Comment by ryandrake
1 year ago
> The public already has a way to disapprove a business: don't buy from it. If nobody buys what the business is selling, it goes out of business.
This “let the market decide” approach is clearly not working. It assumes that only the direct customers of a business are the stakeholders that matter, because they have the wallets to vote with. There are many, many companies that the general public do not buy things from yet suffer their harms. There are a lot of terrible businesses, large and small, that I don’t purchase from which I’d vote in a heartbeat to get rid of if I had the opportunity.
> There are many, many companies that the general public do not buy things from yet suffer their harms.
Examples, please? I find this claim extremely dubious.
> There are a lot of terrible businesses, large and small, that I don’t purchase from which I’d vote in a heartbeat to get rid of if I had the opportunity.
Of course, because you personally don't depend on those business for anything. (At least you appear to be assuming you don't--though you might indirectly. But let's assume you don't even indirectly.) What about the people who do?
> > There are many, many companies that the general public do not buy things from yet suffer their harms.
> Examples, please? I find this claim extremely dubious.
Any company purchasing my data without my knowledge and selling it to advertisers.
You have to use a service that harvests your data for that to happen. That's your choice. Nobody is forcing you. There is certainly no need to have a public vote to outlaw the companies. (Now, if you were to propose that our lawmakers outlaw the ad-supported business model, so that companies providing the services that now harvest data to make money would have to make the users of their services paying customers instead...)
Also, do you buy anything that the advertisers who buy your data are selling?