[bilbo0s]

I think the point is that the danger may be more with the competitor than with Amazon.

Or even worse, they're all equally terrible. Which would mean that no matter what we do, we lose privacy and freedoms.

The public is being manipulated into taking actions directly contradictory to its own good either way.

One road to death and despair, the other to disease and destruction.

You could say, "choose wisely", but it doesn't really look like it matters.

[leereeves]

I think we're still better off if we have multiple equally terrible competitors keeping each other in check than one dominant company unrestrained.

[logicprog]

Sure, but using the government to enforce the destruction of competitors and new entrants is the shortest way to that outcome. If Walmart wants to compete, that's great. If they want to destroy their competitors, that's... Less so.

[bilbo0s]

And at the same time, when you do that, you turn a 9mm round that's flying at you, into a shotgun blast.

This whole thing requires more thoughtful consideration. You're talking about "better" off, but we are "best" off without any of the terrible competitors even having the ability to play the game.

Instead of going the anti-trust route for instance, we may just want to make the entire practice of using private data for any commercial reason at all, expressly illegal. Collecting private data at all, should be expressly illegal without the consent of the individual in question. Like a HIPAA-GDPR combo move, except with prison time.

Basically pursuing solutions like that, we should get serious with all these guys.