alt Hacker NewsThe big reason it's "obvious" when tech megacorps do it is because big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up and running and legitimized like medical, civil engineering, energy, agriculture, chemical, etc, do.
If this were 3M making nasty stuff for Northrop to put in bombs and drop on brown people or Exxon scheming up something bad in Alaska or bulldozing a national park for solar panels or some other legacy BigCo doing slimy things that are in the interests of them and the government but against the interest of the public they'd have 40yr of preexisting trade group publications, bought and paid for academic and media chatter, etc, etc, that they could point to and say "look, this is fine because the stuff we paid into in advance to legitimize these sorts of things as they come up says it is" though obviously they'd use very different words.
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> If this were 3M making nasty stuff for Northrop to put in bombs and drop on brown people or Exxon scheming up something bad in Alaska or bulldozing a national park for solar panels or some other legacy BigCo doing slimy things that are in the interests of them and the government but against the interest of the public they'd have 40yr of preexisting trade group publications, bought and paid for academic and media chatter, etc, etc, they could point to and say "look, this is fine because the stuff we paid into in advance to legitimize these sorts of things as they come up says it is" though obviously they'd use very different words.
My friend, this paragraph needed some periods. I could not follow what you were trying to say - but it seemed interesting enough to consider retyping.
> big tech is new to the game and doesn't have an existing regulatory capture system already up and running
The career officials in the Obama FTC started proceedings for an antitrust lawsuit against Google over a decade ago.
The political appointees (of both parties) shut it down.
It seems to me that regulatory capture has been working for Google for some time now.