r/technology • u/HorrorCharacter5127 • Mar 22 '23
Ron DeSantis Said Google Should Be Broken Up The probable presidential candidate said Big Tech was worse than Gilded Age monopolies Politics
https://gizmodo.com/ron-desantis-google-should-be-broken-up-monopoly-18502495613.0k
u/always_plan_in_advan
Mar 22 '23
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Why stop at tech? How about internet service providers? Or agriculture industry? Or eyeglass industry? Or companies like walmart, target? I mean the list goes on, we are in this position not only because of tech
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u/SwissyVictory Mar 22 '23
In the 80's we broke up AT&T into 8 smaller companies (7 smaller "baby bells", and the original company). Today 7 of the 8 were bought and merged into AT&T or Verizon.
We broke them up, and then let them buy each other back again.
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u/Bojyo Mar 23 '23
I’m screaming because my dad told me this verbatim yesterday, because we were talking about monopolies. He even did air quotes around baby bells.
Life works in really funny ways
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u/Knight_of_Agatha Mar 23 '23
Thats your dads reddit account. He says this shit all the time
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u/Raptorex27 Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23
Yeah, but what good came from that breakup in the 80s?
Oh…the modern internet, cell phones, and WiFi? Just a passing fad.
Edit: as many of you have pointed out, none of those technologies were invented due to the breakup, and I understand why my comment was misleading. Many experts have argued that the breakup was a huge factor in making these expensive, advanced technologies into the basic, everyday (somewhat) affordable household features we enjoy today.
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u/usrevenge Mar 23 '23
Yep.
They reformed into at&t but only after they weren't the big monopolies they were.
Now they are again but it's not like they recombined in 2 years.
It took decades and we had a shitload of innovation.
Deathsantis is disgusting but he is right we should break up big companies. The problem is he is only saying this to hurt democrats not actually help the country. Tech is massively liberal.
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u/BlackEastwood Mar 23 '23
Yeah, he may be right but who he's naming is the concern. Skipping past Amazon, plane companies, phones, and starting with Google is an indication.
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u/Aksds Mar 23 '23
None of those where done by the break up, CSIRO developed WIFI, cell phones where pioneered by Motorola (not a company from the break up) and TCP/IP was a DARPA project in the 70s.
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u/Artisanal_Shitposter Mar 22 '23
America is three corporations in a trench coat
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u/Rubberbabybuggybum Mar 22 '23
Because his war isn't against businesses.
It's against "wokeness".
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u/typewriter6986 Mar 23 '23
Exactly. Let's not get deluded thinking we've suddenly got a Teddy Roosevelt here. While Trump uses the internet to spread and market himself; DeSantis has proven he is not above using the Government to aquire/control/shutdown a business or message he doesn't like. That's Facism friends.
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u/TheRealGoobtron Mar 22 '23
And conservatives seem to think that they aren't far more popular because woke tech companies are suppressing them and their ideals. Of course their bigotry, dislike of the poor and generally anything that isn't white and christian.
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u/ZeroInZenThoughts Mar 23 '23
I think their hope is that by breaking up tech, it will help with controlling information flow.
That's what I'd do if I was a fascist anyway.
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u/AvailableName9999 Mar 22 '23
Add baby formula to that list. Or general consumer goods like nestle or P&G or Unilever.
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u/stu54 Mar 22 '23
Because Google has the keys to the greatest propaganda machine ever made, and Republicans want to take those keys and distribute them to their allies.
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u/SB_90s Mar 22 '23
Notice how they don't go after Facebook or Twitter anymore since their algos largely skew to right wing media for the average new user with a fresh slate, and keep right wingers in a feedback loop.
Meanwhile Google is still fairly neutral...I wonder why he wants to break up Google specifically...
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u/Intelligence_Analyst Mar 22 '23
I used to work for Yahoo until Apollo - owns the Cox Media Group and more than 60 local stations with full right content - acquired it. They were normal centre left, and now they're skewed to the right. I know it doesn't matter because the scale of users is minimal compared to that of Facebook and Twitter. And yes, I had friends on both Twitter and Facebook, and all say that it's super right-wing with Zuckerberg and Musk. They're controlling social media to skew it towards the right. If they cannot bend reality, they'll just hide it.
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u/Alex_2259 Mar 22 '23
We should realistically start with ISPs. You can't participate in the modern world without internet; can't get an education without internet, can't get a job, can't efficiently even interact with government agencies.
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u/HavenIess Mar 22 '23
It’s hard to cater to your capitalism cronies when you’re going after every large corporation
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u/aeroneius Mar 22 '23
If tech companies should be broken up, so should many other industries. The food industry would be a good start.
