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Comment by ng12 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why she's so gung-ho on this. I can't imagine it's a popular issue with the average voter, especially when tech is one of the last true paths to the middle class Americans have left.

On the other hand even my tech illiterate family members would like to see Comcast taken down a few pegs.

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It's a very popular issue with the average voter, >60% approve and 20% are unsure. And it seems to be popular across party/ideological lines.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/18/20870938/b...

Yup. And honestly, everyone outside of the valley wants to take the valley down a notch. They're easier to hate than Wall Street, even. Seems like a slam dunk for popularity.

She just tweeted:

"Imagine Facebook and Instagram trying to outdo each other to protect your privacy and keep misinformation out of your feed, instead of working together to sell your data, inundate you with misinformation, and undermine our election security. That's why we need to #BreakUpBigTech."

https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1179118108633636865

It isn't too difficult to articulate why the average voter might be interested in it.

> Imagine Facebook and Instagram trying to outdo each other to protect your privacy and keep misinformation out of your feed

This feels like an unrealistic fantasy. If it hasn't been the case for FB vs Twitter vs Snap, what makes her think adding IG back into the mix will?

Twitter and Snap have never meaningfully competed with Facebook in terms of market share. Probably one of the reasons FB didn't acquire them, too.

FB tried to acquire Snap for 3B, but Spiegel turned them down...

Because it is affecting how people in the United States consume information and that is affecting the functioning of our democracy

Both sides of the political spectrum are pissed at Facebook at least. Both the far left and far right feel like they're being silenced, and politicians have to be special cased in Facebook's system apparently in order to not get auto takedowns, and they still sometimes run afowl.

Will breaking Facebook up have any benefit? Probably not, but there's bipartisan support for doing something.

> Both the far left and far right feel like they're being silenced

I'm in the group of people who thinks that Facebook is a huge problem, but I don't think the problem is that they're silencing anybody, left or right.

> popular issue with the average voter

She's running in a primary election. "Build the wall" never crossed 50% in a general poll either, but it was still a winning argument.

> tech is one of the last true paths to the middle class Americans have left

1. is that really true? I don't see it myself.

2. splitting up Facebook would not suddenly mean there are no jobs in tech. If anything it might mean there are more, as there would be great competition.

Out of the popular/common white collar jobs that can help someone push oneself out of the lower middle class rut which include medicine, law, banking, software, etc I'd certainly say software has the lowest barrier for entry and highest ROI wrt education/time/financial cost.

I wouldn't be surprised if the median household income for kids entering medicine/law/banking are well above those studying cs.

It's one of the few fields where a bachelor's degree from a state school can pretty easily lead to a six-figure salary.

Yes, but I also don't see how breaking up Facebook would change that.

(For the record, I'm not decided either way on whether breaking them up is the right way to resolve the problems that Facebook causes.)

What makes you say that tech is one of the last true paths to the middle class?

I think what they mean is that it's generally a very well paid field (with decent benefits) and that the barrier to entry is not incredibly high.

Sure it is. Most people I know could never, ever, cut it as a developer. Most people are just too stupid. And most developers are pretty stupid as well, so that’s saying something.

Because a bachelor's degree in CS from a state school can very realistically be the key to a six-figure salary. Most other "white color" professions either require significantly more schooling or have dimmer job prospects.

See the "A Public Option for Broadband" section here:

https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/invest-rural

I wonder if she (or her staffers) actually think with a straight face that this is actually a thing that many people care about? It seems marketed for coastal elites who are being patronizing towards rural americans. They knew what they're doing and what they're voting for - (anti)immigration, culture war, agricultural subsidies carry far more weight than elitist plans like this.

Are you sure you're not being patronizing towards rural communities yourself by presuming that they are not interested in fast internet access? Not to mention presuming their views on things like immigration (farms hire a lot of immigrants)

One of my best friends works a remote software engineering job in a relatively rural area. He needs fast internet.

Isn't she also targeting Comcast? I know she's made similar criticisms of them, but maybe I'm just assuming that means she wants to go after them explicitly.

The most recent article I can find on the issue is from 2016. She's definitely cooled it on Comcast/Verizon since.

That's unfortunate - I agree ISPs would be a more poplar target on both sides of the aisle.

This is the primary. Democrats will be gung-ho on things that they think will win the primary then race to the center in the general election.

Either that, or they'll stupidly alienate over half of all voters by standing firm on losing issues again and again and hand Trump the victory.

I'm not Nate Silver, but I think it's 50/50 shot of either of these being true.

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