←back to thread

617 points jbegley | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.002s | source
Show context
a_shovel ◴[] No.42938313[source]
I initially thought that this was an announcement for a new pledge and thought, "they're going to forget about this the moment it's convenient." Then I read the article and realized, "Oh, it's already convenient."

Google is a megacorp, and while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil), they are fundamentally unconcerned with goodness or morality, and any appearance that they are is purely a marketing exercise.

replies(26): >>42938388 #>>42938489 #>>42938510 #>>42938591 #>>42938601 #>>42938609 #>>42938748 #>>42938837 #>>42938863 #>>42938964 #>>42939027 #>>42940197 #>>42940547 #>>42942188 #>>42943178 #>>42944331 #>>42945189 #>>42945931 #>>42949501 #>>42950344 #>>42950383 #>>42951161 #>>42954362 #>>42958988 #>>42960021 #>>42991061 #
Retric ◴[] No.42938601[source]
> while megacorps aren't fundamentally "evil" (for some definitions of evil),

I think megacorps being evil is universal. It tends to be corrupt cop evil vs serial killer evil, but being willing to do anything for money has historically been categorized as evil behavior.

That doesn’t mean society would be better or worse off without them, but it would be interesting to see a world where companies pay vastly higher taxes as they grow.

replies(8): >>42938707 #>>42938723 #>>42938754 #>>42940638 #>>42942404 #>>42942918 #>>42947224 #>>42957518 #
zelon88 ◴[] No.42938707[source]
You're taking about pre-Clinton consumerism. That system is dead. It used to dictate that the company who could offer the best value deserved to take over most of the market.

That's old thinking. Now we have servitization. Now the business who can most efficiently offer value deserves the entire market.

Basically, iterate until you're the only one left standing and then never "sell" anything but licenses ever again.

replies(5): >>42938789 #>>42939148 #>>42939461 #>>42941704 #>>42947981 #
1. PaulDavisThe1st ◴[] No.42941704[source]
I prefer the angle that describes this as a shift from value production to value extraction. Value production means coming up with new goods or services, or new/better ways to make existing ones. Value extraction means looking at existing economic exchanges, and figuring out how to get X percent of some of them.
replies(1): >>42943208 #
2. idle_zealot ◴[] No.42943208[source]
It was always a game of maximizing captured value. In such a game, creating value and capturing some portion of what you're producing is far less effective than value extraction, moving value around such that it's you capturing it, not someone else. A market, then, will by default encourage the latter strategy over the former. However, if the society in charge of a market observes value extraction occurring, it can respond by outlawing the particular extraction strategy being employed, and punish the parties participating. Then, for some time, market participants will turn to producing value instead, making more humble profits, until another avenue for extraction becomes available and quickly becomes the dominant strategy again. This cycle continues until the market eats the forces that would seek to regulate it and reign in extractive practices. That is what we're seeing here, at least in the US there is basically no political will behind identifying and punishing any new forms of harmful behavior, and we barely enforce existing laws regarding eg monopolies. Common wisdom among neoliberals and conservatives both is that big companies are good for the economy, and it's best to tread lightly in terms of regulating their behaviors, lest we interrupt their important value production process. One wonders if there are perhaps financial incentives to be so pro-corporate.
replies(1): >>42943441 #
3. PaulDavisThe1st ◴[] No.42943441[source]
I would argue that since the dawn of capitalism (whenever you place that), there have been moral structures in place to promote value production and stigmatize value extraction. The precise balance between the two moral verdicts changes back and forth over time. In the USA in the 21st century we seem to have entered a period where the promotion of value production is unusually low and simultaneously the stigmatization of value extraction has dropped close to zero.
replies(1): >>42946154 #
4. soco ◴[] No.42946154{3}[source]
All the more ironic nowadays because the most popular politicians are the highest value extractors who moved the value production overseas, leaving the now jobless voters angry instead with... immigrants/lgbtqa+/other races/other religions, who basically had no saying and no role in the above move.