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Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

If only Google were my 10th biggest problem. Try to get Exxon, Shell, et al out of your life who aren't violating abstract principles but are literally killing the planet. Then let me get unethically farmed or raised foods out of my life (which, thanks to the US preoccupation with corn and the nitrogen it requires, are frequently overlapping with petroleum). Then let me get Oracle and Microsoft out of my life. Then let me get the Murdoch empire out of my life. Then let me get Facebook out of my life. Then let me buy a consumer good that isn't designed for obsolescence. Then let me get intermediate middlemen in the healthcare system in the US out of my life. Then I'll take an eye at Google.

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All good, valid points. There are so many things that needs political attention. And exactly for that reason, I think ranking these companies according to how evil they are hardly helps. We need significant regulatory changes around climate, privacy, farming, etc. One political issue may have priority over others, but the whole thing is more political than personal (getting a company out of my life).

Why Microsoft over Facebook and Google? Recently I've been thinking that MS is the FAMGAN/whatever that I'd be most willing to work for, so I'm interested to hear your case.

Because I saw how they behaved in the 90s, see how much passive telemetry they collect with their share of the OS market, how much they push Windows logins with antipatterns, and because they own Github (when now controls npm).

edit: Let me say some nice things about them. I put them towards the end for a reason, and they probably don't belong with Oracle. I don't think they are a big problem in the world, if at all. They aren't the company they were in the 90s. Gates has become one of the worlds most staggeringly successful humanitarians because of his direct effort and indirectly from the giving pledge, and it has redeemed him many times over again. Nadella seems like a decent person and truly great executive, and they have improved enormously as a company under him. I would probably work for them. But I don't have any problem with Google, either. What Microsoft does have is a vastly greater potential for abuse.

For Exxon, Shell, … do it correctly. Don’t replace them. Less oil, car driving, plastic, …

Buying a Tesla or something similar shouldn't be enough to very Exxon/Shell out of your life? Or you mean more abstractly? (E.g. the people transporting your food, mail, et al)

I think they mean plastics

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