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by jheriko 4079 days ago
> We need to force the tech majors to take a stand against this.

Why exactly?

The crux of this argument seems to be "having more money makes you better able to compete"

This falls out of free market capitalism. Its not going to go away without regulation, and it seems like doing so will disadvantage swathes of poor people for questionable benefits.

I do see the argument, but I think its quite far out of touch with reality, as a lot of these 'internet rights' and silicon valley engineers seem to be.
1 comments
hobs 4079 days ago
More like "Having more money means you can sandbag your competitors, since you own the verticals and give away your service to encourage usage of your walled garden until your competitors fade into nothingness."

In regards to the swathes of poor people, we can use a similar situation (though hyperbolic) to compare, and that is nestle giving out free formula to breastfeeding mothers in poor countries, and that couldnt hurt anyone because they were giving it away, right?

For example, IBFAN claim that Nestlé distributes free formula samples to hospitals and maternity wards; after leaving the hospital, the formula is no longer free, but because the supplementation has interfered with lactation, the family must continue to buy the formula.[1]

Regulation is definitely needed when a company does the equivalent of dumping or a predatory pricing scheme. Claiming that "poor people will be hurt" is missing the point that the robber baron isn't giving them free bread to feed them, they give them free bread to close down the other bakeries and then charge them for their daily bread in any way they want.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9_boycott#Baby_milk_i...

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jheriko 4079 days ago
It should be regulated. I'm just not sure why tech majors should take this up for us... its not in their interest, or in the interest of their customers.

Regardless as to motive, nothing will change to the people who benefit from this...

I'm not sure what competition it will be stifling either. We seem to be assuming that this is already a fairly balanced industry without gigantic monopolies - which is just untrue.

I can see the philosophical argument, I just can't be in favour of it when all we want at the core is to do is hold something back that has benefit.

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