> But even so, what are we supposed to do?
Vote with your wallet. Stop consuming whatever it is that comes with attached strings. Stop putting convenience above principles. Refuse to pay/subscribe/accept any terms that are clearly not in your best interest.
You don't need Big Government to do that. You don't even need to be part of a mobilized group. It's in your hands and every individual can choose for themselves. Let's take responsibility for our own actions and stop using the vices/failings of others to excuse ourselves to do the same.
Regulations are there tools that citizens have to reign in corporate behavior. 'Big government' is just a catch name for many anti regulation lobbying entities to remove power from citizens and acumulats it on corporations.
> Vote with your wallet.
Yes. And also vote with your ballots, one person one vote triumphs one dollar one vote if you want freedom.
This is completely reductionist, and completely uninformed.
Banks, as an easy counter example to your worldview, don't have armies of third party regulators, corporate compliance staff, and auditors because they hate regulation. They love big government. It acts as a barrier to entry for them, because they already have the 10,000 person department ready to modify procedures and legal documents to comply with the next set of regulations while the little banks drown. Regulators frequently dine with top bank executives, but I can assure you they aren't dining with the citizenry or your local regional bank.
Every amount of extra regulation just increases tyranny. It makes the American dream more untenable. I want people to succeed and not rely on giant mega corporations for their well being and wealth generation. You can rightly claim that I'm an anti-regulation lobbying entity in this regard, if you wish.
This is... impossible. Ignoring the amount of time I would sink into researching every eventuality for a given service (how do you find out what the unsubscribe flow is for a site before you subscribe to it?). Some "services" have their hooks in just about everything. Good luck avoiding the likes of Google Analytics or ReCaptcha if you want to use the internet.
I avoid Google Analytics all the time. It's called NoScript. c: It actually has no effect on site functionality, either.
ReCaptcha's a different story though. :c
It might be "impossible" to do everything at once, but there is nothing stopping you from taking steps in that direction, and the more people taking those steps with you the stronger the market forces will force the companies to provide the things that you do want.
Not signing up to the NYT is a choice. Not buying from Apple and all their locked down systems is a choice. Not signing up for any subscription service that has DRM is a choice. Having an ad-blocker to fight surveillance capitalism is a choice. Adopting and promoting alternatives to every "free" offering from Google is a choice, even if they are of inferior quality. Putting your money where your mouth is and supporting the development of better alternatives for whatever comes from FAANG is also a choice. If you are doing all of that, then maybe you will be entitled to complain. But I am sure you have a lot of veggies to eat before that.
In a democracy, the government derives power from us, the people. In a good and functioning democracy there exists other democratic institutions to ensure that the government cannot abuse the powers granted to them.
"Vote with your wallet" is a disingenuous argument were all the corporates work together like a cartel towards a particular business model that maximises profit for them to the detriment of us consumers. Regulations that bind all business to certain rules and standard also benefit the businesses as it creates a level playing field for them too. (But obviously large corporates at the top don't want a level playing field).
This is kinda recursive - a "good and functioning" democracy is the one in which such institutions exist, so one where they don't is not a "good" one - but they are no less real for that. Worse yet, a "good" one can turn into other kinds - and the more centralized its governance, the more powerful it is, the faster that can happen.
This is the idealistic view. In the real world we have people in power, with their own personal interests, with institutions that are ever more distant from the people and with ever less consequences to face when they do wrong.
The one exception is perhaps Switzerland, and this would be more due to how local governments and cantons prevail over national leaders. The institutions are small and limited in reach. Aside from them, every model (US, the EU, China, Russian) relies on over-centralization and ever-expanding reach of the institutions and the consequential subversion of said institutions to the favor of interest groups.
So, unless you are Swiss I really don't have any reason to believe you actually have any power over the government, and I really don't believe you should be defending to give them even more power and attributions.
> maximises profit to the detriment of consumers
Last I checked, no one forced me to buy anything from Apple. I don't think closed systems are beneficial for me, so I don't buy them. No one forced me to buy anything from Google, either. No one forced me to buy a car or to live in an expensive metro area or even check any trendy bar with overpriced drinks. No one forced me to buy home appliances that can I not repair.
"Well, where I live there is only one internet provider, so I am forced to use it". No, you are not. It's just that the inconvenience of not having internet at home outweighs your willingness to get your community and put together an alternative. Also, more likely than not, the reason that there is no alternative is due to REGULATIONS that lobbyists from big telco managed to pass so that they have an advantage.
To truly believe that "regulations creates a level-playing field" is beyond naive. It's borderline harmful to you and for society at large.
If necessary yes. Your forefathers fought hard to earn you your democratic and associated rights that you have all taken for granted. And that's why its slow erosion has only now made you start to feel a bit uncomfortable. So yes, you too need to start asserting for your rights.
And no, to begin with you don't need to quit your job and take to the streets.
Start by writing letters to the political parties of your country. Start by making your local politicians aware that you feel the government isn't concerned about your rights as a consumer. Escalate and urge others in your network to do the same. And move on from there. Democracy is designed to slow down political changes because abrupt political changes also has a lot of chaos. Initially you will only have to spend maybe an hour or two a week to do the above. As more and more people support you, and you all work together, this may increase to 5-10 hours a week depending on how much you are willing to commit yourself. Once a political party latches on to your issue, it then becomes a lot easier - join it or offer issue-based support to them. (Yes, often it is all quite boring and just takes patience and dedication. That's democracy - it is often boring participating in it, but still worth it).
But you can be sure that if everyone puts all their eggs in Apple's (or more generally FAANG's) basket, their only interest is and will be their corporate profit, not your or content creators' rights.
San Francisco, CA
You are to ask precicely this question and think up variations of it.
I was just pondering how easy we dedicate our lives to a thing in contrast with how unpopular dying for it is. It doesn't seem both can be right at the same time?
(See: Open Banking)
Great.
