's arse and certain big-diameter high-tech tool. No competition? Then bend over and learn to like it. Proven over and over.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @12:21PM (3 children)
Have to say your naivety is sorta... hearth warming. I almost feel the compulsion to protect you from the real world, such a big gap between it and the world you imagine.
But I'm old enough to resist the compulsion so here's the reality: even when knowledgeable and well intended, the politicians will screw up more likely than not - it's in the nature of their activity. Clueless politicians? You can bet they will manage to make it so much worse than anyone can imagine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday July 31 2020, @07:31PM (2 children)
the politicians will screw up more likely than not...
They are not screwing up, they are not at all "clueless", they are simply complicit, they follow orders, or be replaced
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @11:16PM (1 child)
Even an angelical politician - no corruption and dedicated to the well-being of the people s/he represents - has good chances to screw it up.
Because politics is about finding compromises. And it's inevitable a compromise will compromise in different extents the sides it tries to reconcile.
(from where "it's in the nature of their activity")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Disagree) by fustakrakich on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:00AM
Even an angelical politician - no corruption and dedicated to the well-being of the people s/he represents...
will find their opportunities limited.
Politics is operated like an exclusive club. The financials demand it. Their "alliances" are cliques, where the art of "compromise" hides the dirty deals [dw.com], where losers become winners. Be careful with those Greens [dw.com]. They aren't what they seem :-)
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @12:51PM (8 children)
Depends on what you consider "good for consumers."
Concerns of the past were price and innovation... seems like the antitrust laws of the early 1900s and subsequent enforcement over the last ~100 years have evolved us into a marketplace with lots of innovative products at or very near zero cost. Win?
So, today: your data is valuable, and we're constantly bitching that the big tech companies are data vampires, giving us these innovative products "for free" but actually raping our personal - used to be private - information in exchange.
Change is painful, a change in the anti-trust laws is going to force change in the behaviors of big companies which will affect a lot of people, and a lot of people will feel temporary pain due to the change.
The question is: have you been voting for lawmakers you can trust to look out for the interests of the people they represent? Do they represent your interests?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 31 2020, @01:27PM (7 children)
Mate, I know it.
Now, please be a sport and RTFA (I did) and tell me if you think they know it ('cause I don't think so).
I could find absofuckinglutely nothing in TFA suggesting that consumer privacy was ever a concern during the grilling but, meh, it's Friday night and I might have missed it.
Now, I sorta don't feel that breaking, for example, google will mean more privacy for the consumers. Even if google would have competition in search or email or whateves, their income will come from ad placing. And those marketers need targeted audience (or else one doesn't get their money), so competition will only mean their paying customers will get a better deal.
The consumers and their privacy? They are the merchandise, their privacy will be squeezed even more by more "competitors" operating in the same market.
Do you see why I'm totally skeptical... nay, make it pessimistic, that Congress will side with the consumer?
As a matter of fact, I did - and not because voting is compulsory 'round here. You can already guess my vote is irrelevant for the US Congress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday July 31 2020, @03:10PM (5 children)
What is privacy for, really? Several things:
a) Keeping the bigots guessing, so they aren't sure you're a Muslim, atheist, Socialist, feminist (or at least pro-choice), college grad, scientist, filthy rich, or anything else that isn't stunningly obvious from appearances, such as skin color. (Or, so that fair-minded people don't know you're a bigot!)
b) Breaking of unnecessary, unfair, antiquated, or corrupt laws, and getting away with it. A lot of law exists merely to tilt the playing field, or to provide a pretext to extract revenue from citizens. Traffic and parking enforcement is a big one there. Drug enforcement is another. Among the antiquated is intellectual property law. Then there's the moral crusading ideological and bigoted stuff, such as laws against abortion, interracial marriage, gay marriage, prostitution, and so on. Drugs could be included in that last.
c) Hiding your weaknesses. Injured animals often hide until recovered enough to resume normal activities. Young animals especially must be protected, and hiding is a major way to do that. For people, you never want apartment management to know you hurt your back and are unable to move out until it is healed, in 3 or 6 or 12 months or whatever, because they may raise your rent, figuring you are trapped.
On point a), people are often forced to hastily take a stand, make a choice, about something they really didn't care about. If there's no record of it, it's a lot easier to change your mind later, avoid the embarrassment of being accused of hypocrisy, and to have to explain over and over and over that you had a change of heart.
For point b) I have hopes that a loss of privacy would lead to problems with laws being resolved by swiftly changing the law, rather than the current situation of everyone continuing to break the rules and get away with it thanks to privacy, until the law is finally repealed, which can take decades, not least because there are entrenched special interests that benefit from the current law.
I really think that privacy as we knew it, is over. The loss need not be devastating, if it leads to a cleaner, fairer legal system. If it also pushes people to be less bigoted, that too is good.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 31 2020, @05:04PM (3 children)
I don't think there's any conclusive evidence that it pushes people to be less bigoted. Neo-nazis are still neo-nazis and would kill people they don't like if they could. Antifa are still Antifa and would kill people they don't like if they could. That is so because they are convinced they are right. They will continue to hold those convictions even if they are forced to hide them; and being forced to hide them could even intensify those convictions.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:33PM (2 children)
And Phoenix666, in his deepest secret hearts of hearts, still believes that antifa actually exists. So you see, it is not so much the privacy that is the problem, it is these corporations learning exactly how to get into your secret heart of hearts, and plant seeds of untruth, that later you think are your own ideas and knowledge.
Leo DiCaprio works for Facebook. Inception.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @10:01PM (1 child)
With so many of you professing their wishes to eradicate "alt-right" (or whatever other inane name) even on this smallish site, the mock inexistence of your "antifa" is the worst kept pretense in the written history of humanity. Congratulations to your team on this stunning achievement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:11PM
Plenty of people are anti-fascist; that's what we're taught is "right" in school. Not many people are members of anti-fascist organizations.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:01AM
Weak as it may be, I'd take GDPR over nothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:55PM
If you watch the actual hearing or read the transcript, you will see they did in fact address those things. Yay journalism.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Friday July 31 2020, @01:10PM
And then there are the customers. Isn't antitrust law supposed to protect customers?
After all, the consumers that use these (possibly a-)social media aren't the customers.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday July 31 2020, @04:24PM
considering they are in office because they are bribed and ignorant and spineless people, at least the majority, chances are grim.
The freedom has to be in the code, and people who are not coders are not going to EVER be able to enforce freedom on coders who do not want freedom.
Zuck has an advantage because he can audit his own js if he has to, the rest of these people are in over their heads and should seek different, work, including bezos.
If you are a ceo who does not code who owns a company with coders, you are actually not the ceo, one of the coders is.
Could someone forward this to the rest of the universe plz thanks.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 31 2020, @05:07PM
Depends. Is it gonna pass before or after November?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Friday July 31 2020, @12:39PM (17 children)
Uh, what?
Don't get me wrong, they execute well, but wheres this "innovation" I'm hearing about? Some startups get bought and shut down after purchase.
Amazon is a 90s point of sale system so easy to use that the moron public can enter their own orders, kinda like a Mcdonalds self service cashier or an ATM. Why pay a minimum wage drone at barnes and noble to run the POS system when the customer is willing to run the POS system for free, LOL?
Facebook is workforce automation software for elementary school playground socialization combined with authoritarian leftist propaganda delivery.
Google is a very large scale spam advertisement provider. Really large scale, but fundamentally its just chucking banner ads at
Apple had a product manager who died a decade ago who pushed a really nice UI music player and pivoted into putting the music player into the same case as a phone, then around the time he died he successfully implemented the tenth attempt at tablet computing semi-successfully. Three home runs for a product manager is a business achievement, but not really a tech achievement.
There are micro-innovations, like Amazon kinda "NIH" reimplemented the stuff IBM mainframe customers had in the 80s and call it "AWS". Nothing wrong with re-implementing a 80s experience in the 10s and its hard work, but its not innovation any more than digging the 50000th coal mine is innovation.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @12:56PM (14 children)
Oh, c'mon, whaddya want? Pets.com? Get your dogfood delivered by UPS - there's something that didn't exist before 1999.
