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'Abolish Silicon Valley' Author Urges 'Expropriating' Platforms, Making them Open-Source Public Services (siliconvalley.com) 250

The Bay Area Newsgroup just interviewed the author of "Abolish Silicon Valley: How to liberate technology from capitalism". Q: How do you fix this broken system?

A: Overall the goal that I'm thinking about is that you have the private sector so overfunded and glorified that it seems like the only way to do things, but things could be much better serviced by the public sector without the profit motive that the private sector demands. Reclaim the wealth from capital, push back capital and fund public innovation... Right now the way it works is all these tech companies are predicated on a very particular way of regulating work and will hire people short-time and pay them nothing and not provide them with safety nets.

There are also companies that shouldn't necessarily exist. A lot of companies are being funded to do something the public sector could've provided. Instead of good public transit, we have Uber. Instead of a good social mobility system, we get paid scooters. What people want is to streamline a centralized system that is run in a way that is accountable and actually serves the public...

My Utopian view is to put tech companies in full public view. Expropriate platforms and turn them into municipal services, public services and make them open-source.

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'Abolish Silicon Valley' Author Urges 'Expropriating' Platforms, Making them Open-Source Public Services

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  • Profit motive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:57PM (#59938572)

    Well, government has the profit motive and the power motive. So good luck, let me know how that works out.

    • Re:Profit motive (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jonsmirl ( 114798 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:10PM (#59938616) Homepage

      Only obvious thing I see that should be in public hands is last mile wired networking (not wireless). Imagine if your local last mile network went back to a public node where you could pick from hundreds of ISPs and content providers. It is silly to have last mile competition - it make no economic sense to wire people's homes with three, four or five different last mile wires. And worse, in many parts of the country there are last mile monopolies.

      I'd like to see municipalities stop renewing last mile cable franchises and instead make offers to buy the last mile networks for a price set by an arbitrator. After they own the last mile set up the public nodes to allow access to hundreds of ISPs and content providers. If buying the last mile network is not feasible, create regulations which achieve the same effect.

      With this model most of the reasons for net neutrality disappears. If your ISP starts misbehaving, it is trivial to switch to another one.

      • Unlikely in many places. There are to many in local government willing to take the Brib( er? ah? ) campaign contributions and other family freebies, family member jobs, etc,.

        Just my 2 cents ;)
        • by lgw ( 121541 )

          I think in a lot of places it's just outright bribery, local politicians not necessarily being under much scrutiny.

          • Re:Profit motive (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @09:24PM (#59939078) Homepage
            You're both making the assumption that the politician is voting against their constituent's wishes here. Sadly, this administration has taught us that there are large groups of Americans who could care less about the public good, as long as they are comfortable, or it's "their team" calling the shots.
            • You're both making the assumption that the politician is voting against their constituent's wishes here.

              No, they're assuming (probably correctly , if history is any guide) that the politician pays no attention whatsoever to their constituents' wishes.

              It is a mistake to assume that a politician is somehow superior to other men in always thinking first of the good that they can do for their fellow men. Evidence of history says they're thinking first of their own good, and after that they need a strong shot

      • The last mile doesn't have to be owned by the public; it just has to be regulated as a utility. Your neighborhood's unique set of electrical connections is handled this way.

        • Re:Profit motive (Score:4, Interesting)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday April 13, 2020 @04:00AM (#59940014) Homepage Journal

          Tried that in the UK and it's shit. OpenReach, formerly BT, can't be bothered with upgrades. We are all stuck on extremely slow connections and fibre roll out is an absolute joke. Our internet is about 15 years behind the curve.

          Years ago NEC offered to install fibre everywhere. The money went to BT instead who pissed it away. Literally, it mostly went into the champagne fund.

          Sometimes regulation can work, but it needs to be much stronger than what we have.

      • What about operating systems? Server operating systems are already owned by The People. And networking could be handled by mesh networking with web of trust decision making for routing, using strong crypto which is also in the hands of People.

      • Here is the difference between private vs government ran services. When you don't like the service or it simply breaks and no longer provided, if it is a private company, you can just stop paying for it. Try that with taxes and they will come for you with guns, literally (eventually as they come to arrest you for tax evasion).

        • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

          That's not the difference of private vs government, that's the difference of competition vs no competition.
          You can stop paying taxes if you stop doing the activity which is taxable, for instance your income tax will stop if your income also stops. You can stop paying for a public utility service like water if you stop using the water.

          Some government services you get for free even if you can't afford to pay taxes. If you're homeless, unemployed and living illegally in an abandoned building you're not going t

          • Over here the water bill is also the sewer bill and the property drainage bill. You can cancel water service, but I don't know how you would stop rain falling on your land.

  • Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:59PM (#59938578)

    So his grand solution to "save silicon valley from the EVIL capitalism" his unique vision is to... nationalize it like every other communist country has done to their industry and run it for the good of the people.

    Sorry, that's BS and theft.

    Why don't you go ask the people of Venezuela how their nationalized oil industry is working these days?

    • Re: Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

      Let's make sure we've understood you: Nationalisation = communism = bad because Venezuela. Is that right? You do know that Venezuela is a democracy with independently verified free & fair elections, don't you? And you do know that the UK & Sweden have nationalised corporations in recent years & that the UK is currently considering re-nationalising its railways because privatisation has been working so poorly, don't you?
    • The author is a her, not a he. She was born in China and is an economics writer for "New Socialist". Which I think means that economics is a topic far beyond her grasp.
  • Goose Egg? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by charlie merritt ( 4684639 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:59PM (#59938580)

    Sounds like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Expropriation is necessary sometimes but a blanket Abolish Silicone Valley? A better target might be Pharmaceuticals.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:11PM (#59938620)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        I love the line about "not provide them with safety nets" like businesses don't pay UI, DI, half the Medicare/Medicaid taxes, corporate taxes, etc. Right now, the social safety net is supported by capitalism and the businesses. I know I cut a nice check every 2 weeks to the IRS and another big one once a month to the State of California to cover things like unemployment, disability, medical costs if unemployed, etc.
        • Re:Goose Egg? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by lgw ( 121541 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @08:57PM (#59939008) Journal

          Seriously. For the most part, we outsource charity and safety nets to the government in the US. We shovel $trillions the government's way, and they do spend the vast majority of it on the old and the poor. Medicare/caid is almost double the defense budget now, and SS is 150% of the defense budget. Other programs like "welfare" (all the food/income security programs) and unemployment are collectively about as much as defense.

          And there is some economy of scale in doing so, and while I'm sure there's some corruption in these programs, they get a ton of scrutiny, far more that what a million disparate corporate charities would hide.

          Fundamentally, we don't want individual businesses trying to do charity directly for their employees, because they'll screw it up if the don't outright embezzle it. The shameful history of pension programs, especially in the 80s, shows that clearly enough.

        • " like businesses don't pay UI, DI, half the Medicare/Medicaid taxes, corporate taxes, etc. "

          Businesses wouldn't pay any of that stuff if they weren't forced to by law, and it diminishes the amount they're willing to pay you, so it's really more like you're paying it. The biggest businesses don't pay any corporate taxes, either, or they pay miniscule amounts. So yes, it's very like they don't pay any of those things.

          • Don't forget all the juicy subsidies, tax breaks, deferrals and sub-prime loans that businesses are given as well. The citizenry are probably propping up half of corporate America on those alone.
    • but a blanket Abolish Silicone Valley?

      Yeah, that's clear discrimination against fake boobs.

  • by Applehu Akbar ( 2968043 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:02PM (#59938596)

    There are also companies that shouldn't necessarily exist. A lot of companies are being funded to do something the public sector could've provided. Instead of good public transit, we have Uber.

    Uber and Lyft are point-to-point services that public transit does not provide. Transit carries large numbers of people to designated stations; rideshare can take them between a station and any address. If the two services can cooperate, they can coexist.

    • This is a great example of when government and private services can work to fill separate yet cooperative roles. It's unfortunate that consumers are thirsty for the instant brand of gratification.
      • Why wouldn't an uber like system can run better for drivers and riders on a more open and less profit based model.

