Comment by bsdz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bsdz | Hacker News Reader

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That's an interesting dystopia. Using the same lens, I can see similarities between Google and other pioneering companies of the past such as the East India Company (EIC) which sported its own army and ruled large parts of the British Empire.

Other similarities might be market share, i.e. EIC controlled 50% of world trade at its height [1] vs Google's Search being used by 52% of the world in 2019 [2].

That all said, I'm squinting a bit to see this. Unlike Company rule in India [3] where one had little recourse as a subject if the EIC ruled against you; if Google rules against you then you can move to some other provider (of which there are many).

It's still fun to think of these analogies. I was always fascinated by the mega corporation, OCP, in Robocop that sought to privatise large US cities like Detroit [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company [2] https://review42.com/resources/google-statistics-and-facts/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_rule_in_India [4] https://robocop.fandom.com/wiki/Omni_Consumer_Products

>> Unlike Company rule in India [3] where one had little recourse as a subject if the EIC ruled against you; if Google rules against you then you can move to some other provider (of which there are many).

I totally disagree. Early EIC/VOC rule was lawless. Or rather, the EIC was literally sovereign. They ruled colonies in the same way that monarchies, democracies and whatnot rule. 17th century royal charters devolved power to these companies like they devolved power to colonial governorships or other bodies.

The early EIC is more comparable to the Colony of Virginia, which itself started as the Virginia Company. All technically ruled under a royal charter, but were practically sovereign within their domains.

Later EIC rule was more similar to modern corporate examples. Rule of Law was ostensibly introduced, and you could (in theory) take your grievances to civil authorities. In some ways, this starts to become similar to modern examples of corporatism. The EIC was still extremely big, rich and powerful. But in this later period, state power and state coffers interweaved

Later, British state rule.

I can't quite see what you disagree about but yes all your other points are true - that's correct. Perhaps you missed the bit where I said I was squinting :-)

> Other similarities might be market share, i.e. EIC controlled 50% of world trade at its height [1] vs Google's Search being used by 52% of the world in 2019 [2].

Do you realize how ridiculous putting “number of people using for search” and all of “world trade” in the same comparison is? Google’s 200-300 billion annual revenue is barely 1% of the US GDP.

For a size comparison, you would need to throw all of the FAANGs together, some energy companies, and some banks to reach the inflation adjusted market cap of the Dutch East India trading company: https://dutchreview.com/culture/history/how-rich-was-the-dut...

Of course you can't compare apples with bananas - I'm not daft. I was simply looking for percentage similarity in controlling something (i.e. ~50% of world trade, ~50% of world internet search).

It amusing on how having a little fun with a comment on dystopian cyberpunk can ruffle so many feathers :-p

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