Comment by xlayn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xlayn | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I have thought about this and my conclusion is that we have power over those companies, the power is on your decision not to buy any products from them.

  -Take for chance apple, Imagine people not buying a
   single iPhone until they start paying taxes as they
   should on US, you still can buy any rival brand right?
   You can imagine how stock prices would fall under the 
   pressure of 0 iphones sold.
  -Software, go with a rival, support open source.
  -Get to the street and complain.
  -Do not play any music from vendorx, do not go to your
   artists concerts, do not play youtube music from them.

Is all about us and doing some small sacrifices, in my case the reason behind my switch totally and never go back from windows to linux was the ftdi driver "update" bricking my olimexino 328.

Edit: I have to say laws it's a very difficult area, maybe one of the easiest ways you can have of making a change could be supporting organizations like the EFF.

Edit: clarity

"the power is on your decision not to buy any products from them"

The problem is our power is diluted.

It is diluted, indeed. We are poor and many, they are rich an few. It is much easier to maintain coherence between them than between us. They can use mass media and other channels to incite even more conflict and division between the poor to keep them from mounting a meaningful resistance.

I don't think a social change will happen on its own or by revolution, but rather there will be improvements in life quality for the poor as new technology such as the internet and smart phones are made available for the masses at low prices. The standard of living has improved in the last 100 years a lot for everyone, and this trend is going to continue in the future.

Or we could enact legislation such that there are sane tax brackets and sufficient public services are made available.

That's OK if it's a frivolous item like an Xbox but for something essential you may not have a choice.

The first thing that came to mind: It's almost not possible to buy a computer without Windows, despite many times not needing it or being able to reuse the one shipped with the last computer. Microsoft managed to get in a position where almost everybody pays a tax.

So sometimes there is no real choice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com