Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mojuba 1649 days ago
That's the most irrelevant counterpoint that can be made here. "Communist" states were also totalitarian, i.e. undemocratic and that was the main reason for their ultimate failure. With democracy they'd be able to self-correct and likely switch to free[er] markets for example.

Consumer software and Internet are probably the least regulated areas of engineering today, that's the problem. Compare that to aerospace, construction, etc. Regulation though is not part of the free market capitalism paradigm, it's the prerogative of democracy.

2 comments

> Regulation though is not part of the free market capitalism paradigm

Who told you that? People like to simplify views and say that people are "anti-regulation", but really people are anti-poorly-thought-out-regulation. What famous capitalist do you know that argued theft for example should be unregulated?

Show me a corporation that would whole heartedly support regulation of the market they're in.
Facebook[0]. Regulation could make it more difficult for competitors to get off the ground so they are in support of regulation to that effect.

[0]https://about.facebook.com/regulations/

You bring one of the most hypocritical pages on the Internet as an example?
Corporations also have the means and the connections to lobby the state, which ensures the regulations are more to their liking. All helping entrench the corporation.

The effect is that small competitors are kept out. They can't afford legal departments and legions of developers to match the regulatory requirements.

For now, the Internet is relatively unregulated, which allows alternative media and platforms to emerge. This is a good thing, imagine having just YouTube and Facebook forever.

> Corporations also have the means and the connections to lobby the state, which ensures the regulations are more to their liking.

I understand but under proper democracies regulations are something the society should benefit from in the first place.

What if they weren't democratic because Communism is incompatible with democracy