Bezos' net worth is headed for orbit not because Amazon's UI is innovative, but because they worked out the home-delivery channel logistics at a cost point competitive enough with brick and mortar that it took off, and now COVID threw brick and mortar under the bus. They're still trying to figure out how to do home-delivery grocery, but everything else seems pretty much on its way out of the malls and into your monitor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:05PM (10 children)
I wish the government would get rid of USPS monopolies. All of the fearmongering behind what would happen if we did that is nonsense, none of the doomsday scenarios happened in countries that got rid of mailbox monopolies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:07PM
USPS mailbox monopolies *
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @02:08PM (7 children)
They can't. It's in the US Constitution. It'll take a serious effort to remove it, and I just don't see what will justify that political effort unless it's part of something bigger like a constitutional convention that's doing a wholesale rewrite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:37PM (6 children)
Maybe we can amend the Constitution to get rid of the USPS and repeal the 2nd amendment at the same time? Win-win! Are we tired of winning, yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @07:00PM (3 children)
I fail to see any argument that removing either would be beneficial to the American people. Beneficial to oligarchs, sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @09:03PM (2 children)
Those who do not learn the lessons of Kevin Costner Movies are, well, condemned to be in Kevin Costner movies. Maybe even ones with Tom Petty in them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @09:20PM (1 child)
Sorry, vidya is my most hated medium, I know those names, but not much else. Care to give me a real answer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @12:24AM
The Postman? He always rings twice? Not Waterworld, or Dances with Smurfs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @09:43PM (1 child)
The USPS can still stick around they just shouldn't have a monopoly on my mailbox. I should be allowed to allow other vendors to deliver mail into my mailbox if I wish. It should be my choice and the mailbox should be my mailbox and not that of the federal government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @06:13PM
hear, fucking hear!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @02:27PM
We get very good service from the USPS, I want them to stick around, and I really wish that the Trumpettes would quit fuc*ing with the USPS. Latest move (in the news this morning) is Trump appointees limiting USPS working hours and turning off the sorting machines early--yet another move to make the Post Office look bad.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @01:08PM (2 children)
Had to read your first sentence a couple times. Just to be clear, UPS has been around since my grandparents were children. https://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/about/HistoryStackList.page?countrylang=US-English [ups.com]
Overnight delivery to consumers is relatively new for UPS and all the rest, but UPS is 113 years old.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @01:33PM
Yes, UPS has been around, but in 1995 if you wanted to get a 20lb bag of dogfood delivered via UPS the available supply channels would have had you paying triple for it as compared to the local grocery store.
Pets.com tried to innovate that - failed miserably.
Amazon.com has worked it out - like WalMart - it's all about getting the product to the people at a price they are willing to pay. (Notice the clear lack of "lowest price possible..." that's a deeply anti-business concept, often touted in advertising - but advertising is the art of legal lying anyway...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 31 2020, @02:04PM
And mail order is even older.
However, you didn't used to be able to buy stuff from a dozen different suppliers at once through one shopping cart, and have the stuff packaged and delivered substantially cheaper than going to the store to buy it yourself.
Amazon's storefront is nothing special, However, they have actually innovated pretty heavily in warehouse management. I mean mobile robotic shelves that bring their contents to packing station and automatically rearrange themselves based on frequency of access to minimize average travel time? That's a *huge* logistical innovation that drastically reduces the amount of time and labor required to assemble an order for shipping.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @02:47PM
> Amazon is a 90s point of sale system
You forgot about all the ruthless, monopolizing moves they make (similar to WalMart during their initial growth years). As I've noted on SN several times, Amazon strong-armed the publisher of my engineering books including lying--when my publisher refused Amazon's terms, Amazon retaliated by listing the books as "out of print" which scared away customers. I know because the customers came to me pleading to buy a copy...meanwhile the book was always in print at the online store of the publisher. This happened to many other small publishers--Amazon throwing their weight around to demand price and other concessions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @03:18PM
The things you describe ARE the innovation.
You can disparage improvements to usability and UI, but it makes a big difference. It's the difference between trying to provide tech support on your parents' computer over the phone vs using a remote desktop... and a remote desktop vs physically in person working on a machine. It's the difference between ordering a ticket online vs having to drive to a kiosk and buying a ticket, and buying a ticket at a kiosk vs needing to talk to a human about buying a ticket.
Small incremental improvements account for the VAST majority of improvements in life. Going from an average of 16 miles per gallon to 18 miles per gallon (which later becomes 20, then 22). A infant mortality rate of 10% to 9.8%. The new CPU being 2% faster than the last generation.