    • Many public transit systems do offer point to point transport for some individuals, primarily the disabled. Autonomous vehicles have the potential to make it affordable to provide such service to all, whether we're talking about self driving cars or PRT on rails. We use buses literally only because they enable one driver to transport many passengers, and drivers are expensive. But so are buses, and so is the damage they do to roadways - orders of magnitude greater than cars or even vans.

    • by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @09:40PM (#59939136) Homepage

      Except Uber & Lyft actually encourage LESS use of public services, cause more congestion and pollution, siphon money from local economies and do everything in their power to underpay their "contractors" while absolving themselves of all the liabilities a local taxi company would have to contend with.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's part of their mantra: "you didn't build that"... Everything comes from The People, thus everything belongs to The People. It's what greedy, envious people do.
      • by TrekkieGod ( 627867 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:51PM (#59938764) Homepage Journal

        It's part of their mantra: "you didn't build that"

        The anti-capitalists like the one in this post are indeed idiots, but the "you didn't build that" comment from Obama is consistently taken out of context. In that speech, Obama wasn't saying they didn't build the businesses, he was saying they didn't build the public infrastructure that the business depends upon. They didn't build the roads their employees use to get to work, or that the trucks use to deliver their products, etc.

        Basically, it wasn't an attack on private business, it was a comment that they need to pay their fair share in taxes to support the services they benefit from. Which is a fair point. Here's the context:

        I hear all this, you know, 'Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.' No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

      • It's part of their mantra: "you didn't build that"... Everything comes from The People, thus everything belongs to The People. It's what greedy, envious people do.

        Right... because the business community really believes in the free market.

        Free markets?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        Let's not also mention billions in energy subsidies:

        https://www.imf.org/en/Topics/... [imf.org]

        But keep believing business people are heroes and haven't been taking advantage of ignorant people like you to enjoy the wonders of the corporate nanny state.

    • The story also didn't mention the more evil companies, like Oracle or Accenture.
  • It's capitalism that gave birth to technology, and keeps it going forward.
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Speaking in such broad generalities means nothing.

      • by lgw ( 121541 )

        But it's broadly true. The ideas needed for the industrial revolution were around for centuries, from steam power to automation, but the incentives just weren't there. From the first steam engines onward, it's been the profit motive that turns ideas/science into actual products for sale.

        Sure, that's a generalization, and there are exceptions, but in general it's true.

    • Capitalism is just another technology, and not necessarily the best one we can come up with for managing money. It turned out not to be the best way to manage software, all of which will eventually be dominated by commie open source and free software.

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:12PM (#59938622)

    Socialism is capitalism wherein there is only one monopolistic player and no competition, but the same motives such as greed, miserliness, minimal service, etc. exist. Also they, the same entity, has total and overt control over all your military and police.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Socialism [wikipedia.org] "is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production". It's not reserved "to the workers", it's society as a whole. Which is why Karl Marx said that socialism is just the in-between step from capitalism to communism. Once no individual "owns" the means of production, it defaults to the strongest organization controlling the means of production - and that usually ends up being the Government.

        Socialism is just communism before it takes the last step towards complete Gov

      • Really, well then universal healthcare isn't socialism.

        Furthermore, your definition makes no sense. You mean the only requirement is that the company be employee owned? You are free to do that in the current system.

      • The dictionary disagrees. In socialism, everything, not only the means of production, is owned by the state/government rather than by individuals. The "workers" own nothing, but are often used as a banner by the privileged elite who actually control the state and run the government to pretend that the distribution of goods and services is done for the benefit of all.

        From Merriam Webster: Definition of socialism

        1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      It's not an all-or-nothing world and sometimes "no competition" is good. Also, capitalism and competition are not the same. Unregulated capitalism leads to "one monopolistic player".

  • Isn't that what all open source software has been doing, to varied degree of success, for many decades? I guess up to the point where they are municipal services.

    The only "change" I feel is needed is more regulation about what users own versus what private companies own. Users should own any data they create, and any interop required that allows a user to use that data with different software should absolutely be possible without any fees or red tape. IP monopolies should be severely limited in that way - e

    • Isn't that what all open source software has been doing, to varied degree of success, for many decades?

