this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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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 is it not currently a propaganda tool? It's owned by shareholders like blackrock and vanguard. At least with it being nationalized it's possible to control it democratically.
Our options are:
None of these options are good, but the third is clearly the worst. The rich should not dictate what results pop up.
There is only ~200ish countries out there depending on how you count it. Most of them share search engines across borders, and that is unlikely to change, because if they were to see a nationalized search engine as a security problem, they would have already seen google as a security problem. So even if every third country made their own, there would only be a few dozen search engines.
But even assuming there would be 1000 search engines, 1000 shitty search engines is better than 1 shitty search engine with 85% market share. At least with the 1000 shitty engines there is competition. As of now, google is free to mess around with their black box engine however they like, showing and hiding what they like, all at the behest of blackrock, vanguard & company.
So I don't see how this would be to everyone's disinterest. Killing google and nationalizing it is exactly in everyone's interest. Though like I said, the criticality of search engines and therefore the need for nationalized search engines probably isn't there.
It is somewhat, but it's not as bad as if it was run by Trump and co.
Which is how x would become the whole internet.
Which is why the best option. Which you didn't include, is splitting Google up. Split the advertising from search. This is the surest way to make them cater to us. Especially if we can force them to compete with other search engines.
The U.S. isn't a functioning democracy though, which is why that's a problem. And just because a nationalized service is controlled democratically doesn't mean it is controlled by a president. There are a lot of different ways to have democracy.
And we no longer live in an era of horse and buggy, so democracy can be far more direct than it has in the past.
In addition, there is already a multitude of positions filled/appointed/approved by the president. The administrator of NASA, the administrator of the EPA, etc. There is nearly 500 federal agencies like this.
So this would not be a problem unique to a nationalized search engine. So the solution is an actual democratic control of these agencies/administrators, not a wanna be dictator.
Another thing to keep in mind, what I'm proposing is something that would only ever work in an actual functioning democracy. So therefore I am not proposing this within the U.S.
As I said, I think it is debatable if a search engine is even critical enough to warrant nationalization. I don't think the need is there. And as I (admitted retroactively edited my comment to say), I have previously stated that I'm totally cool with breaking up Google at a bare minimum. The rest of this is just about the hypothetical of nationalization.
Short of publicly funding private companies, this would just result in a subscription model, which nobody wants. It's either ads, subs, or public subsidization.
It's a half measure. The only real way to make them cater to us (aside from previously mentioned nationalization) is regulation, workplace democracy, and so on.
Even if Google got turned into a small company that only ever does search, they'll still be a business running under capitalism, with all of the profit seeking motives that got us to where we are now.
I think what we're running into here, is that you want to talk about removing capitalism. Which I'm all for, in the context of a functional democracy. Which isn't the case in the US or anywhere in the world.
Until we know what that looks like, and its parameters you won't admit how bad nationalising a search engine is without other privately owned alternatives.
I'm all for removing capitalism, but that's not really my aim in this discussion. I was more interested in the difficulty/value of nationalizing something like a search engine.
Given the popularity and successes of NASA, the USPS, NOAA, etc, I think you are being overly pessimistic.
None of those things are direct propaganda tools.
The second they start having to put maga posters into you mailbox and nobody else's you'll see it differently.
To you they aren't, but to the right wing they are.
We are already at risk of that. I don't see what your point is.
I'll need some sources on that one.
Then this conversation is pointless if you won't acknowledge the risk of it
I'm speaking from past experience here. I've had conversations with right wingers where I've brought up NASA articles about how one of their satellites is tracking climate change. And often times it's met with "well that's just want the government wants you to think", or "that's from NASA and therefore it's propaganda.
On a more personal level, my mother is a lunatic anti-vaxer. She treats the CDC and FDA like they're straight out of 1984. She always either ignores shit from the CDC/FDA, tries to establish them as liars/frauds, etc.
I don't exactly go around saving screenshots of conversations with right wingers, nor do I record arguments with my mother. And none of this lends itself to being easy to track on a search engine (esp given how shitty they are nowadays. That brings us full circle lol).
So take my word for it or don't, I don't care.
There is risk associated with everything. You can't have public policy without risk. You can't have a president without risk. You can't have a government agency without risk. So what's your point?
Lol.. Democratically.
Just because the U.S. is a joke of a democracy doesn't mean democracy as a whole is a joke.
*Constitutional Republic.
A constitutional republic is not mutually exclusive with democracy.
This is like saying "it isn't a car, it's a vehicle". No shit it is a vehicle, but the type of vehicle is "car".
Don’t count on people who never breathe through their nose to look deeper than what some personality on YouTube said. They don’t care about definitions, they just hear words and repeat them without looking any further. Like happy little dumb parrots. Some jackass said, “we ain’t no democracy, wurr a cawn-stuh-toosh-uhnool republic!” and they said, “huht huht! That’s right!” without bothering to learn what a constitutional republic is.
Oh I know, I'm right there with you. But I get a level of entertainment out of it.
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
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.
Why would we support UBISoft? They haven’t released any good games recently
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
Can’t disagree there. It’s not like Google is trustworthy or resists the govt/CIA. But I do still think the official change in ownership would hit people differently.
"Give me the fruit of some else's labor!!!!" Gross.
Right? Fucking billionaires
Welcome back from your 6 month bad take hiatus.
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
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.
Why is it a bad take. How can there be any other way. Where exactly is profit created from?
Profit is created from the output of productive labor. The amount of profit varies depending on the efficiency of the market and the company.
Companies are force multipliers for labor. The company's profit comes from that force mulitplication, not by withholding profit from the worker who generated it.
Who's labor?
Who is labor?