If you keep looking for the next invention of electricity ("Pshah, what good is it? It's just fire repackaged!"), you'll miss how revolutionary it is to do things like bringing soap to India and Africa.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:02PM (5 children)
It's kinda annoying that they go after the companies that I can just switch to a competitor to at the tip of a hat but they ignore the cableco/ISPs that overcharge me and there is relatively little competition against them.
Trump complains about censorship and Biden wants more censorship but in the case of Trump all he has to do is leave Twitter/Facebook and find another platform and there are plenty of platforms out there that would be thrilled to have him.
OTOH, my ISP is expensive and there is little competition here. Congress needs to go after that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:09PM (2 children)
> that I can just switch to a competitor to at the tip of a hat
You never do, even when that hat tips
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:19PM (1 child)
If I don't switch it's because I don't think the competitors are as good as what I'm currently using. If I perceive what I'm currently using becomes worse than the competitors I can switch. It's my choice.
When it comes to ISPs I have very little competition to switch to and the barrier to entry is very high.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @07:07PM
Don’t ask Congress, ask Bezos
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/07/amazon-gets-fcc-approval-to-launch-3236-low-earth-broadband-satellites/ [arstechnica.com]
Making good use of all that money you gave him
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:22PM (1 child)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1313662/spacex-news-elon-musk-comet-neowise-satellite-view-observers-latest [express.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @02:10PM
Who marked this off-topic? It directly answers
> OTOH, my ISP is expensive and there is little competition here
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @01:03PM (13 children)
Congress shouldn't be looking only at some "consumer cost". As has been pointed out, those four megacorps don't invent a lot of stuff. They don't innovate very well. It's all the startups they buy out. Often enough, those startups are actually doing quite well for themselves, and offering real value to the world. (To the world, not just consumers.)
The problem, as I see it, is that these tech companies are the default gatekeepers for all the world's knowledge. If they say an idea gets squashed, it is squashed. Tech ideas, political ideas, philosophical ideas, whatever - if they don't like it, it gets buried. No human being, no human organization should be in that position.
The Soviet and the Stasi have been pointed to as the most extreme squashers of ideas, or ideology in history. Here, we have the organizations doing a lot of the same thing, backed up by screaming hordes of SJW's who happen to agree with those tech company execs - at the moment.
Give it a decade or six. Tech giants WILL learn how to manipulate the hordes. They are learning right now, FFS. Go watch Running Man again, and see the universally loved game show host, telling the millions of viewers what to think. Then, the world cheers in unison as the "bad guy" is hunted down and killed.
A lot of people need to read the stories of dystopian futures, and give some serious thought to what is happening in the tech world today. If it doesn't scare you, then you're not capable of comprehension.
Read 1984 again. We are most definitely headed down that road.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:44PM (2 children)
You keep quoting the wrong book. We are not heading to 1984. Ok, maybe the Trumpsters like to use 1984 revisionist history as a guide, but it doesn't apply to majority. What you are looking for is Fahrenheit 451
https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/twice-montags-being-run-referred-game-him-win-how-425694 [enotes.com]
It is in Fahrenheit 451 where we have summaries of summaries, where everything is only Good or Bad with nothing in between, where people burn books not because of some overbearing force but their own attention span being so short. A book takes too long to read, burn it! Facebook useless endless scroll of crap, Twitters trends and general data overload is exactly what Fahrenheit 451 talks about.
1984, on the contrary, is about totalitarian governments that rewrite history. Like Trump's idol in North Korea or, to a lesser extent, the current Chinese President for Life. But this future has nothing to do with the click-baits and shit-scrolls - that is the future in Fahrenheit 451. That's the future tech is creating here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @03:55PM (1 child)
Not arguing, but, let me explain how I see 1984 as relevant.
Some of us, at least, have witnessed the internet being "sanitized". Best example I have, albeit with no "proof", is the New American Century. When Bush ran for president, I had almost zero idea what New American Century was. I searched, and found a web page put up by NAC, explaining who and what they were. I instantly hated the idea, because they spelled out their ultimate goal. That goal was, that every man, woman, and child on earth should serve the good of Wall Street. If you didn't contribute to the profits of Wall Street, at least indirectly, then NAC had no use for you.
Soon after Bush was elected, and the term Neocon became a household word, that site was changed, to be less blatant about their goals. At least twice since, it's been sanitized further.
To be clear, I hate neoconservatism as much or more than I hate the progressive goals. But, my reasons for hating them have been cleansed from the internet.
