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briandwyesterday at 7:31 PM1 replyview on HN

This is clearly a government power grab, not a corporate one.


Replies

themafiayesterday at 10:07 PM

It's not clear to me. Can you please elaborate on how it is to you? In particular I'm interested as to how you've fully excluded corporations from involvement.

To me, I don't believe you can have one without the other, in particular since so much of this power grab requires the instruments of corporations in order to accomplish. If _either one_ of Google or Apple said "we're not implementing these draconian controls, sue us" it would be over. It is interesting they're willing to use this tactic when it comes to protecting their app stores or in-game purchase streams but not when it comes to clear undemocratic overreach.

To be clear I'm not suggesting this is a natural outcome of capitalism in general, just that, in the wake of extreme monopolization, the current crop of mega corporations have become insulated from competitive reality, and are therefore hopelessly corrupt. They're willingly allowing their technology stacks to be used by the government in this way in exchange for the opportunities it affords them and the lack of enforcement it creates.