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Comment by devoply | Hacker News Reader

I also see Elizabeth Warren has created a set of powerful enemies way too early that will do much to stop her from becoming America's first woman president. If you wanna do something like this wait until you are in office. These are not issues that your average American cares about.

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No one can make an informed claim about the correct timing here, and to do so and say we should wait smells of concern trolling.

No, it wouldn't make sense for Warren to wait if she wants progress. She should introduce the idea to the public as soon as possible, move the overton window, and if the idea has merit it'll be easier for someone in the future to carry it forward.

Unfortunately I agree. Since Silicon Valley leans left so heavily this is the sort of thing you sit on until much later in the process. I personally feel that Google, Facebook, et al are too big and powerful now, this is going to immediately set those companies against her so she's kneecapping her campaign before it even gets started.

> Since Silicon Valley leans left so heavily

I really believe it doesn't. No serious concentration of wealth ever does. Yes, personal attitudes in SV are often liberal, but the economic outlook most common in the place is akin to Andrew Carnegie with a git repo. It's this economic outlook where her proposal targets.

Ii that really a thing though?

Have we seen tech company lobbyists really push a lot of weight around? Companies that seemed to genuinely support net neutrality didn't seem to have much of any impact / participate all that much.

> Companies that seemed to genuinely support net neutrality

Which companies were those? Netflix and google both made statements that they support net neutrality, but I didn't see them lift a finger to do anything about it: it seems to have been mostly a pr move.

That's my point. I don't feel like we've seen tech companies really lobby on a level where there is any impact on the national level.

FAANG are outlobbying most other industries, they're just doing it to influence issues that aren't currently gathering much scrutiny or media attention.

> Google said it lobbied on dozens of issues, reflecting how integral its services have become to American lives and commerce. The filing cited privacy, data security, antitrust, taxes, tariffs, trade, the opioid crisis, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, immigration, the future of work, encryption and national security.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/google-se...

Netflix added banners promoting net neutrality to their website if I remember correctly.

>>These are not issues that your average American cares about.

Why not? I think there are wings of both the major parties that feel that there is an "us vs the big bad corporations". Both sides feel there are inherent flaws with the current economics, but would solve it in very different ways.

Employment and how multinationals run themselves are things many people care about. They just can't agree on how to fix it.

That said, I don't disagree that pissing off a group of megacorps this early in the race seems like it's just begging for powerful enemies. But it also seems like it's possible this becomes a point that many of the primary candidates pick up. In that case, it basically becomes a moot point since there's no candidate for the pro-FAANG lobby to back in the field that will align closer with their goals. And when it the game becomes <Democrat> Vs. Trump, everything changes.

With all due respect, I don’t think you speak for the average American.

edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted, since I basically stated the truth: the parent poster doesn't speak for the average American.

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