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0 pointsDylan168073y ago0 comments

> They're a business, not a public utility.

That's the standard line. And it has problems when applied to companies with tens of millions of users.

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tptacek3y ago· 2 in thread

People say it has problems, because that makes for fun message board debates, but the arguments are deeply unserious. Go use Source Hut.

Dylan16807OP3y ago

Saying that there's a sliding scale toward being effectively a utility is "deeply unserious"?

Is it also "deeply unserious" when I say it's bad that shopping malls are privately owned areas masquerading as public spaces, which lets them ban people in ways that actual public spaces can't? Because there's a lot of literature on that topic, and I see it as pretty similar.

tptacek3y ago

Yes, yes it is unserious. Shopping malls aren't public squares, as several decades of US jurisprudence has ably established, and the collapse of shopping malls in the face of ecommerce amply demonstrates that the argument was silly to begin with. You couldn't have picked a better bit of evidence for my argument; thank you.

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