[nukeop]

There is no alternative to Google, Amazon, Youtube, etc. You have tiny, inferior competitors that don't even come close to 10% of the monopolist's market share. Google works very hard to trap you in their ecosystem. Once you're there, escape is almost impossible.

[mjburgess]

Yes, in large part because their service is good.

You're conflating legal restriction on individual behavior with market/individual-preference constraints.

"Life" in general is constrained. We are not trying to get rid of limited options (every choise is between limited options), we're trying to limit totalitarian control over individuals.

That is, behaviour which is artificially constrained by imprisonment, punishment and death for the sake of preserving tyrannical power structures.

[nukeop]

And the end result are tyrannical power structures that de facto exert totalitarian control. There is very little difference between government-enforced restrictions and those created by global capitalism and its monopolies.

It doesn't matter to me if my rights are restricted by legal means or by corporate hegemonies, in fact the mechanisms in play are so complex nobody can really be sure anymore.

[mjburgess]

No no, people can be very very very sure. The 20th C. tried both of those experiments and in the totalitarian system 10s of millions -- at least -- died.

Having your choices restricted by social cooperation and negotiation (in a market places) is NOT the same as having them restricted by a bully with a military.

This false equivalence is a defense of genocide whether you are willing to own up to that or not.

[nukeop]

This sums up this stance accurately:

https://i.imgur.com/Rgvqkln.jpg

[mjburgess]

Oh no, I'm both British and leftwing.

My sympathy with state action ends however, when the leaders are murders, dictators and rutheless pilliagers of the public's wealth.

Russia's oligarchy stole Russia's wealth after the dissolution of the SU, and here you are equivocating objecting to regimes of murder and abuse with "muh food idle dont be having no choices fur me1112"£""11¬11223

The entitlement and ignorance is overwhelming. You arent owed two major search engines. "Bing" not being bigger is not the same as having to use apps which in encrypt your commnunication because you fear the police will imprison or murder you.

You are owed your political freedom. Which is de jure removed from you in Russia, and the suppression of telegram is state action to supress it further.