      Well, yes, but one of the things OSS has failed to meaningfully do is make anything 'stick' that involves a network effect. No federated social network has taken off, I've never once gotten a Peertube or Mediagoblin link, Ownstagram is so impossible to get traction on that I doubt a Kardashian could make it happen, and despite the existence of RocketChat, MatterMost, Matrix, and Riot, the best competition Slack has is Microsoft Teams.

      OSS is fantastic at web servers and IDEs and databases and web browsers an

  • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:18PM (#59938642)

    Must be a slow news day. Slashdot decided to rile up the anti-socialists. Doesn't seem to be working very well though.

  • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:27PM (#59938672)

    Seriously...is this a joke? It is kind of late for April Foo Day.

  • LOL (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
    Digital communism. And I guess "the people" will maintain and improve the code. For free. Or else.
  • Well, that's radical (Score:4, Interesting)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:31PM (#59938690)
    Expropriate, I don't think so. However, I am bothered by the monopolization of the web. The original text-based web was very distributed, all based on open protocols.

    Youtube, by comparison, is practically the entire video-enabled Web, but operated and monetized by one company.

    Obviously there exist other sites, e.g. vimeo, and it is market forces that have selected one runaway winner - nevertheless it cannot be said that healthy competition exists.

    Isn't there some reasonable solution?

    • Yes, set up a website on a place that allows a few TB of bandwidth per month and serve videos from it. $5 a month can get you VM with 2TB bandwidth, so make ten of those serving 20TB for $50 a month.

      easy peasy.

      • Indeed. There is at least a dozen companies that already have the infrastructure, already handle videos, already have the bandwidth, already have content distribution networks, ... they are already ready. They are just waiting for youtube to fuck up in a big enough way and youtube will evaporate. This is why Youtube is trying so hard to "become television" and diversify into exclusive licensing deals with MPAA and RIAA corps and so on.

        Leave them be. Their own sloth will be their downfall.
    • There is competition poised to take over where youtube left off, and they already have the infrastructure.

      It simply wont happen until youtube pisses off enough people. At that point platforms like twitch will easily take over.

      Youtube is not in a strong position. It sits precariously at the top.

      Once upon a time, K-Mart was claimed to be a monopoly, until Walmart came along and now K-Mart is essentially dead. Then it was claimed that Walmart is a monopoly. Behold that Amazon is destroying Walmart. Soon
      • by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @11:00PM (#59939292) Homepage

        Odd, K-Mart/Sears was cannibalized by it's Libertarian owner who pitted it's internal structure against each other. I don't recall the government having anything to do with it.

        So you say only the government can make a monopoly... and you are incorrect. Or is the government propping up Apple's App store? Or were they mandating everyone use Windows? The government "allows" monopolies, unless they are abusive to their customers or partners. Which leads us to..

        AT&T.. they had a monopoly because it was an agreement to get phone coverage across the entire nation and not just the highly profitable urban centers AT&T wanted to service. Meanwhile AT&T enjoyed a comfortable working arrangement with the government where rural phone coverage was subsidized. And then there was Bell Laboratories, where many innovations were discovered, with government funding. Did you know they created a phone answering machine in the 30's? Of course not, because AT&T killed it dead to prevent "competition" with their phone service, didn't want people just mailing out tapes instead.

        AT&T was broken up because it's monopoly became abusive. Neither the monopoly existing or being dissolved were failures of government.

        Power companies can damn well stop solar, or slow it down as they've already done for the past couple of decades.

        You seem to live in some Libertarian fantasy land where if government were removed corporations would play fairly and not sabotage each other, commit espionage, team up to destroy smaller competitors or collude to fix prices. That's just a basic denial of human behavior there, especially as most corporations are run by amoral sociopaths and completely ignores historical precedents every time the shackles are taken off capitalism.

    • Expropriate, I don't think so. However, I am bothered by the monopolization of the web. The original text-based web was very distributed, all based on open protocols.

      Youtube, by comparison, is practically the entire video-enabled Web, but operated and monetized by one company.

      The "web" is still very much distributed, and hasn't become any less so. Its namesake refers to hypertext and linking. Youtube may carry a large internet bandwidth share (actually Netflix is at the top though) but that doesn't mean that other sites don't get a decent amount of visitor traffic. Reading a slashdot article for two minutes uses considerably less bandwidth than watching a two minute youtube video. That doesn't mean the youtube video was more popular.

