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Comment by burningChrome | Hacker News Reader

This is so true. When you have a billion users, you can literally lose hundreds of millions of users and it wouldn't make a dent. The only way is to get the government involved and regulate this and just keep hammering them with massive fines that really make a dent in their bottom line.

For a lot of people, government regulation of this sort is not desirable, but at what point does someone need to drop the hammer to stop this?

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I guess you're used to standard billions (a million millions). A US billion would certainly suffer from losing hundreds of millions, you're talking about a double-digit percent.

I doubt they are saying any services out there have 1,000,000,000,000 users.

10^9 is the standard definition of a billion, it's very wrong to call 10^12 a "standard billion." You can say "long scale billion" if you want to refer to the definitively non-standard 10^12 billion.

To quibble/add-nuance: The words have diverged into a false-friend [0] situation. It looks like the same word, but the correct/standard meaning depends on which language is being used at the time.

If someone is writing English and puts "billion" for 10^12, that's a translation error, much like writing "my grandfather became pregnant when he realized he'd locked the keys inside the car." (Instead of "embarrassed.")

Conversely, if I wrote a French or German sentence and put "billion" for 10^9, then I'd be the one making the translation mistake.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend

Yes, but we're speaking in English. If the definition of a same-sounding word changes in another language, it doesn't invalidate a point made within a language. It's fundamentally incorrect to say a standard billion is ever, in any modern context, 10^12, because we are speaking in English in 2026, and even the British mean 10^9 for the standard definition of a billion.

It's a shame as we used the correct definition for almost 300 years until the US pushed everyone to switch to their system.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/billion

I would vote to revert it.

> When you have a billion users

What if they make a shadow profile for you? Do you count as a user? What if you've tried to delete your account and you can't? (I meant a real account here, not even a shadow profile. People have had the things reactivated years later)

Something like three strikes and the CEO, top executives, and three primary share holders go to jail while forcing the company to dissolve seems to be the only solution to removing bad actors in corporate settings.

As long as we can also shoot tresspassers and thieves, you got a deal.

Why are you desiring the ability to murder someone?

Seems to be the only solution to removing bad actors

Okay, let's start now. Hey! This comment section is my property! Bang bang bang bang bang.

you get it :D Everyone can have their justice boner (TM). We dont need proportionality or a system to determine it it. Just pick a desired outcome and dial consequences up to 11.

Careful, I was called a "radical" on this site for suggesting a corporate death penalty. Because jobs are so important that when a corporation risks its own existence so it can break laws, dissolving the corporation as punishment is the government's fault and not the corporation's.

I am not worried about that all nor any down votes.

Empathy for other people and the environment is a sign of intelligence. Those that don't think of how their actions affects those around them and the neighbors they will never meet nor the environment have an lack of intelligent.

Those that lack empathy are the same that idolize bad actors like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Greed and the desire for it is a high indicator of lack of intelligence.

There is a difference between being well off and greedy. I would argue that Steve Wozniak is a great example and better of the two Steves from Apple to highlight this.

I have created jobs and brought in international commerce to where I live. I produce solutions for companies I don't even know their names. I have kept people safe and will never know their names nor will their families know mine. None of which has deluded my empathy for others, human and non-human, and the environment.

My previous statement was codified in another thread. This statement is a two part. One to re-enforce my empathy and a social experiment.

I feel sorry for those that lack empathy. Empathy is the only way to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Intelligence is a by-product. There is no other way to live a life you can never have nor experience.

Label of _radical_ is something I welcome. When former co-workers and people you meet want to shake your hand before leaving after giving them constructive criticize, it is a surreal experience. Not when it first happens, when it repeats itself.

A corporate death penalty does not necessarily imply all jobs are lost. The government can simply nationalize all assets, use standard vulture capital methods to restructure the business, them auction each business unit off to competitors. Only first-tier management and investors would be directly impacted.

Ah, what a pleasure to imagine that scenario, however unlikely, for just a few seconds. People profiting from running unethical ads and child sexual abuse material, for whom financial gain is more important than any ethics, laws or health of others, who frankly speaking don't give a fuck about anyone else but themselves amassing more money, being held responsible and being moved to a new, very different kind of home behind bars. It would be as if angels started to sing and cleanse planet Earth just a tiny little bit. We would have reason to rejoice and celebrate. On the streets! On the roofs! Everywhere! Celebrate that the law still has teeth, and is upheld. It would also be a nice measure to heal other businesses from many bad practices.

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