Don’t ‘break it up’, nationalize it, and do the same with all these other giant corporations.
Profits could support UBI instead of encouraging billionaires.
That’s not in anyone’s interest. It’s the surest way to have a thousand national search engines which are all shitty. National walled internet Gardens etc
Break it up instead
Not sure where you’re getting the idea that there would be thousands. But as for the shitty part, it’s already shit. Google’s search engine utterly fails at it’s job, and not just because of the rise in LLM/SEO. They waste billions on fancy new AI searches that nobody wants, they accept bribes to get pages to the top of the search, and even when you’re looking at an actual for real result, it often isn’t even what you want.
When a critical industry fails to do its job, it is time to nationalize it. With that said, the criticality of search engines is debatable. I’m cool with breaking it up at a bare minimum. The list of corps in need of getting broken up is way to long.
The idea stems from the propaganda tool that would be if it were state owned. Other countries would seriously discourage or ban its use, but as it is useful they’d need a replacement. Hence a thousand shitty ones.
How would there be thousands? There aren’t thousands of nations, and everyone would still use Google.
If you break it up, that’s how you get thousands of shitty versions.
Maybe some countries might disable Google if it was owned by the US, but I have a feeling those countries already have their own issues with Google as it stands now.
I just think if the monopolistic corporations are too big and too essential to take down, then nationalization is a solution with many more positive traits than negative.
That hasn’t been the case if you look into what happened with Microsoft and browsers.
The other thing is
everyone would still use Google.
Is actually wrong, and what they proved with the antitrust case itself. A huge chunk of the anticompetitive activity was Google paying to be the default because people don’t change the default.
Unfortunately one of the big ideas republicans have conditioned half our population into believing is that government itself is basically a flawed idea and that our government will not ever be able to do anything right. So it would be a tough sell to say the least.
And also as an American, I imagine many people around the world would not be thrilled with the prospect of the US government owning the web browser they use.
There is a kernel of truth in that sentiment though. The government has a tendency to be grossly wasteful of resources, but I feel this is offset by the fact that they aren’t profit driven in their goals and less likely to skyrocket prices to line shareholder pockets. Corporation are also “wasteful” in a sense, where they charge insane markups over actual cost and refuse to pay taxes on them, the difference here is that corporations move their profits offshore and out of Americans pockets, where the government always ends up paying private contractors more than they should. In the end corporations do more with less while government controlled services are always WAAAAAY cheaper than their private counterparts for the consumer despite them being inefficient.
This is the part they don’t get. Do you want zero waste and ever rising prices for the sake of some worthless rent seeking billionaire cocksucker, or do u want some inefficiency, but you pay less overall. One makes someone else rich at your expense, the other allows you an affordable life while preventing another billionaire from existing.
Not like the CIA doesn’t already have full access to your browsing history already
Ignoring the snark in your comment…
I assume you take issue with UBI?
Would you feel different if we ‘required service’ for UBI? For example, some countries have mandatory military service. If we nationalize these giant corporations, we could make working there a way to qualify for UBI.
Do you think UBI is just taking money from the average person and giving it to lazy people who do nothing? Or do you enjoy the separation of the rich while the rest of us struggle for scraps? Do you understand that the UBI would apply to you as well?
Or am I missing deeper thoughts given to your comment?
I don’t worry much about people who have more than me. I am grateful to enjoy my work and my life. I don’t want the government to steal from me and I don’t want them to steal from others either. Even in the black and white world of marxists, exploitation of labor just moves from the oppressors to the government. The government becomes the oppressors. It has never worked, it will never work. People are naturally motivated by profit. It’s built in. Messing with that or short-circuiting the work-reward system is unsustainable.
I don’t agree with that guy but doesn’t that apply to the people running these companies. Profit can only be made by exploiting labour. There can’t be any other way
Profit can only be made by exploiting labour. There can’t be any other way
This is a bad take and suffers from overly-simplistic thinking. Corporations are force multipliers for labor and the economic value of your labor is increased by joining forces with others.