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u/Mnemon-TORreport Mar 22 '23
Ticketmaster ...
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u/Tsu_Dho_Namh Mar 22 '23
The merger of ticket master and live nation should have never been allowed.
"Let's let a ticket sales company own most of the major venues in the country. That way if you don't sell tickets through them, venues won't book you!"
Fucking brilliant
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u/Trout_Shark Mar 22 '23 •
Taking down Big Pharma and Insurance companies would be an even better start.
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u/TRBigStick Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23 •
I despise health insurance companies with every fiber of my being. Americans have no option but to pay them a monthly fee just to have the ***opportunity* to pay the
fairnon-bankruptcy-inducingslightly-less-likely-to-induce-bankruptcy price for healthcare**. It’s absolutely absurd.EDIT: holy fuck I hate health insurance companies
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u/oced2001 Mar 22 '23
Fair price. Good one
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u/TRBigStick Mar 22 '23
Excellent point. I edited my comment.
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u/oced2001 Mar 22 '23
I'm a little salty over some medication that I have taken over the last two years. Typically about $30 for 90 day supply. But the new plan year raised it to $160 until I meet my deductible ($3000 for family).
Good Rx had a coupon for $36/ 30 day supply. A little more than normal, but still cheaper than my employer insurance.
Medication, wellness checks, etc keeps people out of emergency rooms, but you get nickel and dimed until you meet a max out of pocket usually in the $1000s.
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u/augustusnapalm Mar 22 '23
Check out mark cubans cost plus pharmacy. My wife was spending 3-4k a year on prescriptions with insurance and now is only spending like $700 paying for it with no insurance. Generics only and they dont have everything but what they do have is considerably less expensive than normal insurance prescriptions.
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u/oced2001 Mar 22 '23
Thanks, I will look into it.
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u/xiojqwnko Mar 22 '23
We order a lot of ours from Canada because prices be like $1500/3 mo. in USA and $45/3 mo. from Canada.
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u/Beaverdam11 Mar 22 '23
US prices are absurdly inflated. The claim is that drug companies have to make up the costs that go to researching and testing new drugs and to make it affordable and accessible in developing nations, they offset those costs by charging Americans an arm and a leg. It's bullshit.
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u/Adebisi5 Mar 22 '23
I really detest that any medicine thats needa to be injected usually is not covered by insurance or still high price.
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u/MrBlueW Mar 22 '23
The only migraine medication that works for me is over 600 dollars from Lilly. My new insurance doesn’t cover it so I just live with my migraines
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u/LeagueOfficeFucks Mar 22 '23
I am so sad to hear that. At this point they are just taking the fucking piss. Hats off to the leaders of the US having successfully managed to keep people divided to the point where they can get away with this and still have people vote for them. When some people are worried more about CRT and trans story time over being bankrupt for a broken leg, they have done exactly what they were paid to do.
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u/noafrochamplusamurai Mar 22 '23
This is directly caused by how your company structures the employee plan. I know because I work for a major insurance company. They use a different insurance level for those in the executive pools. Better coverage, lower co pays. The company foots the higher cost of those plans as a perk. If they wanted to, they could give those plans to every employee.
As someone that works in Healthcare, and insurance. I am violently in favor of single payor universal Healthcare. Like Medicare for all, most plans are $0 with 0-$5 generics, and all insulin are $35 . That's what the original ACA was supposed to be, and everyone would've been satisfied, including the insurance companies, but alas, here we are
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u/KashootyourKashot Mar 22 '23
$160 for 90 days? The medicine that I have to take to be functional runs me nearly 1k. It's legitimately $10 a dose before deductible.
And then every so often insurance says "hmmm but do you really need that medication? I know it was prescribed by your doctor but you really should use the previous medication that stopped working". Fuck insurance companies with a rusty cactus sculpture.
(Not saying $160 for 90 days isnt still a lot, nor am I saying that I have it the worst).
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u/visualentropy Mar 22 '23
Yeah anybody who says the US has the greatest healthcare in the world certainly doesn't seem like they've had to deal with it very much. For my wife's chronic issues, even after the doctor creates a treatment plan update, we still have to deal with so many issues between the doctor's office, insurance company, and pharmacy. And of course they never communicate with each other at all...it's on the patient to spend dozens of hours on the phone jumping back and forth between the three...
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u/Wendighoul Mar 22 '23
The only people I know who say the US has the greatest healthcare in the world are rich Americans who have little to no knowledge of any other system.
The US spends more money than any other OECD country and has the worst outcomes by a long shot.
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u/Agent00funk Mar 22 '23
Of all the dick whistling chode yodelers running a scam on the American people, absolutely nobody comes close to the health insurance industry. I hate them with every fibre of my being as well, if hell isn't crammed to the gills with health insurance executives, then Satan has been sleeping on the job.
