Society/Culture The Big Tech billionaires and their influence

I think if you could communicate to people that they are the product being sold it would change their perception.

Everything costs money and the things that are free for you - that's when you're being sold to someone else.

It's the business model for almost every site out there, including Bigfooty, except here we are both the flowers to attract other bees and the honey sold to advertisers.

Can you imagine if there was a movement to have contributors paid a cut for the interactions their content generates?

this actually touches on one of the issues Facebook doesnt like about the Australian model

Lets just say we have two posters, Maggie5 and NSWCROW

Maggie is popular with Pies fans and they love reading everything she writes. NSWCROW is a boring sad sack who still spams boards that the PowerStance is a valid AFL technique.

in a free market, Chief will pay Mag's a fair bit of coin, because he wants her content to drive up traffic. NSWCROW on the other hand, he just brings the site down and actually costs Chief views. As such, the Chief would only host his s**t if he is paid, or for free at best.

Under the AU model, they both get paid the same.
 
this actually touches on one of the issues Facebook doesnt like about the Australian model

Lets just say we have two posters, Maggie5 and NSWCROW

Maggie is popular with Pies fans and they love reading everything she writes. NSWCROW is a boring sad sack who still spams boards that the PowerStance is a valid AFL technique.

in a free market, Chief will pay Mag's a fair bit of coin, because he wants her content to drive up traffic. NSWCROW on the other hand, he just brings the site down and actually costs Chief views. As such, the Chief would only host his sh*t if he is paid, or for free at best.

Under the AU model, they both get paid the same.
I like the idea.

I think if impression driven content renumeration was a thing on Bigfooty then the threads would mostly be "Tigers star SLAMS Essendon over SCANDAL"

"Top TEN ways to better football"
"How bigChief is monitoring your data"

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M Malice

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Those inventions arent curing cancer or feeding the poor. They are making shopping more efficient or enabling people to watch cat memes. The utilitarian gain for society is positive but minor.

they should certainly be well rewarded because people want those things. And we should also be incentivised to provide things people want. But a billion dollars? You get thats 1000 million right? you take 500 million from them and their utility is basically unchanged. Their consumption is basically unchanged. You reduce combined workers taxes by 500 million dollars and the benefit for society is dramatic.

we all agree on a welfare capitalist system. The argument is on the allocation. Billionaires should pay a lot lot more so middle and high income earners dont have to pay as much. The only reason billionaires dont pay a much higher share on marginal income is because of their political influence. Doctors, lawyers, scientists dont have such political influence.

ironically the guys who are inventing the vacciness to save modern society probably dont even earn millions lets alone billions.
Once you have half a billion dollars I don't think accumulating more money is the major motivating factor, the accumulation of more power, influence and kudos is ie. narcissism/external affirmation whores.
 

Blue1980

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People tend to not give a damn, until it's their "side" who is being silenced. Cancelling a sitting POTUS from social media is one of those things that many are too deranged to see the significance of (for now).

FB is a boomer haven, so blocking journalism from it in Australia is waking people up. Time to splinter these platforms into a thousand pieces and scatter them into the wind.

Horse bolted long ago with these companies not being properly taxed. Regulations didn’t keep up with the internet 25 years ago, and here we are.

I don’t see it as a left or right issue really. I mean if you wanted to be unkind you could say how the right have traditionally been free market and ok with monopolies so it fits in with that analogy.

Basically Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc have become something way bigger than anyone could of comprehended 10 years ago and have been used for all sorts of worldwide propaganda.

At least these companies being too ridiculously big and powerful is something everyone on this site and the majority of the population at large can agree on.

I was more baffled hearing how many Australians get their news from social media, 75-80%, that can’t be good with social media algorithms just throwing stuff at people which further reinforces their world view.

Also people being so concerned about it, we are in a world with more choice than ever, but obviously for technically illiterate boomers (and some others) it seems like their whole internet experience is their Facebook feed.

So more choice than ever, yet news content not being shown on one website is a cause for panic and hand wringing? Totally bizarre.
 
Horse bolted long ago with these companies not being properly taxed. Regulations didn’t keep up with the internet 25 years ago, and here we are.

I don’t see it as a left or right issue really. I mean if you wanted to be unkind you could say how the right have traditionally been free market and ok with monopolies so it fits in with that analogy.