That is very 1984-ish, I think.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:45PM
Everybody stand back! Runaway is thinking, again!!! I really hope no one gets hurt this time.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @01:49PM (4 children)
I work in a large for my industry company (now) - used to work in startups, got bought - it's not a bad thing for me, personally.
We just acquired a small startup. They make devices that can significantly reduce complications of a particular surgical procedure, affecting tens of thousands of people a year. They had a sales force of 1, who also happened to be the company president, and chief engineer. They contracted out the software, and had a staff of 3 building the devices. They were making approximately 6 devices a month.
Since we acquired them, we've assigned a part time staff of 20 R&D engineers to oversee the incorporation of the product into the larger company systems, ensure regulatory clearance around the world, and initially ramp up the production staff from 3 to 9, later transferring production to our facility which employs hundreds. Our specialty sales staff of dozens of field reps around the world expect to be selling 50 of these devices a month by this time next year.
No, the larger company doesn't innovate per-se. What the larger company does is identify these good ideas and implement them on the world stage, getting the idea into the marketplace where it can actually start helping people instead of being analyzed in academic journals endlessly. In essence, we work the distribution channel. The owners of the companies that get bought don't usually complain, our typical purchase price for a good idea runs around $50M-100M.
We're not angels, we're not perfect, but those "innovative startups" are basically playing with themselves until they hook up with serious money to get them launched into the broad world markets.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Entropy on Friday July 31 2020, @02:08PM (1 child)
Of course the case we're actually talking about is where big-G purchases a startup, then files their intellectual property in the mountain of intellectual property they own. They don't actually use it, they just hold it there in case they can tax someone who wants to innovate...forever.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @03:59PM
We're not angels. If you want to identify the devil in the room, call it capitalism.
I have watched ideas that work, could have been saving lives for the past 20 years with basically trivial per-patient cost, be shelved because the reality of my industry is that it takes a lot of money to get anything properly launched and supported in the broad market and that money gets apportioned to the "best" ideas, meaning the ones that will return maximal ROI. So, for the past 20 years a virtual cure for bulimia has been ignored. Another for meconium aspiration with similarly dramatic (like 95+%) improvement in outcome, and potential application for things like alveolar collapse associated with COVID, similarly shelved.
The Devil is a little less than 80% evil, the angels of capitalism do sometimes direct resources where they do the most good for the most people - those shelved ideas aren't "taking up oxygen" from other ideas that ostensibly do more good for more people. Sucks when you're one of the people that would benefit from a shelved technology, but if your pet technology were taken out and developed the thinking goes that it would be taking away more benefit from other things than it provides itself.
In the big picture, 1 million premature deaths a couple of times every 100 years from an out of control pandemic, while scary when it happens, isn't as worthwhile to address as something more mundane but pervasive, like clean drinking water. Yes, we can do both, but reality is: we can't actually do all the things. Ideas are easy, development is work, marketing is risky.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @04:02PM (1 child)
From your description, it's apparent that you don't work for one of the huge international megacorporations. Yeah, you're international, but you're obviously not a trillion dollar mega.
There really is a "sweet spot" in corporate size and corporate power, where you must compete, and you must strive for efficiency, and you are at least partly doing things in the public interest. At least, you haven't forgotten that the public interest is where your income comes from.
I don't know exactly what corporation/company first became much too large, and much too powerful for humanity's good. The East India company, maybe? But, I'm sure we can agree that those corps that buy up the startups, just to smother everything in red tape and litigation really should be broken up.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @04:47PM
We're ~100B market cap, IMO too big for the good of the world, but this is the way it is.
I formerly worked for a rare-in-my-industry "mid sized" company with a ~1B market cap, IMO that's still too small - too easy for them to play cowboy and slip under the regulatory radar, get away with things they shouldn't. Not all small companies play renegade cowboy games, but when they're in that ~1B size class, the money that leads them seems particularly tempted to color outside the lines just to keep the gravy train rolling at top speed.
