Beware of geeks bearing gifts
aralbalkan.com
aralbalkan.com
Funny you should mention Coke. It turns out that these businesses desiring profits can pretty efficiently solve or make improvement to problems, like distribution, in places like Africa.[1]
Regardless of their motivation, either with balloons or wires, the deep pockets and ingenuity of Google and Facebook will connect people who aren't. And, they'll do it faster and more efficiently then government, charity.
Their "evil" desire for profits will benefit us, as Coke has, apparently.[2]
[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/25/coke-applie... (2012)
[2] It's obviously not all roses, with the health concerns, etc. Point is that they solved a problem motivated by profit, and now health organizations, etc. are able to learn from that, directly or just by watching. They're moving us in generally the right direction.
The point I was trying to make is that the motivation of said company may not be to "save the world", but the results (and the impressive efficiency of attaining them) may do a lot of good, even if indirectly.
Now if we consider that Coke is a luxury when compared to a necessity like water for drinking and irrigation, we should conclude that a luxury that precludes a necessity is superfluous and should be prohibited. That includes prohibiting "efficient businesses" when their actions to earn profits negatively impact the basic level of life.
This can be accomplished by taxing the corporation for its use of the aquifers, and transferring the payments directly to those that lost use of their wells.
The end result is that everyone ends up with more wealth than they had under the old system.
http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2011/pepsipositivewater.ht...
"Pepsico, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, has begun claiming that it has achieved "positive water balance" in India, that it is "Giving Back MORE WATER Than We Take".
Wonderful as it may sound, Pepsico's claims of achieving "positive water balance" simply do not add up."
http://killercoke.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Coca-Cola http://colombiajournal.org/colombia73.htm
It's like saying that the mining companies in Virgina have done nothing but help the people in that region, forgetting of course, the Battle of Blair Mountain, or the wages, or the treatment, or the pollution.
Some companies actually care. But Coke does not. It will never. You speak about the solution to a problem being motivated by profit and that is exactly what the unions were, a problem that was solved by the need to profit.
Some companies need to be stopped. To be taken down. Not because they produce a bad product, but because they are to far detached from "the human condition", and therefore see people as simply an obstacle to their profits.
Good regulatory structures, like we've been trying to develop alongside the emergence of the free market as "the way", are important, along with the consumer being keenly aware of where there product comes from, the morale implications of buying such a product, and so on.
However, it's hard to debate that the undeniable force of a humans desire to move _themselves_ forward (or their company, for the sake of themselves) has taken us up and to the right in situations like these.
But not their governments? Isn't "America is number 1" still a profit motive?
"Smart companies try to commoditize their products' complements." http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
Yes, Google and Facebook have their agenda, but that's their object, to make an internet connection as a commodity as possible.
In the same way auto companies want a gas station in every corner (and the opposite, gas companies want cars to be popular)
And please, stop with the slavery metaphor. It's offensive. There are actual slaves in Africa that would love the serfdom of targeted ads.
Sure, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. But let's not weaken our arguments with ludicrous hyperbole.
The threats of violence and detention against your will by nation states are real, and having Google and other tech companies being complicit is scary. Why are they complicit? Because of the same threats of violence.
We are slaves. Maybe not whipped, maybe not starved, but threatened, poisoned and our children's children are in debt slavery because of the rainbows and unicorns we think is just around the corner if we borrow a little bit more. And by the sweat of their brow will we pay for the NSA / GCHQ, the wars and such like.
On the other hand: a private company offers you a free service which if you may voluntarily opt-in to. If you so choose, they will use to collect information of value to try and sell you stuff. You may then choose, or not, to engage with those advertisements. In many cases, there are trivial options to hinder or reduce this tracking, including options provided by the companies themselves.
It is certainly hyperbole, and succeeds only in (a) demeaning further those millions of people trapped in real slavery, and (b) weakening any arguments on the negative aspects of internet surveillance.
Loon and Android (or a free alternative) could make for a pretty sweet peer to peer alternative Internet.
Perhaps an alternative would be to bounce signals off of other satellites.
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4404759/Pro...
Instead we should be relying on our governments, who have our interests in mind and whose primary job is to protect our rights. ... ..
um...
oops
never mind
Sounds about as logical as "get the government out of my medicare".
There are many idealists in the West that don't understand what the impact is of even simple things that they take for granted. If a man provides fresh drinking water to a remote Indian village, and if the water comes in bottles with advertisements for products, it might seem evil to this guy, but actually, from the point of view of the villager, its still an unambiguously good thing.
Nobody at the bottom of the Pyramid cares whether or not they have to log into Google in order to access their free online classes from EdX, Udacity, Khan academy etc. They are just thankful to have that access, which they did not have in the past.
And beyond that, its not like they cannot create a profile with Google and then ignore it, and connect to the Internet outside of Google products. Its not like Google blocks access to other search engines, or to other competing services. You still have access to the Internet.
Also, its not even clear that you HAVE to make a Google ID to access Loon internet.
This poster should try some other mechanism ... some non-corporate mechanism, and try to bring some benefits to India. If he succeeds, then I will support his model.
I certainly won't withdraw support from Google over his bullshit blog post which has zero touch with reality.
Frankly, if anyone loses from adequate speed internet in remote locations in the underdeveloped world, it's Western corporations that aren't very good at targeting their ad spend...
This is a huge misconception. The idea that corporations should maximize shareholder value above all else is very modern and likely came from Jack Welch. The truth is that there is no enforceable legal mandate for corporations or their officers to maximize profits.
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2012/06/26/the-sharehol...
Dodge is often misread or mistaught as setting a legal rule of shareholder wealth maximization. This was not and is not the law. Shareholder wealth maximization is a standard of conduct for officers and directors, not a legal mandate. The business judgment rule [which was also upheld in this decision] protects many decisions that deviate from this standard. This is one reading of Dodge. If this is all the case is about, however, it isn’t that interesting.
Aral should be ashamed of himself. He should publicly apologise.
There is such a thing as win win in business. Yes, Google benefits if more people are on the internet, because of the network effect - more people searching, more stuff to be found, and, yes, more potential advertising space. It's useful even without lock in.
Does everyone actually deserve internet access? Is that an inalienable human right? If people want something of value, they have to provide value in return. If Google and Facebook see value in the people's data, then they are willing to give them "free" internet. It is a choice to give those corporations your data in exchange for their services.
Saying that people deserve something can be dangerous. Who provides these things that we all deserve? If there's no economic incentive, why would someone spend the money to provide goods and services for other people?
Do we really need to posit some nefarious lust for "your data!!1" here? I don't see the need; the simpler hypothesis has enough explanatory power.
If Google does require a Google account to get online, then, okay, it's not as selfless as before, but it's still internet access where people had none before. The possibility of accessing Wikipedia and Khan Academy is worth an inactive Google account, at least.
Could Google provide free internet without tracking people?
Arguably some Internet is better than no Internet but I don't think there is a complete solution until there is enough competition at the local access that a user can choose between a completely open pipe and Google like alternatives?