[ifyoubuildit]

> I can control government more than I can control Google or Anthropic

How true is this really? With the government, you can vote in various elections, or contact your representatives, and when it comes to important issues that will do exactly squat. You can also buy politicians or legislation, or run yourself, if you have the wealth and connections to do so.

With corporations, you can vote with your dollars, which again on important issues will probably do squat. Or you can try to get hired and change the company from within. Or if you have the wealth, you can buy the company (partially or wholly), or start a competitor and win in the marketplace.

In both situations there are options, and most of them are basically impossible for the small folk.

[bombcar]

The illusion of control is stronger with modern democratic governments-but while it’s true that if we all voted for Vermin Supreme, he’d rule, it’s also true if we all stopped using Google they’d die quickly.

But neither is a realistic outcome. And neither do you personally have anything remotely near “control”. The reason everyone argues about this stuff online is that’s literally the only power we have.

However, the same effort and energy spent elsewhere can reap much, much bigger dividends down the line.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Governments are local/national policy infrastructure.

So are big corporations.

Only one gives users any kind of democratic influence over policy.

And voting does make a difference. Ask New York.

[notahacker]

1 small guy changing stuff is basically impossible. But 100 million small folk sufficiently annoyed with something changes a government (for better and for worse), whilst having basically zero influence over a corporation (they're not the customer, they don't have enough buying power for a hostile takeover, they certainly don't have the wherewithal to destroy them by launching a competitor... which they probably don't even want to if they think what the corporation does is bad). The exception, of course, is that if the corporation bothers that many small people that much, a government might get around to listening to the small people's arguments more than the corporation's.

[derangedHorse]

> But 100 million small folk sufficiently annoyed with something changes a government (for better and for worse), whilst having basically zero influence over a corporation

They don't have influence because you designed them to be so. You said they're not the customer and implied they have no influence over customers.

Your argument says 100 million small folk in the same government jurisdiction have more government say vs 100 million small folk have in a company they have nothing to do with. That seems clear.

The inverse relation could also be said though. 100 million small folk in different government jurisdictions have less say in a government they have nothing to do with than 100 million customers of the same company do with a corporation.

[notahacker]

Things other governments do generally don't affect me as things other companies in the same market as me get away with doing, or things a company does in my neighbourhood though, and there are a lot more companies with power to hurt my interests than countries. Also there's the little thing called foreign policy that means 100 million people do, in fact, get to vote on how their government handles things other governments do which hurt them, to the extent their government has negotiation cards to play.

On the other hand pure market solutions mean "if you're not the customer, corporations can harm you and 100 million other people interests in their locality as much as they like".

The limitations of 100 million people's ability to stop the 10 million people across the border voting for something that will harm them come because international relations look less like a democracy and more like a market...

[SpicyLemonZest]

The President of the United States visibly hates me and keeps calling me a "Dumocrat". If Sundar Pichai did that, he'd be fired, and even people who despise my politics would generally understand why companies don't let their CEOs say such things.

But Congress won't fire Trump. All of my representatives would, if given a chance, but other representatives in other districts have no accountability to me and don't want to.

So I'm not sure how to avoid the conclusion that I have less practical control over the federal government than I do Google, even if the formal levers of power are meant to achieve a different result.