I also worked for a number of "minimal" startups in the ~0-10M market cap range, they can be made into going concerns, but organic growth at that size class is excruciatingly slow and most opt for buyout or growth by investment. If you want to really foster innovation, the (tilted in every way imaginable already) landscape needs a tilt adjustment in favor of these small companies to enable them to grow organically. Unfortunately, it's much easier for the larger companies to get organized enough to lobby the legislatures for their own benefit, the little guys barely have the bandwidth to keep themselves solvent, much less tilt at windmills that would benefit them AND their competition if they scored a win.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @01:55PM (3 children)
They already know, they're already doing it. In a decade or six they'll be good enough at it to get what they want without stirring uprisings in the population against their moves. It's somewhat a game of give and take, but make no mistake, it's still a pyramid with decisions made at the top.
As long as the top continues to realize that what's good for the bottom is good for the top, and stays in touch with what's really going on at the bottom- it may be unfair, but it's the best status quo humanity has ever achieved.
When the top starts pissing down the walls calling it "trickle down economics" and/or suggesting that the bottom "eat cake" because they are so out of touch with what holds them up, that's when things need to be shaken up.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @02:39PM (2 children)
This is the largest problem with classist narratives. Dividing the world into imaginary groups, and then not only expecting those divisions to represent some sort of common interests or differences, but expecting those groupings to be of ultimate importance to the functioning of society. The status quo is not the best we've achieved because the top deigns to cooperate with the bottom. But because we've created a society where people can support and better themselves - no bottom or top required.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @04:02PM (1 child)
"Can" - meaning: possible some of the time.
Whether top or bottom are required in your imaginary definition of society, they clearly exist and your place in that structure strongly influences your opportunities to support and better yourself.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @05:45PM
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday July 31 2020, @07:39PM
Go watch Running Man again, and see the universally loved game show host, telling the millions of viewers what to think. Then, the world cheers in unison as the "bad guy" is hunted down and killed.
Running Man? Sounds just like the Bin Laden fairy tale. Life imitating art again?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @02:06PM (6 children)
The big tech are a much bigger problem than a "trust". All those basic freedoms specified in the bill of rights only restrict oppression by the government. Back in those days only the government could do you irreparable harm by persecuting you for your dissenting views. Free speech meant that the government could not jail you for opposing its policy. Freedom of the press meant that your publication could not be shut down by the government if you printed something it didn't like. The requirement for due process stopped the government from throwing you in jail on a whim and then looking for a phony "crime" to catch you on.
The big corps changed all that by becoming the place where public discourse takes place, without being in any way restricted by the constitution. What meaning does "free speech" have if you are only allowed to speak it in back alley #47 between 2pm and 3pm? Today the big tech can deplatform you and overnight nobody will even know you exist, much less hear your views.
What meaning does "freedom of the press" have if you have no means of distributing what you publish? Being deplatformed deprives you of any way of reaching an audience because they are all on the big tech platforms. If you can't be on the platform, the vast majority of the population won't read what you publish, or even be able to find it.
What protection does "due process" offer when the corps can fire you for speaking your mind, barring you from future employment, and preventing you from working for any competing company in your field? Your life is ruined just as much as if you had been thrown in prison.
The constitution was written specifically to address government oppression, but today we can plainly see that it is not only the government that has the power of brutal oppression. Today's big corps have far more power over you than the eighteenth century government had and it is time we recognized this and stopped their oppression by making the constitution apply to private companies as well as the government.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @02:54PM
They still are restricted by the Constitution. A key example is that collaboration with government to suppress rights is still prohibited. They can't act as a proxy for government malfeasance.
Nonsense. For example, during the Revolutionary War that formed the US, the British had engaged in a variety of activities that no modern corporation is capable of duplicating - destruction of property, murder, rape, arbitrary imprisonment and forced work. Don't confuse moderately better information gathering capability with power. The British of that time didn't need to know the full intimate details of your Facebook posts, buying habits, or your web browsing behavior in order to have power. They just needed to know where the things they were going to tax, destroy, or ruin were.
Not a real world thing. People do a lot worse than speaking your mind and still manage to get rehired.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday July 31 2020, @04:48PM
This guy gets it.
Story of my life.
This is why bribery is ultimately evil, why cults have to be kept separated from religions and companies, and why corporate personhood is so godawfully tyrannical.
I was watching epsteins depositions, you can find them on youtube. He takes the 5th on almost every question.
How many prisoners in secret detention in chicago's "black site" get to do that? none.
The rich get all the rights and the poor get no rights, meaning there are no rights, because they have to be bought, and everything has a price.