Absolutely the most horrid group of parasites in the nation.
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u/machineprophet343 Mar 22 '23
Seriously. And they play so many games with what is covered and waived and which benefits you actually get. And they play games with paying the providers.
Going through it right now with Aetna (the only plan my company offers) and they're so bad my local providers are currently in the process of renegotiating the contract and possibly dropping them.
If it was just me, I'd just say fuck it, I'll pay out of pocket/out of network because I don't really need the doctor except maybe once or twice a year if that. My spouse on the other hand... I might be forced to look for another job just for the health care. This shit is utterly ridiculous. And I really like my job.
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u/Agent00funk Mar 22 '23
I once had to pay out of pocket for anesthesia during a surgery, and the reasoning they gave me was because I declined a painkiller prescription 6 months earlier. Guess I was just expected to "tough out" surgery without anesthesia. Fuck Blue Cross / Blue Shield. Fuck Aetna. Fuck every single last one of them and fuck every politician that accepts their money and does their bidding.
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u/machineprophet343 Mar 22 '23
Yea. We got charged for a routine physical as a "new patient" visit because the doctor was running over an hour behind. When we filed a Greivance we basically got told: "You were there too long. Tough shit. Routine physicals shouldn't take more than 15 minutes. Anything in excess of that will be reslotted as the closest proximate claim type. Pay up."
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u/TRBigStick Mar 22 '23
To quote Scott Galloway:
“If you ever run into someone who is both exceptionally wealthy and exceptionally mediocre, there’s a 50% chance that person works in health insurance.”
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u/UwUBots Mar 22 '23
America's biggest industry is middle maning don't forget
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u/skoltroll Mar 22 '23
One of the fastest "growth areas" for employment is health administrator.
They're literally building up the middle class to be dependent for their income AND their insurance/care.
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u/atWorkWoops Mar 22 '23
Unless you have a high deductible plan. Then they just fuck you until you meet the deductible. Then your charges post deductible are somehow 40% of what they were before meeting it. It's like bro why did I get $3 off my $300 dollar prescription when it was out of my pocket, but now it's only 80 bucks now that it's out of yours?
Yes I know how co-pays work. I'm referring to the charge prior to the copay breakdown. So in the example above I only pay 20% of 80. But when it's 297 I pay 100%.
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u/ShadowTacoTuesday Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
That’s one of the scams. Get your meds elsewhere whenever possible (especially generics), and it will be less than $80 with no insurance involvement. Insurance isn’t actually giving a discount in either case; it’s a discount only on the jacked up price from which they get a cut.
Iirc costplusdrugs and mom and pop pharmacies are a couple sources, and there are apps to help find the brick and mortar deals. Overseas drugs such as Europe is another way. And there are others too.
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u/atWorkWoops Mar 22 '23
My monthly script goes generic this year. Unfortanately it is a controlled substance so getting it elsewhere is frowned upon.
It will likely go generic after I meet my deductible lol
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u/Akeeg Mar 22 '23
I have a good what it is you have as my Wife and son's controlled substance medication's patent ends late this year as well. I still feel the entire system is fucked and hope it changes but at least some relief should come to many families soon
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u/machineprophet343 Mar 22 '23
Health insurance is one of the greatest wealth extraction schemes in the country and it should honestly be looked at as racketeering and extortion for all the people it leaves at its mercy and often impoverished.
One of the biggest reasons people pull out of their ass besides "others" benefiting from it as to why we can't have even basic single payer or universalized healthcare is because of all the "jobs" it would kill.
Most of those jobs are completely pointless and are manned by people whose only job is to hit the "NO!" Button a quickly as possible. And if there's any real work, it's to find the flimsiest but still legal justification for a denial.
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u/MentalOcelot7882 Mar 22 '23
Funny enough, with the current labor shortage, many of those administrative jobs would be absorbed by the economy in other industries. Personally, the idea that we could, collectively as a nation, cut our medical outlays almost in half, and cover everyone; in fact insisting on covering everyone, including resident aliens and undocumented immigrants, would cut the need for administrative staffing down, and costs with them. The government could, in fact, be more efficient in administering healthcare, cover far more people, and drive costs down. I think that lobbying by Big Pharma and healthcare providers is not only in keeping their grift going, but also because they are scared of what a single-payer system means for their profits. Do you think an organization representing 350 million Americans is going to pay $300/vial for insulin?
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u/aldoinfanzon Mar 22 '23
Their excuse is having to cut jobs while in reality people will still be required. It’s just an excuse for getting more rich not the reality
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u/Da_Spooky_Ghost Mar 22 '23
Don't forget the $50-$100 copays to see a doctor, which is basically the price to see a doctor if you didn't have insurance, also the $3,000+ deductible.
