None of the people you mentioned's companies sell products your life depends on. If you don't like them, don't use or buy their products. I'm of the opinion that AWS, facebook and tesla cars are genuine trash. I don't know why people use that stuff.
Because your opinion is wrong. Problems with social media notwithstanding, just because you don't like the person who's running/ruining/most associated with the brand, doesn't make the product itself bad.
Most people don't give two fraks about who Bezos or Musk or Zuckerberg are, and they definitely don't think of them when using products and services from the companies you mentioned.
> just because you don't like the person who's running/ruining/most associated with the brand, doesn't make the product itself bad.
And just because that product does something you need doesn't mean it's not trash. GP didn't say "all cloud, all social media, all cars". Heck, literal trash is not all trash, people throw away a lot of good stuff.
Many people thought Tesla cars are diamond studded trash since Musk was still an idol. And it was pretty objective, great motor/battery surrounded by bargain bin components.
Do we need that person to keep having the product though?
> Most people don't give two fraks...
They sure don't. These products and services are more like a... public good, used by and available to everyone.
But if it's a common good then should it be managed like a dictatorship?
The people using them don't have an equivalent alternative, and the companies have moats on a scale never seen before. Is that an issue?
Zuck is selling his customers wholesale, and squandering the resulting cash on asinine, unthinkably dumb projects like Metaverse. Maybe he should have just stayed with the initial product?
Maybe these public platforms would better serve the people using them without the person running/ruining/most associated with the brand?
I'm first to argue that, past certain size, social media platforms become de-facto town squares / utilities, and should be treated as such. But, until they are...
> Zuck is selling his customers wholesale, and squandering the resulting cash on asinine, unthinkably dumb projects like Metaverse. Maybe he should have just stayed with the initial product?
... until they are, it's kind of the core axiom behind capitalism and market economy and social order in most places around the world, that this is his money, and if he wants to be "squandering the resulting cash on" (according to you) "asinine, unthinkably dumb projects like Metaverse", it's his prerogative.
Sure, currently Zuck can do anything he wants with the money he gets from the users in his cage.
We should really open the cage though. Can you imagine being able to call people only on your mobile network, or being able to send e-mail only to people using the same e-mail provider?
Yet we accept only being able to connect with, share photos and posts, message, subscribe to people on the same social platform as you.
If we can define a technical specification for exchanging social data, and enforce that the platforms above certain size implement it, Zuck won't even have the cash to dump on Metaverse. Every platform can then have their own algorithmic feed so you can chose your own echo chamber.
The moat is only good the Zucks of the world. It absolutely sucks for everyone else.
I was having a strong argument/discussion yesterday with a friend who is a communist. A real "I want hammer and sickle" kinda guy. He owns two homes, works for big-pharma, his wife works for big-logistic, scuba-diving vacations across the planet, very 'communist' way of life.
His opinions (just as the parent-commenter) are not 'wrong'. His/her/our/their (not pronouns, just groups of people) are different to ours. They got a different vision of this world (which of course it costs them nothing - until Communism settles and they are beheaded for having two homes, SP500 investments, and going scuba-diving across the planet!!)
> Most people don't give two fraks
"What are you talking about dude?? I got all these Gmail, and OneDrive, and Webex stuff for free!! It's like modern day communism!!" /s
This post is such a cocktail of confusion with a dash of McCarthyism that I have to say thank you for existing, and keeping the torch of this muddled thinking all the way from the post-war period.
Thank you for never learning what communism means, for staying embattled and internalising the narrative, for your anecdotes about your rich friend who doesn't realize that communists are lurking out there, waiting to kill him and everyone with wealth, once they get in power.
I'd ask you to never change, but I know that you won't, you'll paint your future thoughts through the same stencil that I've heard and seen so many times. When you express this it feels like I get a taste of the real America, a trailer park with the metheads, the uncle that just got back from jail, educating his young nephew about how the world works.
"You see son, there are rich people and they are good. And there are bad folks called communists that are jealous and want to kill the good rich folks. Be sure to carry your gun with you and if you see any of them communists, shoot them up. Because we will be rich one day. God bless America."
That's a very naive take, not using their products doesn't stop them from negatively impacting society. Look at what Musk is doing over the whole world (and the other two aren't much better, just not as obvious about it). It's not about being fair or jealous or whatever, a single individual having so much wealth and thus power is simply not healthy for society.
The problem is these companies buy competitors or bribe hardware/platforms in order to get market monopoly. So often it's impossible to find alternative products.
It won't 'protect' you. They still track you and have a shadow account for you, and sell the data. FB is a cancer that won't go away until we/you do.
You can protect yourself by blocking all 'social media buttons' (as LI or Pinterest do the same), and for FB block every domain they use and their range of IPs. But there are so many trackers that will (eventually) get the 'job' done, so you either do 'more' (replace hosts file, add firewall on your Android and block ad broker, doubleclick, adjust, mopub, google analytics, etc. etc (loooooong list).
Surveillance capitalism is not going anywhere. Where money can be made, money will be made.
> It won't 'protect' you. They still track you and have a shadow account for you, and sell the data. FB is a cancer that won't go away until we/you do.
Firstly, this is just not true. Like basically all users who couldn't be mapped to a FB person were given userid=0, which I guess is a shadow account, but it's pretty crap as a method of tracking people. Source: worked at FB for half a decade.
Have you tried figuring it out? It's not magic or miracle, there are reasons why they're profitable and if it's not obvious you might get surprised and learn something if you try to study it.
One reason is that they are extremely manipulative and strategically exploit people with power over other people's money, notably taxes and what labour generates.
