[socialismisok]

It's more complex than that, I think. Being on the left (the actual left, not some anemic pro corporate centrism that passes for the left like the Dems).

Tech is seen as a potential force for good that has squandered opportunities. Amazon has dramatically gentrified Seattle, for instance, and done little bit shrug and make some relatively small donations to Mary's Place. (Which is good, but not enough.) Meanwhile, they push hard on local politics for a "business friendly" environment and their warehouse workers tell story after story of overwork, union busting, and physical harm.

Facebook and Instagram are great, until you run into problems like Instagrams negative impact on teenager's self esteem and suicide rates. Facebook has historically had some extremely questionable moderation decisions and does a ton of user tracking. But they've also enabled internet access for much of the world.

I think the left often feels ambivalent towards tech because it's something with huge upsides and many negative externalities that tech often shrugs at.

[nequo]

I think there is nothing special about tech. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft are big companies with a lot of market power. They use their market power to maximize their profits (as they probably should) and perpetuate that market power (as they probably also should since they are not charities).

This has negative effects on many others in the economy. For example, Amazon bleeding out small retailers by capturing their supply chains and treating its own workers badly. Or Facebook manipulating teenagers into using its product despite the known negative effects on their mental health because engagement = money.

In such situations, something needs to counteract these companies' market power in order to reduce the negative effects on others. This can be consumer protections, labor laws, unions, antitrust litigation, or other types of regulation.

We've lived with a ton of such regulation that we don't even think about because it seems common sense. For example, we are not allowed to smoke inside a hospital, send our 10-year-olds to work in coal mines, or (supposedly) be forced to work 70-hour workweeks without overtime pay. It is only that the tech sector is too recent and we haven't figured out how to dampen its negative effects.

[socialismisok]

I agree, these aren't anything special and we should treat them like other big companies. The challenge is that the product can be a bit novel, and when the laws try to catch up to that novelty, it's perceived as being "against" tech. When in actuality it's just trying to adapt the rules we have to a changing world.

(I'd disagree that companies should maximize profit, but that's just a bit of an unrelated ideological difference.)

[zeroonetwothree]

Who made you the arbiter of what counts as "the left"?