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Comment by cloakandswagger | Hacker News Reader

-The services provided by Google and Facebook have an unassailable majority of market share and are relied on by a huge amount of people.

-They enjoy a de facto monopoly and are protected by the extreme cost, risk and time involved in building competing services.

-Finally, they have a potential for abuse (say, with selective censorship or politically biased algorithms) that could essentially curb the Constitutional rights of individuals

If these points sound familiar it's because they're frequently used when arguing for the nationalization of a private company. Since I think that's (currently) out of reach, I believe regulating Facebook, Google, et al as public utilities to be the next best thing.

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Trusting government to regulate Facebook? No way. I lived in China; I have seen how that story plays out.

Some people really do have a naïve trust in government. Free markets are the answer. Who has actually made a legitimate attempt to compete with Google or Facebook? What VCs are investing in Facebook alternatives?

MySpace was unstoppable – until it wasn’t. Yahoo owned search – until it didn’t. Perhaps there ought to be more bold entrepreneurship rather than calls for regulation.

Sounds to me that people are ok with just giving up and giving Facebook the win.

Don’t like Facebook’s dominance? Then challenge it. Don’t cop out and just let the government take control.

History is littered with great companies toppled by better ideas and execution.

No way. I lived in China; I have seen how that story plays out.

It's naive to think that any one form of human organization, be it governmental or corporate, is somehow less corruptible than another. You're right to be on your guard against governmental abuses, but don't take your eye off the other balls in play.

History is littered with great companies toppled by better ideas and execution.

What we've seen lately are instances where one company topples another and proceeds to commit the same abuses, only more effectively and at wider scale. When Facebook replaced MySpace, were its users really that much better off? Which company had fewer rules and enforced fewer content guidelines? When one company dominates the market and locks it up with network effects, what incentive does that leave them to play well with others?

> It's naive to think that any one form of human organization, be it governmental or corporate, is somehow less corruptible than another.

You don't think any organizations have ever been any more corruptible than any other organizations?

Not once they reach a certain size, no. It turns into a pointless exercise in moral relativism. Joe brings up the Soviets, Jane counters with the East India Company. Bob rants about Trump, Betsy pulls up the Wikipedia article on Union Carbide. Sally complains about police brutality, Sam lectures her on the history of the Pinkerton Agency. Hank sticks up for the UAW, Mary criticizes the Teamsters.

None of these organizations should have been trusted implicitly to do the right thing for society at large. The burden of proof rests decisively with those who want us to believe that Google and Facebook are somehow different.

We could save a lot of money and time by replacing the Supreme Court and Congress with one person each. Do you think there might be any disadvantages?

All of these organizations operated at their zeniths during different time periods, governments, cultural norms, and a variety of other factors. The problem with the conversation you're describing isn't moral relativism or that everyone in it has equally valid points, it's that none of them seem to be capable of isolating the elements of those organizations that functioned/dis-functioned without endorsing/criticizing the organization as a whole while still presenting a cogent argument.

"Trusting government to regulate Facebook? No way. I lived in China; I have seen how that story plays out."

Are you really claiming that very government that tries to regulate corporations is going to wind up like China?

You know there are lots of governments around the world that regulate corporations, and most aren't anything like China.

"Some people really do have a naïve trust in government. Free markets are the answer."

Some people really do have a naive trust in free markets.

And please explain, how would you regulated them? They have nothing in common with how utilities work, so none of the utility regulatory models would work.

What are you actually proposing?

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