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Comment by misterbowfinger | Hacker News Reader

On one hand, I don't see how this is different than any of the other numerous influences we have in our cities through corporate lobbies. To suggest that the way we live is solely due to the good nature of elected representatives is naive.

On the other hand, maybe Google is flexing a little much here. I sincerely believe them that they have peoples' best interests at heart - because that will eventually be beneficial to Google as well. But inserting a little more competition here I think would lend itself a long way.

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The million dollar question is how to insert a little more competition?

Do we have our government fund alternative companies? Do we force Google to break up into smaller companies? Do we make laws and regulations limiting what companies can and cannot do?

I genuinely don't know the right answer (if there even is one), but I know that most of the answers i've heard on this have very large tradeoffs and downsides.

Publicly elected boards, perhaps? Or elected by employees with open candidacy?

Google, like any corporation, has no best interests at heart but their own. I don't know how the idea that a multibillion-dollar international corporation "has people's best interests at heart" has survived to 2017.

This is different from cities how?

Corruption and self-interest amongst elected city officials, especially in large cities such as Toronto, is endemic.

The interests of the people are more or less aligned with Sidedwalk Lab's interests. So you're not wrong, but you miss your mark a little bit.

You're generally right though, that any publicly-traded company has primarily its shareholders best interests at heart. But that doesn't mean they'll ruin their public image by doing something untowards. Google especially seems to be more forward thinking than the traditional "quarterly results" style company. So I think it's worth giving them a shot at this just to see what happens. (Spoiler alert: it'll probably be the ultimate form of sacrificing privacy for convenience)

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