> if you're going to invade privacy on a massive scale, you better be ready for the consequences.
Like a job at Google/Facebook, where you'll continue invading privacy on a massive scale?
Like a job at Google/Facebook, where you'll continue invading privacy on a massive scale?
I've seen an uptick of negativity on HN lately, especially targeted at the big SV companies. Not intelligent criticism mind you, just basic trolling. For example your account appears to be 99% dedicated to shitting on SV companies.
It is more difficult to run open source on your handset than it is on your desktop/laptop/server and Google wants it that way to ensure you are sucked into their ecosystem of data collection. And handsets outnumber PCs. Google is directly participating in the destruction of open source computing at the consumer level while distracting us with contributions to a few projects.
Facebook is attempting to kill all open communication protocols and force everyone to communicate through their platform with powerful network effects. Anything they have done for open source is dwarfed by the decades they have set us back in open communication and privacy.
The same can be said of most monopolies, like AT&T in the 70's , Bell Labs did top notch research, and the highly reliable phone network provided huge value to people and businesses alike. Although it did have high value, it also had a high cost to the consumer and few people want to go back to the days of paying $30/month for local phone service (plus $3.99 if you want to use touch tone), and spending $7 for a 10 minute cross country call.
VS
> Facebook is attempting to kill all open communication protocols and force everyone to communicate through their platform with powerful network effects.
There's no contradiction here. Both can be true at the same time. Large organisations (government & commercial alike) have even less of a fixed & permanent nature than do individuals, and can carry out huge numbers of activities in parallel, some harmful, some beneficial.
You can try some sort of rough consequentialist calculus on an organisation's overall benefits / harms to society, which is complex and subjective to an extent that gives almost completely free play to prejudice.
Alternatively you can look at the systems within which organisations grow and assess the functioning of the whole thing. I think this is the more powerful approach, having more potential for sidelining empty moralising. Personally I believe that for fundamental reasons, hypergrowth-oriented technological society inevitably leads to the destruction of everything of value (in truth a subject for a book, not a forum comment). Facebook & Google are natural & unwitting agents of these fundamental forces. At the same time, decent & capable humans work for them in large numbers, so inevitably make positive countervailing contributions.