Basically Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc have become something way bigger than anyone could of comprehended 10 years ago and have been used for all sorts of worldwide propaganda.

At least these companies being too ridiculously big and powerful is something everyone on this site and the majority of the population at large can agree on.

I was more baffled hearing how many Australians get their news from social media, 75-80%, that can’t be good with social media algorithms just throwing stuff at people which further reinforces their world view.

Also people being so concerned about it, we are in a world with more choice than ever, but obviously for technically illiterate boomers (and some others) it seems like their whole internet experience is their Facebook feed.

So more choice than ever, yet news content not being shown on one website is a cause for panic and hand wringing? Totally bizarre.

I'm not sure who actually said this but it's quite pertinent.

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.

When you're entire input is dominated by one source and that source curates your content to match your existing likes how can you see anything but validating points of view and is it any wonder that the appetite for actual discourse is so low when there isn't anywhere to practice it anymore?

You're either surrounded by people who agree with you or evil monsters who shouldn't be listened to lest they utter a spell and corrupt you, so no hearing.

I was reading a facebook post, go figure, of a woman telling people to go do their own research on how safe the vaccine is. She is quite confident in it but it had me thinking. Nobody is doing research. You're looking for work other people have done when you're entirely unqualified to understand it, so you have to have it filtered through someone else who may or may not have an agenda in how they present it to you. You're seeking an authority to tell you something is dangerous or safe and most of the time you're taking the first one that agreed with your point of view coming into it.

All of our debates are like this when it's about an external issue. 95% of respondents are repeating that which they have heard someone else prepare for them to rebut those who might present something alternative to the approved narrative. That makes the battle for public opinion not at all about right or wrong and entirely about who can best motivate voices to repeat the dogma.

We've opened the floor to everyone's voice and they've been turned into acolytes for the existing points of view, not a new perspective and those few new perspectives are drowned out by the masses of easily lead and directed good intentions.

We need to make it ok again to not have an opinion on an issue you know nothing about.
 
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Once you have half a billion dollars I don't think accumulating more money is the major motivating factor, the accumulation of more power, influence and kudos is ie. narcissism/external affirmation whores.
Exactly. There is actually nothing to buy for 50 million dollars that a sane person would want. So what the hell do they do with more then 500 million?
 
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Do you think they keep it all stuffed under their mattress? Read a book seeds.
If they did it would be like it doesnt exist so i would be ok with that. Instead they buy things that gives them little happiness but either wastes an awful lot of manpower that could of been spent on other things or bids up the price of natural resources Or takes away resources that could be used for the common good.
 
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If they did it would be like it doesnt exist so i would be ok with that. Instead they buy things that gives them little happiness but either wastes an awful lot of manpower that could of been spent on other things or bids up the price of natural resources Or takes away resources that could be used for the common good.
I'd agree that better wealth distribution would be a good thing, but surely you're just trolling if you think billionaires stashing their capital rather than using it to create jobs and services would be preferable?
 
If they did it would be like it doesnt exist so i would be ok with that. Instead they buy things that gives them little happiness but either wastes an awful lot of manpower that could of been spent on other things or bids up the price of natural resources Or takes away resources that could be used for the common good.
It keeps people employed in fields outside of working the fields and swinging a hammer.

These particular highly boutique or niche items aren't so easily produced by the cheaper overseas labor and as such are some of the only locally supported manufacturing and installation jobs in advanced economies.
 
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Just so we are clear, the only way this can work is if the state seizes half the shares of the company that a billionaire owns.
I don't know if that is true, if it's really a binary. Why is there such a sigma around public/private partnerships?

What if a government purchased half the shares in Tesla/Facebook etc, in order to assist in direction, to provide surety, and to ensure that elected officials have say in an entity too big to fail and too vital to leave to mere profit?
 
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I'd agree that better wealth distribution would be a good thing, but surely you're just trolling if you think billionaires stashing their capital rather than using it to create jobs and services would be preferable?
Its not the capital that is the issue. Compaines and people get to deduct capital expenses from profits so they dont pay income tax on any revenue reinvested in capital. Im totally cool with that. Its the take home income that is the problem.
 
