"How many Europeans use Google? 90%. That's democracy: the people of Europe gets what it wants."
No, that's not democracy, that's a free market. There's a big difference: democracy is about electing representatives to pursue your preferred policy goals. These goals may or may not support personal or economic freedom. One might want to use a service on the free market and at the same time want their elected representatives to constrain its competitive strength to enable local competition. Mainly this should be done in the interest of consumers or it gets too distortionary. I'm not claiming Google harms consumers, I'm just saying that (for example) Google has massive negative implications on privacy which are concerning.
"Now pass a "democratic" law to ban Dropbox because it's not hosted in France, and all we're left with is the opposite of democracy. "
Actually, no. What you're left with is a democratically elected government that is closing their trade market somewhat in favor of other interests.
Note, nowhere did I suggest it was a good idea to ban a company from trading with a country. That would be a bad policy unless there was a very strong reason and popular support. Constraining behavior, on the other hand, might or might not be a bad policy. Hard to know.
"It's just a matter of performance... until the law comes into play, in less than democratic ways, to cut competition."
I agree the free market and free enterprise is all about performance and results, and the law doesn't care about such things. But that's why democracy exists - sometimes efficiency and performance is NOT what the populace wants. They want change and competition to be slowed by laws and regulations. People do not respond to change as quickly as the markets sometimes want them to.
All of this are just policy differences between laissez-faire free market and more socialist policies. They have their tradeoffs but are both legitimate (one is not more "democratic" than the other).
No, that's not democracy, that's a free market. There's a big difference: democracy is about electing representatives to pursue your preferred policy goals. These goals may or may not support personal or economic freedom. One might want to use a service on the free market and at the same time want their elected representatives to constrain its competitive strength to enable local competition. Mainly this should be done in the interest of consumers or it gets too distortionary. I'm not claiming Google harms consumers, I'm just saying that (for example) Google has massive negative implications on privacy which are concerning.
"Now pass a "democratic" law to ban Dropbox because it's not hosted in France, and all we're left with is the opposite of democracy. "
Actually, no. What you're left with is a democratically elected government that is closing their trade market somewhat in favor of other interests.
Note, nowhere did I suggest it was a good idea to ban a company from trading with a country. That would be a bad policy unless there was a very strong reason and popular support. Constraining behavior, on the other hand, might or might not be a bad policy. Hard to know.
"It's just a matter of performance... until the law comes into play, in less than democratic ways, to cut competition."
I agree the free market and free enterprise is all about performance and results, and the law doesn't care about such things. But that's why democracy exists - sometimes efficiency and performance is NOT what the populace wants. They want change and competition to be slowed by laws and regulations. People do not respond to change as quickly as the markets sometimes want them to.
All of this are just policy differences between laissez-faire free market and more socialist policies. They have their tradeoffs but are both legitimate (one is not more "democratic" than the other).