[smhenderson]

I don't know, it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies.

I am absolutely not surprised by the whining and am in no way giving these companies a pass. Something absolutely must be done to better protect user data and privacy.

But babies and bath water come to mind when I read comments like yours.

[rglullis]

What I want is for us to reward companies for what they produced, not by what they managed to squeeze out of customers after getting big.

Apple was revitalized by the iPod and later the iPhone? Great, let them sell as many iPods and iPhones as they possibly can. But when they sell it, do not let them keep control of everything. If they are saying the only they can make money is by keeping the iPhone closed and being the gatekeeper of the app store, it means that they are not really making money on the device, so we shouldn't be rewarding them.

Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market.

Does Facebook want to innovate on the communication space by developing an application on XMPP? When was it even working with Google Talk? Amazing, let's reward them for that instead of letting close things down and please let's not them have WhatsApp to feed their endless appetite for user data.

[Kalium]

> Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market.

This one sticks out among your examples - that dominant position and the profits from it is the reward. How else would you have a reward work?

This isn't an idle question. Right now companies are doing things that generate their own financial rewards. What other way would you have it work, beyond just some notion of differently?

[smhenderson]

I absolutely agree and made the cardinal sin of conflating data privacy with the subject of the article, which is about anti-competitive behavior.

But they are both huge issues for the companies we're discussing and I absolutely agree with your thoughts on rewarding them for what they do well but not assuming that everything they do must be just as great and giving them a pass for when they get it wrong or actively hostile to their customers.

[newsclues]

Seems like taking away the choice for closed ecosystems may not be great for the market, sometimes consumers like myself want the closed ecosystem!

[sph]

Companies are not people. We do not need to "remember their contributions and innovations." Their valuation today is because of those contributions, so they got their rewards, profit and then some.

Commission a statue for them if you want. What is this parasocial relationship some people have with fiscal entities?

[yreg]

What parasocial relationship? The parent merely said that we would not be better off if we "got rid of them".

[riddlemethat]

They own stock in them and don't want to see that value erased.

[JumpCrisscross]

> What is this parasocial relationship some people have with fiscal entities?

America’s relationship with the tech giants is distinct from Europe’s. We can directly regulate them, if we want to. And our cities are littered with buildings and institutions named after their founders and senior leadership, as well as start-ups seeded by their cash and alumni. We see tremendous side-channel benefits, in other words, from that wealth.

Europe, not as much. Because the founders aren’t there. That is in part due to Europeans’ aversion to big business—if you don’t like big businesses you won’t have them homegrown. (Exception for industrial companies in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.) But it’s also because American companies have been taking advantage of its until-recent regulatory weakness.

[rapnie]

It is a bit tangential, but this article [0] by Baldur Bjarnason sheds a light on the EU's perspective in crafting regulations such as the DMA, and how that seems to be largely misunderstood by the big US tech companies.

[0] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...

[bryanrasmussen]

>Any time you see two entities of similar size fight, bet on the one that thinks it’s fighting for its life.

yeah sure, but also bet on the one that can pass legislation regarding the other one.

[jprete]

This article would make an excellent main post.

[asimpletune]

This was a great read. One problem that I have, at least, is that I think the eu is not understanding the tech on this one and actually violating their own, all important, single market principle. With the apple all store, there actually was just one market and a set of standards and regulations that governed it. Now, there will be x many standards. The experience on the foo app will depend on what App Store it was purchased in.

If the eu had taken a more ambitious route then I could see this actually working for apple, who operates, imo opinion, under the principle of balancing what is best for the customer against what the developer can tolerate. This has created the apple ecosystem as the only one that is profitable, precisely for the same reason the author argues the eu seeks to regulate businesses.

So by more ambitious I meant there needs to be a convention that governs technology along a framework akin to a technology user’s bill of rights. No stealing information, no antipatterns, cancel subscriptions with a single click, etc…

[moritonal]

I think it's a mistake to think that someone we use every day is by default beneficial to society? There are countless examples of the public discovering a thing, and the government then having to spend countless decades getting them to stop doing it in the interest of public health (both rightly and wrongly in different scenarios).

Sure Instagram is great for discovery of events, but we came from a world where local bars would list those events on their own sites for free. Now the data is locked behind Insta, or FB which I consider a real step backwards for true discovery.

[runeofdoom]

>it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies.

Perhaps I'm parsing this wrong, but it sounds a lot like "past successes are a license for future abuses." Which is not something I think we should, or can, allow.

[brookst]

I think you parsed that wrong.

I took it as “they have developed products that deliver value to some people every day, so summary execution would not be an unmitigated good”

[hobs]

Nah, there's no reason to accept terrible behavior from people just because they also do some good, the more we push back and frankly punish large companies in real terms the more likely we are to get a peaceable arrangement.

Google and Apple are not thinking "ah let's figure out how to work with these people to make a sustainable system" they are thinking what the most extractive operation they can get away with is, they do not deserve our regard because we also got blinky toys.

[Am4TIfIsER0ppos]

Google and apple have helped ruin society by developing the smartphone. They might have occasionally done something useful but I am convinced they are a net detriment. All their products are about surveillance and control. The positive might be them making some tools they use to do that available for others to use.

[brookst]

And after them, let’s get the television. And I read a pretty convincing opinion piece about how the novel is destroying today’s youth (dated 1910 or so).