[howinteresting]

I generally think any company with a >10 billion (2023 US) dollar valuation should be forced to do things that may not directly benefit them but benefit society. Having to publish open specifications for all their proprietary integrations is a pretty easy, relatively low-cost example.

How to make this work in practice is a really interesting question. Community and employee representatives on the board would be a good start. But I think just having the requirement that open specifications be made available, and writing that into legislation, would be great.

[scarface_74]

Oh god, talking about design by committee. Why not just cut out the middle man and let the government take it over and come up with “5 year plans”

[howinteresting]

If a company doesn't want at least some element of that, the solution is very simple: drop below a USD $10B valuation by spinning off parts of the company. Note that I said TEN BILLION DOLLARS. A "decacorn". That is an unfathomable amount of money. If you've created a company worth that much you've won at capitalism.

If governments had a good track record I'd advocate for that. No need for strawmen like five year plans, I think competition is a wonderful thing.

My underlying, strong belief is that corporations are legal fictions created primarily to benefit society, Milton Friedman's philosophy notwithstanding.

[smoldesu]

Design-by-committee doesn't sound half-bad if it can standardize a single serial cable that doesn't have licensing fees. Doesn't resemble an unreasonable use of government power at all.