undefined | Better HN

0 pointsvkou7y ago0 comments

There are fifty million reasons for why 'Just build a better competing product' may be a less successful solution to this problem.

0 comments

4 comments · 1 top-level

kodablah7y ago· 3 in thread

And hundreds of millions of reasons why government-led heavy-handed internet oversight is worse. I also included other options such as education. But I'll take any option, including the status quo, over what I consider the nuclear option that often has unintended consequences regardless of original intent.

vkouOP7y ago

Government-led heavy-handed oversight is so terrible that it also gave us rivers free of coal sludge, products that work as advertised, drugs that have to be tested before they are sold, airplanes that usually don't crash, and cars that are safer, more fuel efficient, and cleaner then they were before mandated seat belts, air bags, emission limits, and mileage gains.

At this point, the nuclear option, like the GDPR, is the only way to align the interests of large data firms with the public.

If you think otherwise, consider how the market punished Equifax for their data breaches. Or Kaiser. Or Target. Or Facebook.

When given the choice between doing the right thing, and the expedient thing, this industry has a long, and shitty track record of always choosing the expedient thing.

kodablah7y ago

And the patriot act, and prohibition, and on and on. Not sure why pointing out unrelated positive or negative legislation affects the issue at hand. It's disingenuous to debate that way. Back to the issue at hand, I am specifically talking about heavy-handed oversight of the internet. The not-as-heavy-handed internet oversight we either already have or has been attempted is problematic and we should not double down on it. In the absence of a good solution to a problem that exists, we should not make a second problem. We might want it to work, but existing examples have shown us that what we want to work is not enough to make it so.

1 more reply

briandear7y ago

Government also gave us concentration camps, Communist blacklists, famines, and a bunch of other “good” stuff. Government gave us Venezuela starvation.

My point is that governments have a “long and shitty track record” too.

Not saying that government is bad, but it’s clear that governments, when given the power, can be far more dangerous than any company. They can do a lot of good as well, but they have a pretty bad track record.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse