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Comment by download13 | Hacker News Reader

Yep, the whole of society. Most of us have a great deal of control over how things are run in this definitely real democracy

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I completely understand your feelings regarding a lack of control and agency. Modern politics now essentially revolve around outrage. No politician wants to vote on something at all controversial, every vote they take is liable to outrage one half of the population or another. Every time they do they halve their voting base until it's an irrelevant tiny minority that agrees on everything. So they have outsourced their job to the supreme court, federal agencies, and the parliamentarian. If you can cause enough outrage you will find that they fold relatively easily.

There's plenty of things governments could be busy doing that aren't controversial, but managing the existing state doesn't have nearly the glamour (or reelection PR) of changing it.

These topics tend not to be uncorrelated, so making 4 votes doesn’t leave you with 1/16th of your base, but often with 31/32nds of your base.

How many of us here on this board specifically work at Google or choose to work at companies that integrate with Google or otherwise use their services.

It's always a choice.

As far as I see it; Google, Amazon, and Facebook all offer "moral hazard" pay.

A friend of mine is paid quite handsomely to work at Google and considers their compliance with company practices bought and paid for.

Interestingly, they're quitting due to the WFH policies.

It is most certainly not, when your economic survival is dependent on these services. It is a false choice.

I challenge anyone to try and live a normal life completely disconnected from the servers of Amazon, google, Facebook, and Apple. It is impossible.

There's a big difference though between minor ongoing consumption of their services versus choosing to work for these companies.

Please elaborate. Many of us avoid the services of the four entities you mention, completely or almost. Their «servers», or their intrusion (monitoring) more difficult, requires strategies, but there are ways. Where would those four crucial for one's economic survival?

A good majority of media takes advantage of AWS;

From [0]:

> Here are the names that are on record publicly as using AWS:

> Aon, Adobe, Airbnb, Alcatel-Lucent, AOL, Acquia, AdRoll, AEG, Alert Logic, Autodesk, Bitdefender, BMW, British Gas, Baidu, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Canon, Capital One, Channel 4, Chef, Citrix, Coinbase, Comcast, Coursera, Disney, Docker, Dow Jones, European Space Agency, ESPN, Expedia, Financial Times, FINRA, General Electric, GoSquared, Guardian News & Media, Harvard Medical School, Hearst Corporation, Hitachi, HTC, IMDb, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, International Civil Aviation Organization, ITV, iZettle, Johnson & Johnson, JustGiving, JWT, Kaplan, Kellogg’s, Lamborghini, Lonely Planet, Lyft, Made.com, McDonalds, NASA, NASDAQ OMX, National Rail Enquiries, National Trust, Netflix, News International, News UK, Nokia, Nordstrom, Novartis, Pfizer, Philips, Pinterest, Quantas, Reddit, Sage, Samsung, SAP, Schneider Electric, Scribd, Securitas Direct, Siemens, Slack, Sony, SoundCloud, Spotify, Square Enix, Tata Motors, The Weather Company, Twitch, Turner Broadcasting,Ticketmaster, Time Inc., Trainline, Ubisoft, UCAS, Unilever, US Department of State, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, UK Ministry of Justice, Vodafone Italy, WeTransfer, WIX, Xiaomi, Yelp, Zynga and Zillow.

Just AWS (as of 2020, per the artice). Apple could even be included in that list, according to CNBC. How many more are on Azure or GCP? I would argue you're not completely avoiding their services if you're still a 'customer' of their customer, they're just getting a much smaller cut of your (or the advertiser's) money at the end of the day.

[0]: https://www.contino.io/insights/whos-using-aws

European companies and retailers are extremely sensitive to using Amazon and Google.

I have a long list of large customers that insist that none of their data is stored in AWS.

> Where would those four crucial for one's economic survival?

(Sidenote, I'm adding Microsoft. I assume your solution isn't "everyone should move to Azure")

I assume that most of us work in tech which, if it doesn't require actually working on software that is hosted by one of those five (or for them directly), requires looking at projects that are controlled by them. Do you use React or Angular? Maybe backend work in Go or C#? Ever use LinkedIn to network (or FB/IG), or use WhatsApp/MSTeams/Skype/GoogleChat to coordinate telework?

And 3/5 of those control all the major consumer OSes. Sure, maybe you run Linux as your primary device, but you probably have to develop stuff compatible with Windows, iOS or Android. So you need those to at least test.

Here's one article, probably not the best, of people trying to blackhole the major cloud providers and how that destroyed the internet experience.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/technology/blocking-the-t...

I mean you can hardly buy a car now without it including shrink wrap terms of service for google or apple software. Or 3rd parties that share data with them.

I do it, daily, for several years now. In fact, I’ve left the industry entirely as a result of what I personally view as a complete lack of ethics on the part of every tech company.

You being defeated isn’t the same as being unable to live without FAANG.

> the whole of *the USA-n* society.

Being pedantic, I know. But this distinction does matter a lot in this context.

From Europe, where we have our own issues and politics is not better; just different. But where anti-trust cases against American companies is taken serious, both EU wide and by smaller local governments. And where many of us can vote for a myriad of parties, some with "taking large US monopolies down" as a primary point. (pirateparty, Volt, that I know of). Parties who make real chance of taking the lead or getting people in parliament.

Work from home during the worst of covid was the best time to threaten a strike.

Everyone loaded up on extra TP, a work stop was all of not opening laptops for 35-40% of the country.

But feudal exploitation by the rich and each other locally is preferred.

> a work stop was all of not opening laptops for 35-40% of the country

Strikes are social events, you don't do it alone. There's usually a minority of agitators/organizers that are respected/trusted among workers and that call the shots/organize the fun. So working from home is very much anti-organization and hinders strikes. It isolates workers.

Literally isolates.

I seem to recall an invention called “Internet” which allowed for concerts, talk shows, and numerous other social events to occur during covid.

The problem is "mob dynamics". A visible picket line, a blocked street - that creates attention and draws more workers into the strike. On the Internet, these crowd dynamics don't work nearly as effective as they do in the meatspace.

Isn't Twitter a thing?

You don’t think Amazon would notice orders not coming in?

Google wouldn’t notice code not being checked in?

Call centers wouldn’t notice Q’s backing up?

No one would notice if Reddit’s front page was days old?

Commerce now relies on people being at computers daily at scale.

Amazon and Google will notice but your local news station will not. Without press coverage forcing the company to negotiate employees have very little bargaining power.

You seem to be of the opinion the stoppage of e-commerce supply chains would be a quiet little event no one would notice?

I don’t care whose grandpa did what 80 years ago. I don’t owe deference to a figurative identity they want to carry around if it’s also literally abusive to the species as a whole.

Industrialist power is a privilege, not a right.

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