
Tech CEOs Invoke the American Dream to Obscure the Nightmare They Created - elsewhen
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgxbkg/tech-ceos-invoke-the-american-dream-to-obscure-the-nightmare-they-created
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isx726552
There was a great comment on Slashdot[0] of all places about today’s hearing
which I thought put it into great perspective:

> [I]t's a bit of grandstanding and an attempt to take back control of open
> discourse on the Internet. While they're going after these tech companies
> they've done fuck all about the massive telecom mergers, the fact that 90%
> of local TV stations were bought up by Sinclair Media, the massive
> consolidation in the grocery store business or that fact that every single
> apartment complex in 50 miles of where I live is owned by one company.

I couldn’t agree more. Of all the industries to go after at this time, these
tech companies will not have anywhere near the same negative impact on
people’s lives as media and housing consolidation. The power grab is happening
right under everyone’s noses, and these hearings are nothing but a
distraction.

[0]
[https://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16866313&cid=6034...](https://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16866313&cid=60344133)

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Barrin92
> that every single apartment complex in 50 miles of where I live is owned by
> one company.

That sounds relatively dramatic but if we chop the US housing market into
areas of 50 miles we still end up with a ton of different real estate
companies

Facebook and Google together hold a majority of the digital ad market. If
Facebook users were citizens it'd be the biggest nation on the planet

Sinclair is just about as bad but I doubt anyone disagrees with that
sentiment, and the conclusion is obviously that sinclair needs more attention,
and not that big tech needs less

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sjtindell
To me it feels different because telecoms, airlines, banks, real estate, and
all the other industries have undergone consolidation whereas the technology
companies under fire practically invented the markets they are dominating.

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zapita
Tech has also consolidated significantly.

\- Facebook has acquired 86 companies, most of them small startups. They
famously own Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus, as well as Giphy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Facebook)

\- Alphabet has made 236 acquisitions. They own Youtube and Doubleclick which
are massive. Android, Maps, Docs and many other Google products came from
acquisitions.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Alphabet)

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seibelj
It seems to me that the government failed from top to bottom in this pandemic.
Leaders, the CDC, the world healthcare organization, the schools and their
teachers, and on and on.

What succeeded? Private companies like grocery stores, Amazon, delivery
companies, internet providers letting us watch the Netflix box all day and
work from home.

I think the government and critics should take a hard look at themselves
before pointing to the horrors of actually functioning enterprises.

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mac01021
What should schools/teachers have done differently? (Just curious)

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seibelj
Redirected funding to parents to hire their own teachers, or enabled teachers
to teach a group of say, 20 students, in a privately provided location to
safely continue teaching. The massive population that makes up a school simply
doesn’t work in a pandemic, but teachers unions and the institution of public
school is too rigid to change whatsoever. They would rather hurt children than
adapt, it’s absolutely pathetic and immoral if not evil.

~~~
thatguy0900
Schools are so underfunded that teachers are commonly expected to buy their
own classroom supplies with their own money, I don't know what money you
expect to be diverted to parents to hire their own teachers outside of the
richest of school districts

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missedthecue
NYC schools spend more than $20k per student and get lower standardized test
results and GPAs than Idaho which spends $5k per student. Lack of money is
_not_ the problem. The spending model is.

I don't think people appreciate how much is spent on public schooling in the
US. According to data collected by the Federal Government, it's an average of
nearly $15,500 PER student PER year. That's an enormous amount of money and
the results don't show. I don't think throwing more and more money at it is
the solution to government bureaucracy and waste.

~~~
thatguy0900
That's fair. I think the solution is probably closer to emulating Idaho rather
than privatizing schools, though

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safog
I think we should at least first acknowledge that media outlets are by default
competitors to and biased against tech platforms. They're not some neutral
third parties passively reporting news / opinion as things unfold with old
fashioned journalistic integrity.

Vice is generally okay, so I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but think
twice before you subscribe to any opinion that the NYTimes / Vox et. al. have
about tech.

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op03
I feel we need public bug trackers that extend beyond software issues.

Where tech companies are creating economic issues, social issues,
psychological issues, political issues, legal issues etc there needs to be
public bug tracking on each.

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np_tedious
Neat idea. Issues might need to be a little more freeform than most bug
templates.

"Acceptance Criteria" would be a difficult field to fill out.

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pwdisswordfish2
This article is rather vacuous. At least he should link to the testimony.
However, check out this one by the same author:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ep4mx4/yale-antitrust-
sch...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ep4mx4/yale-antitrust-scholars-
resign-because-director-advises-apple-amazon)

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gowld
Article has a lot of complaints about the modern global supply chain, but not
much about the tech giants caused it or how eliminating giants would avoid the
problem.

Cocoa farm slavery is a huge problem even without a huge chocolate company
causing it.

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zwkrt
Let’s take your specific example, even though Nestle isn’t a “tech” company.
Does Nestle do everything in its power to ensure it isn’t receiving products
from slaves or from wholesalers dealing in slave-produced goods? Does it have
as a part of its charter the ethical treatment of all people in its supply
chain? Is Nestle doing its best not to do arbitrage on the difference in
living standards and regulation that exist on either end of its supply chain?
Are Nestles’ investors interested first and foremost in advancing and
uplifting the people that ultimately create and consume Nestles products? Does
Nestle lobby governments and international bodies to ensure human rights are
being upheld?

Of course not!

The problem is that people fundamentally care more about chocolate Easter eggs
than they do about each other. Slavery wouldn’t be a problem if demand for the
product wasn’t there.

Tech companies exist at the forefront of profiteering by exploiting and
reducing inefficiencies in the global market. Jeff Bezos said just as much in
his congressional hearing. The problem is that these “inefficiencies” are the
lived experiences of the people who actually interact with the tech. Peoples
well-being and autonomy and culture are not always diametrically opposed you
the interest of these companies, but at best they tend to be orthogonal.