So it is really government as a service, epstein got the paid for service of not having to answer questions. CNN has the paid for service of freedom of speech(propaganda). Soon corporate robots will have the 2nd amendment and be able to legally shoot you by accident, a paid for service.
Whether facegag(odd, i was using this to describe facebk last year and now look what happened....facegags everywhere....hmmm) should censor content is a trick question, you are damned if you do damned if you don't. If you say they cant, censor people, then you have to give them freedom to say anything and game the algorithm for what they want to say at the expense of all else, if you say they have to censor, then they go after their enemies so their content is all that is left.
The entire principle of government needs to be reworked, but I think these ceos know this, and recognize that there is an inevitable collapse, which we may be experiencing already, but they are going to have this whole new control mechanism ready to roll out as the replacement to "save us from the chaos" of the old system, that they themselves broke.
thesesystemsarefailing.net
(and if you care about this topic, you should now that people like myself who have been talking about this for a long time are being impoversished due to our exclusion, failure to comply, inherent censorhip when you boycott a platform or run from it because their rules allow abuse against their opponents, which I also encounter here btw...so if you care about this topic, contribute to my work or soon there wont be anyone like me left with any power to amplify their message at all.)
https://archive.is/SoybE [archive.is]
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday July 31 2020, @05:48PM (2 children)
I have plenty of complaints about big tech and corporate power in general, but I'd say your argument went off the rails here.
You can print pamphlets and stand in the middle of town handing them out, just like the old days. The digital equivalent of this is also possible for $$$
The best thing to do about abusive services is to not use them. When they try to force people to use it by way of shady business practices or technological tomfoolery, that's when they need to get slapped down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @08:12PM (1 child)
The problem with abusive ISPs is that there is very limited competition. What do we do then?
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday August 01 2020, @08:11AM
Wish I knew!
There's always "vote with your feet."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @07:40PM
The last time I checked, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch Ministry of the Interior, European Commission, Finnish Interior Ministry, Norwegian Ministry of Justice, Public Safety Canada, Swedish Ministry of Justice, UK Home Office, US State Department, and MI6 [catbox.moe] could be considered "the government".
As could the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia [catbox.moe].
"But at least it's not the government!" everyone keeps saying, while the government arrests anyone who tries to build up an alternative service which is not under government control. [breakermag.com] (This guy once hired a whore who said she was 19 but was underage. The government somehow learned of that, crossed international lines to arrest him for that, and smeared him as a pedophile in the press to justify such drastic action for a non-crime with no mens rea. The real reason for arresting him is that he made a competitor to Patreon.)
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Friday July 31 2020, @02:19PM
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/big-tech-competitors-were-blown-away-by-house-antitrust-ceo-hearing.html [cnbc.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 31 2020, @04:00PM
It's absolutely worth thinking on but any idea needs at least 3/4 of each chamber doing some seriously thorough devil's advocating before they pass anything or it's likely to either get thrown out by the courts or make things worse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday July 31 2020, @05:03PM
thesesystemsarefailing.net
check my other comment that is nested for more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @05:17PM
i suppose i can still use the internet without having to use any off them services. the internet should work fine.
however they obviously "bring something to the table" else they would not have grown so ..uhm ...errr ... big?
in any case, use them or not, i see the problem more in how you plant a tree to close tooo your house and then 16 years later the roots
start destoyi... uhm ... invading your basement and foundation.
maybe look out for how the "physical internet cable wire mumbo-jumbo" thing will start growing from and too those 'em data centers:
state of the art, hyper-light lanes at gazillion quantum bits going in and out of 'em ... and besides these, for like if you can get a real physically routed connection from your house to the neighbour, two cities over, is like ... a 56kbit pot-holed and wet mud road... unless you're "Free vpn-ing" TO one of 'em datacenters first and then BACK to your neighbor.
in anycase, maybe not very "free market" but if you tax 'em be sure to use 'em taxes to fill up those 'em muddy pot holes in the "public internet" infrastructure?
you know, once you clubbermint dudes forget about the "back roads" of the internet and require to "route thru datacenters" , the axe comes down and all your state complaints will be blackholed ... just like your word document seems to crash alot when you're trying to turn ..err... argue m$ into a monopoly?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday July 31 2020, @06:09PM
Zuckerberg: I have to go to the bathroom... [youtu.be]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..