I’m with you on that idea. But as I said, the government should tax the entire sector. This will percolate as prices to pay for consumers (prices!! not taxes!! as most people don’t pay taxes in developing/underdeveloped countries) - and not remain completely free like it is now (freemium model: free up to a limit, then pay as per a tiered pricing model based on say how many posts you are making, and how many followers/viewers you have - currently the cheap data storage and network bandwidth, plus ad-supported and “selling-user-data” revenue models have kept this free unlimited). Same thing as you were saying, but ensures it is done across the board for a problematic sector, not on an app-by-app basis. If it’s done slowly, then people will just find loopholes and migrate to other apps. Here’s what I’d said:
As for:
Again, the government (of the people or at least well-intentioned rich people) can redefine what profits mean for companies, by making large corporations and/or entire sectors accountable for the currently “external” negative effects. If it’s on your books, you will start taking care of it. Out of sight, out of mind (often conveniently - “let’s exploit the nature and the poor, no one is questioning us - it is free!”). Again, this will percolate as higher prices to pay and consumer behavior will change.
Not necessarily, we need to use purchasing power parity to compare the salaries practically: e.g. using something like http://salaryconverter.nigelb.me/ What I’m saying is: salaries will be lower in poorer countries compared to richer countries in absolute values, but compared by PPP, they can be equivalent and hence fair. You can buy same things in different markets for different prices. Yeah, what this doesn’t help is the overall standard of living in these countries: you need development across the board to raise these levels, not just higher salaries.
In fact, this PPP is being exploited when corporations fire their employees and outsource their operations. It only helps the corporations. The local markets suffer. “Anti-Work”!! Yes, at times, you can see the price drop for consumers as good, but if the product is having bad effects like those described by extractive attention economy and human downgrading, then you are just making those bad things affordable!! So still, “Anti-Work”. I’m not saying outsourcing always need be overall bad. But it often has been.
Oh wait, this made me think: what if UN or the government of some developed country said “Don’t use PPP for paying comparative salaries as per local markets of employees. Pay equally to all your employees in absolute values everywhere.” Hmm, firstly corporations will stop outsourcing - no point in getting a possibly less-skilled labor for same price. They’ll always go for the highest-skilled labor possible for their budget. (of course, there will also be lots of scams by getting labor under different company’s name - so this will require to be put under scanner) Secondly, this will require additional steps for the poor countries, because without foreign investments, the job market can suddenly look barren and just put their economy in a shock: so more efforts and funding for social entrepreneurship programs and local startup incubators in those countries will be very very crucial.
Sigh! I know how this all sounds though, too much control is required for this. But it is like parenting right? You can’t just leave your young impressionable teenage children off the hook to do anything they please, need to have some kind of discipline and guidance over what’s right, what’s wrong. And if more parents in the society are acting responsibly, the burden on an individual parent is reduced. Or take the example of user-reputation-systems on discourse or github or reddit or wikipedia, ensuring mostly good behavior by design, and keeping the community overall healthy and safe for everyone.