I find that the biggest issue with tech is that it is owned top down by corporate monopolies. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google… etc. are controlling more and more of this country’s wealth as well as data and information. In local municipalities they are becoming more powerful then our weakening government (as we saw with the Amazon HQ2 bid) and are strongman-ing their way into control our cities and the people who live in them. We need to get our act together as a country and tax/control these businesses as public utilities and spread the wealth in a democratic way. We can not allow for techno-capitalist authoritarianism EVEN if it makes ride-hailing, food delivery, etc. more convenient for those who can afford these expensive apps.
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Very well noted! Indeed I agree that the biggest problem is monopoly power. Monopolies are illegal, so the best solution in my opinion would be just for the United States to enforce its own laws and break up the monopolies into smaller pieces which could then compete against one another.
The good news is that other countries also have the power to regulate US companies, since the firms have customers in virtually every territory in the world. The EU has issued fines to many US monopolies, but these fines are too small, only target a few instances of monopolistic behaviour and are far too late – sluggish bureaucrats acting many years after offences have occurred.
It is obvious that the US does not want to enforce its anti-monopoly laws against law-breaking US companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon. This is because the US wants the American monopolies to profit from the world and to reap the tax, stock market and employment benefits that offers the US economy – at the expense of human rights and competition in the US and around the world.
Perhaps one approach would be to have other countries fine the criminal American monopolies. I’ve always wondered why with so many countries in the world, the only ones I know which seem to be acting are the united countries of the EU. Imagine if every country issued huge fines in retaliation for the American companies’ illegal behaviour. That would provide some revenue to each country and together they could readily fine the law-breaking American companies out of their illegal monopolistic businesses.
The main problem it’s Wall Street. A soon as you get your company public in trading on the Wall Street, You don’t have another choice just expand and nobody cares how you gonna do it legal or illegal but you supposed to show gross every quarter if you want survive
The monopoly issue is certainly a very important one. Interesting blog post here from Seth Godin a few years back- his argument is that certain big tech projects can only be successful if they achieve monopoly status Understanding natural monopoly, which he diagnoses as being a consequence of network effects or Metcalfe’s Law.
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