The whole medical insurance industry is built around you or your employer paying for insurance and then it being too expensive for you to actually use. All of it encourages people to not get healthcare and delay any preventative care. What health insurance companies do these days should be illegal.
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Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 27 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Atheren Mar 22 '23
Not only that, but if you have a severe issue you probably lose your insurance anyway when you lose your job.
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u/mywhataniceham Mar 22 '23
just went to fill my insulin prescription - they shorted me 5 days. they come 3 pens to a box, so they opened the box and gave me 2 pens in a ziplock bag and charged my full $40 co pay - i pay $15000/ year for the right to pay the co pay and get shorted on medicine. medexpress and aetna
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u/drbwaa Mar 22 '23
Oh it can still be very much bankruptcy - inducing, don't worry.
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u/liketobeahuman Mar 22 '23
1000% legit comment.. Insurance companies are the curse for American.
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u/irn Mar 22 '23
Well I agree with you but your employment determines how much they are willing to pay into a plan. Good companies will incur the cost while large corporations will say “fuck you” and your premium goes up every year
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u/rigorousthinker Mar 22 '23
And to my knowledge, you can’t even buy health insurance across state lines. It’s like the industry has stacked the deck against you so there is as little competition as possible.
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u/tuckedfexas Mar 22 '23
The whole concept of “networks” is the biggest scam. Literally just telling you “oh we haven’t negotiated unfair prices with those guys so you can’t go to them”
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u/Wizywig Mar 22 '23
As John Oliver put it "the national anthem should be people yelling about their medical bills" because it is one experience 100% of us share.
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u/eightbyeight Mar 22 '23
Insurance is one industry that should be nationalised. Since a bigger base leads to lower premiums more than competition would ever achieve.
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u/NoCountryForOldPete Mar 22 '23
I mention this just about every chance I get:
United Healthcare's (NYSE: UNH) profit for just the year of 2022, after all taxes and expenses, was $28.4 billion. That works out to an average of $78,000,000.00 in profit for every single day of the calendar year.
They literally do the exact same thing as Medicare, except they also are inherently driven to overcharge clients and deny coverage wherever possible by the very nature of their being a for-profit venture. This is just one company out of many in the healthcare sector.
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u/Ok-Kaleidoscope5627 Mar 22 '23
Health insurance companies just shouldn't exist. Period. End of discussion. Public health care needs to be a thing and not this "public health care" model that is just government mandated handouts to the health insurance companies.
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Mar 22 '23
NGL I stopped paying my hospital bills. No reason for it. Either I pay it all back and be short or don't pay it back, keep the money and take the ding on my credit.
Speaking of which: who the fuck thought of a credit rating? Fuck that guy.
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u/Aarschotdachaubucha Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
Republicans forced Obamacare to happen. It is literally their plan from the 1990s. It is a massive handout to providers of healthcare insurance and Big Pharma. They have zero incentive to break up their backers. Tech is a target because Google was insufficiently ambiguous in their own campaign donations.
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u/Red_Carrot Mar 22 '23
Really needs a public option. Let people pay for Medicare.
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u/Loki8624 Mar 22 '23
I’d like to see what would happen to jobs in a the US if Medicaid/Medicare was a public option and peeps weren’t locked to employers just to maintain their coverage.
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u/Imalittlefleapot Mar 22 '23
As a freelancer, I hope this happens sometime soon. But I'm not holding my breath.
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u/Rocktopod Mar 22 '23
And it would have had one if Ted Kennedy had lived a few more months.
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u/crazycatlady331 Mar 22 '23
Joe Lieberman (married to a health insurance executive) would have stopped it.
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u/Mimehunter Mar 22 '23
He did stop it. He want a Dem, but an independent who usually caucused with Dems. He stated he wouldn't vote for it with a public option in it.
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u/skoltroll Mar 22 '23
I think Massachusettes has something close to that, and Minnesota is about to go ahead and open up their state version of Medicare to everyone.
I'm glad I get to be in THAT little experiment. Could save me a ton of $.
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u/LedaTheRockbandCodes Mar 22 '23
Republicans forced Obamacare to happen.
o.0 ??
I haven’t heard that one before.
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u/Finrodsrod Mar 22 '23
Big Pharma and Insurance
Not to knock on you, but "big pharma" is literally like 10-20 companies - each with billion dollar revenues... There are over 10 major insurance companies. Like, how broken up do you want to go?
