This "all or nothing" line of reasoning doesn't convince me. No, the legal system is not perfect but that doesn't mean the only way forward is to refuse to participate in it and adopt a radical system that totally reimagines the fundamental idea of property.
Visiting the Bay Area, the spiritual home of it all really hammers home that dystopian quality. There is such a stark contrast between the glass palaced elite and the poor.
Sometimes I find it very hard to feel positive about “tech” and it’s future.
I’d say the answer is no, it couldn’t. The internet was created during the tail end of powerful antitrust in America, which had the government actively fighting against the monopoly size of corporations. Both IBM and AT&T, had they not been kept in check with antitrust regulations, would have likely stifled the internet and the growth of the personal computer.
Hell, even the last dying gasp of antitrust in its feeble attempt to check Microsoft, paved the way for Google and the monopolies created since.
The answer is to actively support the ideas of anti monopoly and antitrust. To break up companies and punish them for suffocating the good parts of capitalism.
I don't think breaking up companies should be the emphasis, but rather the merging of companies. AT&T was already broken up once. Now look at them.
Unfortunately, we’ve allowed too many, and need to break up companies across industries.
edit: and figure out a way to tell future generations not to give up on these laws next time? To your point, they may find themselves in this same place again.
The practical solution is not adopt communism, but to use FOSS software and not accept any gaps in the FOSS ecosystem.
> I feel increasingly worried about future iterations on similar ideas like the metaverse/AR which seems to be gearing up to be a fight between Facebook and Apple with Unity, Epic and Roblox on the side. I think we’re going to end up with something pretty closed and dystopian.
I fail to see how this lawsuit you speak of is relevant to FOSS. Are you aware of Godot engine, an increasingly viable unity alternative? The important advantage of Godot engine over Unity is that the incentives of the developers are more aligned with the incentives of the users. Unity subjects its users to a terribly complicated EULA that many don't fully understand. It restricts the amount of copies you can install, how much money you can make, what you can use it for and so on. Godot doesn't have any of that, and they're well-funded.
Godot engine is an example of a FOSS project that exists simply because the open source development model is more efficient than closed source. Companies realized that a FOSS game engine would be in their best interests and therefore they decided to fund development. This goes to show that FOSS is not totally at odds with capitalism. Sure, the corporation funding Godot could try to take the project in a bad direction. If that happens, the people who care about FOSS rather than "Free software as cheap labor" could fork it.
I'm pretty sure that's what copyrights over digital information are in the first place.