alt Hacker NewsWhy tax something that the market will figure out? This is normal and things will sort themself out.
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We see that market is very irrational now and it can stay irrational for long enough to destroy everything we know in tech.
By the time market figures things out, you may no longer have services, and hardware that you use daily. When such amounts of stupid money are pumped into a single industry, even if all AI companies went out of business tomorrow, it's going to take years for things to go back to normal.
FWIW, I'm not advocating taxes, as I think that won't really do anything. I don't know what the solution is either.
They didn’t the last two memory crunches. Litigative action figured it out first.
Because this perfect version of capitalism you think exists, doesn't.
We live in a world with markets dominated by cartels of tech companies who don't play by the rules. Every other industry that impacts society in a negative way typically pays some sort of specialized tax to offset that, I don't know why these tech oligarchs shouldn't have too. It's wild how people just want to let them do whatever they want.
Everyone says we need to deregulate tech, and certain industries to get ahead of China.. Isn't it funny how their largely government controlled economy (to a degree) is annihilating the west on all fronts economically. We need far more regulation.
China will defeat the West solely because it regulates its billionaires, not the other way around like we have it in the West. And I hope so, the world is rooting for you China.
Markets only "figure things out" in a petri dish economy where:
1) There are no barriers to entry for competitors (e.g. protectionist tariffs, equal access to capital for everyone)
2) There are perfect substitutes available, so transitioning to a competitor is seamless and free (e.g. no requirement to store data in Country X, no vendor lock-in, no security compliance)
3) The industry is not a "natural monopoly" when only a handful of vendors can operate due to capital investment and national/global distribution required (see power utilities, telecoms, petrochemicals)
4) Profitability attracts competitors (won't happen because of #3), but heavy competition prevents abnormal profits from accumulating to a single player (happens because of #1, #2 and #3)
When markets don't figure things out, as is the case around the world, you get a tangled mess of market failures, government intervention and lobbying to neuter proposed interventions.