Comment by Kon5ole
1 year ago
The thing that makes markets work is the struggle. A Darwinian survival of the fittest in a way. Once the struggle is over and only one contestant remains, the results are generally dystopian.
Also I believe that even when working optimally the Darwinian mechanism can't solve certain problems. Some things need to be dealt with by a group of motivated people working for other goals than profit.
Markets gave us compuserve and facebook while CERN gave us the open web, for example.
Yes I can see the dystopian consequences of google’s search monopoly profits, which they have used to do such horrible things as:
- Providing a free alternative to Microsoft’s monopolized office suite and desktop OS
- Provide a free alternative to Apple’s mobile OS, spurring a revolution in access to the internet for the world’s poor
- Provide free global maps with streetview sights
- Provide a free to access video platform with invaluable educational resources that allows millions of creators to make a living and that likely wouldn’t exist save for Google’s monumental investments and ability to sustain years of losses
- Research given away for free that ignited the current AI revolution
- Research given away for free that is revolutionizing medicine and drug development
In sum, truly a horrible thing they’ve done
Very few of that is free. openstreetmap - that's free. Google maps is an advertising and data mining platform.
So you’re telling me the evil monopolist that charges nothing has a competitor, and that competitor is free? Which is why we must break up the evil monopolist?
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