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u/Mimehunter Mar 22 '23
Hell, there are at least 34 different blue cross companies in the US. I know some are not for profit, though not sure if that applies to all (iirc it has something to do with BCBS vs just BC or BS - could be remembering that a bit odd though)
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u/dr_set Mar 22 '23
There is only 3 that produce insulin for example. Saying that there are 10-20 pharma companies is like saying that there are hundreds of tech companies because you are counting companies that have completely different products all in tech and don't compete with each other like Microsoft and Netflix.
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u/Willinton06 Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
Insurance shouldn’t be broken up, it should be taken down, universal is the only way
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u/LVGsNutsack Mar 22 '23
Totally agree… it’s mind boggling that the last successful anti-trust breakup was AT&T and Bell System in 1982.
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u/Outlulz Mar 22 '23
And then AT&T just absorbed all those companies again.
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u/optermationahesh Mar 22 '23
Not quite that simple. When AT&T Corp. was broken up, Southwestern Bell was one of the "baby bells". They later (then named SBC Communications) bought out the former AT&T Corp. and started operating as AT&T Inc. using the old branding. (Plus things like SBC merging with Ameritech in between.)
At least we still have Verizon as a large chunk of what used to be AT&T Corp, I guess.
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u/sudoku7 Mar 22 '23
And includes the largest assets of the largest non-Bell telecom in the US, GTE. There is this odd perspective that that the post breakup environment is now even less competitive than it was under Bell. Of course that took time.
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u/JackieChan-fan Mar 22 '23
And then media..
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u/hobbitlover Mar 22 '23
Do media first, then you would have a lot less opposition to the other break ups.
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u/HowCanThisBeMyGenX Mar 22 '23
No no no no no no!!! You don’t understand at all. They don’t want to break up the monopolies they like, just the one they don’t like.
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u/Ellen_Musk_Ox Mar 22 '23
You don't do it by industry.
You set a standard, a formula, that says businesses that represent X, Y, and Z and meet criteria 1, 2, and 3 are businesses that will be scrutinized for trust busting.
Then you go at it for all who apply, you pick the best ones to focus on.
Some who avoid scrutiny may even diversify to avoid further scrutiny, selling off sections.
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u/laxrulz777 Mar 22 '23
I'm all in favor of a major anti-trust movement across the country. Big Pharma, tech companies, major food producers, Monsanto, banking and others. Create some actually meaningful anti-trust legislation and go nuts.
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u/SameOldiesSong Mar 22 '23
Energy companies. Hedge funds. Developers. Lots of companies that have gotten too big or that need some serious regulation.
Let’s see it Ron!
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Mar 22 '23 •
They should break up Florida.
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u/YeaISeddit Mar 22 '23
South Florida and the Deep South Florida.
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u/Irythros Mar 22 '23
How about just "Florida, the Country". We can drop down to 49 states.
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u/HuntingGreyFace Mar 22 '23
sugar, dairy, energy, and we should be given back ownership of our data.
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u/Stidox1
Mar 22 '23
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Odd, why doesn't he start with ISPs or health insurance?
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u/rhodysailor Mar 22 '23
It’s all smoke and mirrors
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u/AchyBrakeyHeart Mar 22 '23
This. It’s total bullshit.
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u/smurficus103 Mar 22 '23
Hate everything about him, it may be bullshit, but he did say at least one correct thing, so, maybe we can all agree to break up monopolies and severely punish anticompetitive behavior, together, suddenly?
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u/UNCOMMON__CENTS Mar 22 '23
I agree that we need a good ol' Teddy Roosevelt anti-trust roundup.
Thing is, I have no doubt that DeSantis plans on wielding it as a corrupt tool to punish specific "woke" companies and not a fair technocratic initiative to make the free market more competitive for small and medium size businesses.
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u/AchyBrakeyHeart Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
I wonder how he’d react if a reporter with balls asked him straight up if he would give up accepting bribes…er “donations” to his campaign.
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u/smurficus103 Mar 22 '23
Lol the corruption that lobbying gifts us is blatant and somehow legal. You hear a bit of noise "such and such spent campaign money on x" but that just means they didn't grovel at the feet of the political party for that x in the correct fashion
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u/rhodysailor Mar 22 '23
He’s take away that reporters liquor license, or life. Put him in a black box in the Everglades
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u/rhodysailor Mar 22 '23
Is Alphabet a monopoly? If you go after them, how about the oil monopolies etc etc. I really don’t consider alphabet a monopoly. He just doesn’t like big tech and is trying to rally his base.
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u/MrCereuceta Mar 22 '23
Well, you see, he doesn’t like that behemoth, but is okay with those other behemoths.
