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0 pointsmonopoliessuck4y ago0 comments

I think you're moving goal posts. Not all problems with our market are the result of simple consolidation of market leaders.

Put simply, don't buy products that lock you in if you don't want products to lock you in. It seems like consumers are capable of making decisions based on price, durability, features, color etc. why is any other variable sacred?

The answer is consumers don't care about these issues enough to pay for them. Would we have this right-to-repair argument if consumers went out of their way to buy repairable devices? Lenovo, Apple, Google, et. al. have been moving to solder more and more components to the board and glue everything together and consumers haven't punished these producers with their wallets yet. If you want a repairable device, buy one -- this isn't a consolidation problem. If you want a phone that you can run a different OS on, buy one. If you want a red toothbrush, don't buy a blue one and complain (or make a law) that it should be red.

Pine64 is a for-profit entity. If you want a repairable phone that you can side-load anything on, maybe give your money to them instead of Google-Apple. Likewise, if you want a repairable laptop maybe buy a Librem 14 instead of an MacBook. Maybe if you want an open hardware ePub reader buy an InkPlate instead of a Kindle. These things exist and more would exist -- with more polish -- if people voted with their wallets. These are real companies trying to make real money with real products for real people.

The smart phone operating systems you listed would have flourished if more people purchased their respective devices. You can't install Sony's OS on an XBOX and while I don't purchase consoles and think buying a single-purpose gimped device is almost always a bad idea, if people want to buy what XBOX is selling, so be it. Apple consumers are not left in the dark about their ability to use an alternative app store and while I think it's a horribly limiting experience, Apple consumers keep throwing money at the company.

I'm not just blaming the consumer. I'm also stating that the consumer is a vital part of the market and their action or inaction results in a market more aligned with those decisions.

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dangus4y ago

It's still blame for being non-technical. People rightfully don't really know how a lot of these highly complex products work.

They just want to (e.g.) make sure their photos of their kids won't get deleted.

The whole purpose of regulations is to protect the consumer against predatory companies.

Companies are showing up armed with a massive information asymmetry. They’re paying thousands of data scientists and marketers to learn everything about you and how to manipulate you into buying.

The customer is the prey, not the predator, and blaming them is blaming the victim.

monopoliessuckOP4y ago

Many consumers are aware their information is being scooped up and sold to the highest bidder on Facebook and Google. If they are not, I support more thorough and approachable information disclosure mandates. Most consumers don't care or at least the benefits of Facebook outweigh the cost as far as they see it. That's a calculated market decision.

I, myself do not have a Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, WhateverZuckBuysNext account because Facebook is a bad company and I don't wish to give it a dollar. When WhatsApp decided to merge Facebook and WhatsApp user data, consumers reacted by switching to Signal, a more equitable competitor. Facebook then had to placate them, at least temporarily. This is how conscious consumption works and in a capitalist economy transactions and boycotts are one of the purist ways to show your approval or disapproval of a company's products, services and behavior. It punishes bad actors in their wallets and rewards good ones in theirs instead.

I am 100% in favor of mandated information disclosure laws. I think consumers cannot make a voluntary and informed market decision if they don't have adequate information. Things like nutritional values, ingredients lists, explicitly enumerated contracts, hazards, precautions, demarcated place of product origin, assembly and material origin etc. etc. These are the tools with which consumers can make market decisions.

We live in a society where this information disclosure is obviously inadequate but consumers are also part of the equation and should be more vigilant and aware of their part in this dance.

I don't think the only two options are between a heavily regulated corporate hegemony (with consumer safeguards) and pro-corporate monopolist authoritarianism. We can do better but people need to do better too.

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