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It keeps people employed in fields outside of working the fields and swinging a hammer.

These particular highly boutique or niche items aren't so easily produced by the cheaper overseas labor and as such are some of the only locally supported manufacturing and installation jobs in advanced economies.
You get you are advocating taxing people more so that they work more to provide extra consumption for billionaires. Wouldnt they rather work less but keep more of the fruit of their labour?
 
I don't know if that is true, if it's really a binary. Why is there such a sigma around public/private partnerships?

What if a government purchased half the shares in Tesla/Facebook etc, in order to assist in direction, to provide surety, and to ensure that elected officials have say in an entity too big to fail and too vital to leave to mere profit?

There are far more businesses that fail, even after they are floated, than succeed. The government can't invest in all of them because you'll see public money filling the pockets of share owners jumping out of the business with millions and th public holding shares in a company worth zero.
 
You get you are advocating taxing people more so that they work more to provide extra consumption for billionaires. Wouldnt they rather work less but keep more of the fruit of their labour?

Taking half a billion dollars off every billion amounts to under $20 per person and runs out after one year. So what are we saving here?

I think there are thousands of people working for these billionaires who are happy to have a job and happy their bosses risk has lead to their success.
 
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There are far more businesses that fail, even after they are floated, than succeed. The government can't invest in all of them because you'll see public money filling the pockets of share owners jumping out of the business with millions and th public holding shares in a company worth zero.
But I'm not asking them to invest in all of them. I'm asking for them to invest in those businesses that become vital to the survival/perpetuity of the state. Facebook could very well be exactly like that, it distributes information with a similar reach to the ABC if not broader.

It's not an 100% or nothing situation. There would need to be criteria/definitions by which said government would need to make their case to purchase half any given company, and there are certainly far more financially literate people than me who should play a part in deciding what such would look like.
 
But I'm not asking them to invest in all of them. I'm asking for them to invest in those businesses that become vital to the survival/perpetuity of the state. Facebook could very well be exactly like that, it distributes information with a similar reach to the ABC if not broader.

It's not an 100% or nothing situation. There would need to be criteria/definitions by which said government would need to make their case to purchase half any given company, and there are certainly far more financially literate people than me who should play a part in deciding what such would look like.
Forced nationalisation via hostile takeover?

This would need to happen after a company has floated on the market and the process for considering that company for government takeover will need to be transparent otherwise it's a monstrous avenue for corruption.

See politicans selling their shares right before the covid crash after briefing and others buying bulk tesla shares before the executive order to buy electric cars.

The government intending to buy half a significant shares will be massive demand, every one will seek to buy those shares first so they can profit off the public money amount to be injected into it.

It would be significant market manipulation. The SEC won't be able to look into it.

I agree that businesses that become a part of social fabric need to have some charter or code to operate by once declared as such, but it's messy stuff
 

armpit

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I'm not sure who actually said this but it's quite pertinent.



When you're entire input is dominated by one source and that source curates your content to match your existing likes how can you see anything but validating points of view and is it any wonder that the appetite for actual discourse is so low when there isn't anywhere to practice it anymore?

You're either surrounded by people who agree with you or evil monsters who shouldn't be listened to lest they utter a spell and corrupt you, so no hearing.

I was reading a facebook post, go figure, of a woman telling people to go do their own research on how safe the vaccine is. She is quite confident in it but it had me thinking. Nobody is doing research. You're looking for work other people have done when you're entirely unqualified to understand it, so you have to have it filtered through someone else who may or may not have an agenda in how they present it to you. You're seeking an authority to tell you something is dangerous or safe and most of the time you're taking the first one that agreed with your point of view coming into it.

All of our debates are like this when it's about an external issue. 95% of respondents are repeating that which they have heard someone else prepare for them to rebut those who might present something alternative to the approved narrative. That makes the battle for public opinion not at all about right or wrong and entirely about who can best motivate voices to repeat the dogma.

We've opened the floor to everyone's voice and they've been turned into acolytes for the existing points of view, not a new perspective and those few new perspectives are drowned out by the masses of easily lead and directed good intentions.

We need to make it ok again to not have an opinion on an issue you know nothing about.

I feel like copying and pasting this all over this joint. It's so pertinent to us all of whatever persuasion.
 
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