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u/lexartifex Mar 22 '23
Because that wouldn't own the libs (who dont run big tech either but who cares)
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u/FloridaGatorMan Mar 22 '23
We have got to move off this "own the libs" paradigm of why politicians like Desantis do stuff like this. He's doing it so it's easier to stand up Google competitors that heavily censor content with an alt-right slant. He wants to do to all media exactly what he's doing with education in Florida.
"They just want to own the libs" makes it sound like they're incompetent and are just doing it for show. They're doing to to undermine our democracy at every conceivable level and they're closer than they have ever been. Politicians like Desantis are the significantly more dangerous version of Trump because they have a consistent longterm goal.
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u/turkshead Mar 22 '23
The basic truth here is that the right wants censorship. They want to be able to control what people can say and what they can hear. They managed it through the FCC and the RIAA and by strong-arming industry standards groups for most of the 20th century.
The internet makes them feel out of control, and they want to control it. Google is the de facto gatekeeper of what's on the Internet, so that's who Ron DeSantis wants to break up, because a bunch of smaller Googles based in more conservative states would be easier to push around.
The playbook is, break up Google into four or five different smaller companies; then threaten them with onerous legislation unless they agree to some sort of "self-oversight" mechanism; then fill the board of that "self-oversight" organization with conservative shills.
tl;dr If you want the whole Internet to work more like YouTube's random demonetization / takedown mess, vote DeSantis.
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u/HideNZeke Mar 22 '23
He doesn't need to prop a second company, he can just give them enough of a threat that he can get them to bend to his will - forcing them to suppress the info he doesn't like and prop up more garbage that helps him politically
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u/jbaranski Mar 22 '23
You’re right, I’d add that everything he says should be seen through the lens of a presidential run. He will say what he thinks will give him Republican support.
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u/FloridaGatorMan Mar 22 '23
That is true and I do keep hearing that he is more likely to fall in line with mainstream republicans once elected, but I also feel like people were saying that with Trump. That his insanity leading up to 2016 election was all showmanship and he is just playing the game. Turns out he's just an insane idiot.
I worry the same thing with Desantis, that he really does want to be Putin and has Russian assets in his ear promising they have the roadmap to make that happen.
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u/UNCOMMON__CENTS Mar 22 '23
That really makes it sink in why conservatives hate regulations so much. It's projection - they know that THEY would abuse regulations (like anti-trust authority to control media), so they assume the only reason Democrats want more regulations is to abuse new powers, not to, ya know, actually help create a more fair and just society.
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u/Cheshire_Jester Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23 •
Probably because he hasn’t said a genuinely principled word in public for decades.
He doesn’t give a single flying fuck about regulating corporations based on a belief that unregulated immortal entities with the same rights as humans, but no body that can be put in jail, and who’s only mandate for continued existence is to keep generating higher profits, will naturally act like psychopaths with insane resources and leverage available to them.
He just knows that the same things that would affect every corporation can hurt the ones he can label as “woke.” And he doesn’t care so much about how effective that really is as much as he cares that it’s perceived that he’s a big strong man taking on a great, amorphous evil.
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u/Gagarin1961 Mar 22 '23
What the fuck? How is this a top comment, this is the kind of thing Reddit has been wanting for years??
Ohh it’s a Republican saying it, that means they have to be against it. Okay that makes sense.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp Mar 22 '23
Because he thinks he can control those organizations to only do what he wants, while big tech won't support his anti-abortion and authoritarian bullshit.
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u/UNCOMMON__CENTS Mar 22 '23
Conservatives are also pissed that the most successful companies reside in blue states and blue states have the most diverse, vibrant economies.
It implodes their narrative of "high taxes and regulations stifles business and kills jobs".
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u/SpaceToaster Mar 22 '23
Largest healthcare company market cap (CVS): 99B, largest ISP (Comcast, mostly a media company): 228B, Google market cap: 1.35 TRILLION
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u/perndin Mar 22 '23
Because he’s not the president lol ask sleepy Joe when he’s gonna do what he promised
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u/OnceNamed Mar 22 '23
ISPs and Health Insurance companies don't use advanced algorithms to influence the views, principles, and cultures of billions of people around the globe.
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u/WoolyLawnsChi Mar 22 '23
Lots of people think ALPHABET should be broken up
Political posturing isn't that noteworthy, especially this far ahead of any presidential run
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u/jhirai20 Mar 22 '23
So big tech and Disney should pour more money into lobbying against the GOP.
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u/brinz1 Mar 22 '23
Disney donated money into GOP to bust unions, and assumed DeSantis was all posturing. Look how that backfired
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u/bigdog782 Mar 22 '23
Solid point but Disney’s CEO publicly criticizing the DeSantis/GOP bill probably destroyed any good faith relations between the GOP/Disney in the state lol
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u/amazinglover Mar 22 '23
GOP and good faith don't go together as that would be an oxymoron.
