[indymike]

> Well, it depends on the governance obviously.

Three reasons why nationalization is a bad idea:

* Power disparity. As it is, Facebook is destroying people and business without any accountability. Now we hand that to the state who:

* Has all the incentive to destroy anything that competes, and the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition. If you think the product is bad today, imagine how fantastic it will be in 10 years of no competition.

* Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy!

All in all, nationalization of a social network is one of the worst directions we can take, regardless of politics. It's just a bad idea.

[polygamous_bat]

> the government has the ultimate way to do it: just outlaw the competition

> So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy

These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet.

[indymike]

> These things can only fly in a non functioning democracy, which, while the US is coming dangerously close to, is not there yet.

Most functioning democracies outlaw competing with the postal service - as the US has for centuries.

[DangitBobby]

> Has all the incentive to make people use it. So, it becomes oppressive and horrible and the government decides, hey, let's make everyone use this thing for essential services like payments and democracy!

Any examples of this? The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.

[indymike]

> The USPS doesn't seem to have much power and other shipping companiea do alright.

Last I looked UPS and Fedex are legally barred from competing for letter postage and can only ship parcels (so the hack is the overnight envelope which packages your letter in a parcel.

Bonus: The postal service can arrest you and prosecute you. Last I looked, UPS and FedEx cannot.

[DangitBobby]

Last I checked, UPS and FedEx literally (ab)use USPS as cheap last-mile delivery service which it is obligated to fulfill (at a loss). And they _certainly_ can and do deliver letters. They just don't often (and not to mailboxes, which are reserved for USPS), because people aren't willing to pay for it under normal circumstances. Despite these things... UPS and FedEx seem to do pretty good business, don't they? Remind me of the problem?

And uh... I can count on 0 hands the number of times I've heard of the USPS arresting anyone. Bet you can too.

The USPS is a bit of an anomaly in that its responsibilities are carved out in the constitution! Still interested to hear of other real world examples.

[orwin]

It's because our nationalization used to ressemble the Soviet model, for various reasons (one that governments were far more authoritarian in the 40s, 50s and 60s that they are now).

You have other options. One is the following:

- 1/3 government (adapted to the size of the business: federal for Facebook, but local for a sawmill)

- 1/3 workers (including the owner if he's working his business)

- 1/3 investors (owner or shareholders).

That would makes the owner who also work at the company the final decision maker for stuff that doesn't involve the government (like investment), but allows more balanced power balance.