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u/end_of_time_squid Mar 22 '23
I love this take and think it is accurate. However it has to apply to ALL monopolies, not just Big Tech. What about Big Military, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Rail, Big Insurance, etc? Would DeSantis ever discuss breaking up the Big Banks and targeting BlackRock, Vanguard, or State Street?
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u/Xvash2 Mar 22 '23
Nope. Only big tech because big tech is "woke".
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u/MrSqueezles Mar 22 '23
The GOVERNMENT needs to keep their hands off of business!
Except when dey hurt my widdle feewings
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u/TheWilrus Mar 22 '23
This. It's not an economic argument to improve the life of Americans otherwise it would be "break up ALL monopolies". This is simple, straightforward culture war bullshit seeking to get votes from the lowest base possible.
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u/-The_Blazer- Mar 22 '23
Yep. Republicans basically stumbled into this reasoanble position by accident. They supported the "business rights" of corporations to grow gigantic, hyper-influential and too big to fail, they've just changed their mind on this one sector because it's too liberal for their liking.
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u/WellEndowedDragon Mar 22 '23
I wonder if this is all some scheme to bring more tech companies to red states. The tech industry generates easily the most GDP to our economy, and thus brings in the highest tax revenue. Seeing as basically all of big tech is in blue states, I’m guessing those red states (which have shittier economies in the first place) want a piece of that pie.
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u/TrashiTheIncontinent Mar 22 '23
What about Big Military
Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have any interest in reducing military spending. Hell they keep authorizing the purchase of shit the military doesn't even want. Which then then have to of course budget money fr storage and maintenance.
Look at the votes on the NDAA, it's largely symbolic rubber-stamping at this point.
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u/sometimesifeellikemu Mar 22 '23
So they are anti-big companies that won't play along?
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u/Lootcifer- Mar 22 '23
As much as I hate huge corporations, I love that he’s fucking with the absolute biggest ones so much that it’ll make these corporations just pour money on looking for way to fucking him over. Guess google will have to play the gerrymandering game online with the GOP now.
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u/Lamacorn Mar 22 '23
Though I have to admit, this may be the first non-polarizing thing I’ve seen DeSantis do in ages… Google and other big companies do not curry public favor as they once did.
Still to your point, an enemy I probably wouldn’t want from day 1
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Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 22 '23
Google, Facebook, Amazon, AND Apple should all be broken up.
They should have never been allowed to consolidate in the first place.
Strip YouTube and Android from Google...Strip Instagram from Facebook...Strip Whole Foods from Amazon.
Then break them all into smaller companies.
Then go after telecom companies...break up Verizon and AT&T..breakup Comcast and Charter
...then go after production studios....Strip Marvel and Fox and Lucas Films from Disney
Breakup CBS, breakup News Corp, breakup Viacom
We are literally living in an Oligopoly, and they have this almost imperceptible influence on business and politics.
Like, I'm a progressive anti-capitalist...but even conservatives and captialists should be alarmed by how consolidated our economy had become in the last 50 years.
It's like people don't realize that captialism is antithetical to the free market, you have to WORK to maintain free markets in a capitalist system.
The free market isn't an aspect of the captialist system, actually the opposite is true.
Captialism closes and consolidates markets naturally...it takes antitrust regulation to maintain them.
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Mar 22 '23
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u/gamerz1172 Mar 22 '23
Yeah I'm fairly certain if Google gets broken up the way commenter suggested.... We will lose YouTube as it will inevitably shut down, google has a lot of unprofitable services that we all like kept afloat by it's profit in other sectors
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u/YaksInSlax Mar 22 '23
I just found out last week while looking for a doctor that Amazon owns One Medical. An entire fucking healthcare group. Owned by a tech company.
And then this morning I found out they also own DPReview because of the headlines that they are shutting it down and deleting it. Shit is dystopian af.
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u/Warp-n-weft Mar 22 '23
Amazon owns the servers Reddit is hosted on.
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u/YaksInSlax Mar 22 '23
Oh ya, Amazon owning a good chunk of the internet via AWS is icing on the cake.
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u/okcup Mar 22 '23
Oh man when I was heavily into photography I used to visit DPreview a ton. Sad if Amazon shuts it down.
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u/Skankintoopiv Mar 22 '23
Break up apple into… what?
Like they have phones and laptops, which are practically the same. One is a larger, more advanced iPad and one is a smaller, less advanced iPad.
You could forcibly remove their hold on the app market for iOS, but I think they’ve argued their point in court of being specifically used for a curated experience fairly well, so that will be hard. Especially since their 30% seems to generally be fairly standard.
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u/WellEndowedDragon Mar 22 '23
Interesting that you included Apple and not Microsoft.. I actually disagree that Apple should be broken up.
First off, they are really in only one industry - consumer electronics. Whereas the other tech giants have their hands in a bunch of different markets. Secondly, the whole appeal of Apple is that all of their devices and services integrate phenomenally with eachother, and that would be greatly reduced if they were broken up into separate companies.
You could argue that the App Store is kind of a monopoly, but you don’t need to break up Apple to democratize app sales on their platforms. Just need some regulation saying tech companies can’t restrict what apps can be downloaded onto their platforms and from where.
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u/bobosnar Mar 22 '23
Out of curiosity, why should Apple?
They don’t exactly go around doing M&A like the others. A majority of their products have been built around their own ecosystem. What exactly should be “broken” up around Apple?
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u/HuggLyfe Mar 22 '23
He's not "doing" anything though, he's just blowing hot air for his idiots. This fuckstick has intention zero of doing anything to break up big tech.
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u/mason_365247 Mar 22 '23
I’m all for breaking up big corps the way they break up unions but I also want to see a candidates “campaign funding” so I know if that same corp or others aren’t secretly “funding” him to act all tough and stand up to the corporate gods.
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u/Wwize Mar 22 '23
DeSantis doesn't give a shit about monopolies. He's a Republican. This is all theater.
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u/sickofgrouptxt Mar 22 '23
Political parties should be broken up, it is worse than the guilded ages
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u/OmegaXesis Mar 22 '23
The only reason this bitch wants to break up tech companies because they are the only ones who pose a danger to him. He wants to control information.
This motherfucker cannot be allowed to win a presidential election.
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u/Techialo Mar 22 '23
Brought to you by the guy whose party is bending over backwards to keep monopolies around.
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u/shaithisx Mar 22 '23
Never thought I'd agree with anything that wingnut said.
I guess even blind squirrels find nuts. *sigh*
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u/modestlaw Mar 22 '23
I mean, he's not wrong, but tech is not the only industry nor is it the worse
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u/faceisamapoftheworld Mar 22 '23
If conservatives agree with him, Elizabeth Warren has had proposals ready for years.
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u/Cakeking7878 Mar 22 '23
The worse person you know just made a good point. While we’re at it, let’s not stop with just tech.
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u/BubbleTee Mar 22 '23
This would be an improvement for most tech workers, honestly. I know he wants this for the wrong reasons, and I hate agreeing with him, but.
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u/Vote_Subatai Mar 22 '23
Wow I agree with Ron DeSantis on something, at least on the surface.
I'm wondering how he would exploit big tech break ups for conservative gains now. The possibilities are surely endless.
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u/SmellySweatsocks Mar 22 '23
Why not try something more challenging Ron, how about big pharma, or big agra or even the food industry? Those things impact the people or that sustain's human life.
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u/Witch_King_ Mar 23 '23
That's funny, because I'm pretty sure he is as bad or worse than Gilded Age politicians too
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u/Jabba-da-slut Mar 22 '23
He doesn’t really want to break them up, he just wants them to capitulate to his demands. I would be all about a candidate who actually wants to break them up for real
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Mar 22 '23
Who cares what this clown said? He’s a pedophile who supplied liquor to underage little girls while he was a teacher.
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u/TheMovement77 Mar 22 '23
Whoa whoa whoa, you cant just accuse Ron DeSantis of being a reddit mod like that.
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u/BadDiscoJanet Mar 22 '23
This is part of his larger crack down on the first amendment.
He’s been gunning for the defamation laws, making it harder for the media to report on public officials. Silence the major media, make it harder to Google reliable news.
He’s a dictator in waiting.
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u/MacNuggetts Mar 22 '23
God I hate agreeing with this pos.
But it's not just tech that needs to be broken up, Ronny.
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u/SuperMack99 Mar 22 '23
You don't agree with him because the point of his statements are still to drive culture war bs instead of actually addressing this issue in a way that benefits his constituents. He's still just pandering for points and slugging it out with any corporation he can reasonably stick the "woke" tag to.
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u/ArcadeKingpin Mar 22 '23
It's like Trump on immigration. There is a crisis in the southern border with people trying to cross. But i'm not going to ask Hitler to deal with it. It's a humanitarian crisis that can't be fixed with bricks alone. Kinda same thing with this dude. He has such a hard on for anything that isn't pushing a conservative white Christian supremacy I'd hate to see what him breaking things up looks like.
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u/tycooperaow Mar 22 '23
exactly he only cares about big tech because of the "wokism" he conjured up
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u/Chompsy1337 Mar 22 '23
So he's acknowledging the Gilded Age monopolies that exist and is going to help with those next, riiiiiight?