      However, what has become more centralized is t

  • This rubbish seems to yearn to combine the agility and innovation of government with the deathspiral promise of the open source companies of the early 2000s. All it needs is a new edition of the Little Red Book and a Five Year Plan to produce (finally) the year of the (government) Linux desktop. I doubt if a Five Year Plan will be enough since "no amount of code can substitute for political engagement." I guess the coders/programmers will have other things to do than write code, including "eradication of

  • by biggaijin ( 126513 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:51PM (#59938768)

    What a great idea! Put the government in charge and give everyone involved the same stipend regardless of talent, experience, or effort. Pretty soon the tech world will be filled with products and customer service that emulate your local DMV. Good luck!

  • aka psychopathy.

    And the rampant drug use that "enhances" that.

    Aka the entire "culture".

    And that is only possible, by replacing all those people.

    Which I obviousy approve of. But isn't realistic without a good long-term plan. Especially something powerful that sees it through, and is unaffected by the large-scale propaganda that will obviously pop up when the snakes are winding and twisting and fighting in fear of death.

  • The first place we should put this into effect is for authors who formulate public policy and then expect to get rich off of the publishing proceeds. They should all be moved into the public service sector, writing proposals and helping to implement the required legislation. As GS-5 federal employees.

  • by jwymanm ( 627857 )
    These fucking morons think the government isn't a corporation? It's got all of the negatives of a corporation with almost none of the positives. It's centralized, it's bloated, it's slow. There is very little accountability. You get to "pick" from bad or worse to choose to run it. It's absolutely nuts to want more of government and less of thousands of different businesses. The problem with silicon valley is it is consolidating instead of competing because the gov keeps making regulations where little guys
  • Contrary to popular misconception, capitalism isn't about obtaining money. it's about giving people what they want. Making money is just a side-effect of successfully doing that. (Economically, giving people what they want increases productivity. And that increased productivity shows up in the economy as more money.)

    If you "liberate" technology from capitalism, you remove the best method for people using technology to signal to the people making the technology what kinds of improvements and new produc
    • No, desktop Linux languishes at 1% because of anticompetitive behavior on the part of Microsoft (and others, but mostly Microsoft) as determined by the USDoJ, which found that Microsoft had a monopoly position (legal) which it abused in basically every possible way (illegal.) Then Bush's AG John Ashcroft declared that it would not be in America's best interest to prosecute Microsoft or Bill Gates for those crimes. Shortly thereafter Gates put his ill-gotten gains into a trust over which he exercises ultimate control, where they cannot be taxed, and which he wields in ways which are personally profitable to him, and which benefit big oil and big pharma. BushCo is invested in the former, and Gates in the latter.

      It has been estimated that under Gates, Microsoft set computing back a decade with its anticompetitive behavior, notably the many attempts to crush Linux - now the dominant server operating system across the world.

      I'm on my phone so citations are a hassle, but if any interested parties really can't find them with Google based on keywords from my comment, I'll give it a shot. (But also, FFS, learn to internet.)

  • Venezuela was one of the most prosperous countries in South America. A group of people took power and implemented your idea with the oil industry. Now the people are starving. So yeah good plan. Move to Venezuela and enjoy the utopia your ideas create.
  • Funny how many come to the US and yet want the same centralized system they just escaped from.

  • It would be interesting to see if this was ever attempted on a small scale.
  • Since when has the public sector EVER been more efficient than private sector. What he is preaching is an end to innovation and a quagmire of political bureaucracy
  • The whole business model of Uber is people with cars they cant afford the payments on now that they have lost their job in a recession.
    Uber got their start in 2008 and would have probably gone bankrupt in 2021 but COVID has now provided a new batch of sheep to shave (aka Uber drivers)

  • by jimbrooking ( 1909170 ) on Sunday April 12, 2020 @10:39PM (#59939256)
    I love how predictable this forum is. When anyone suggests that government might actually be able to accomplish something beneficial to someone other than them, the Ayn Rand devotees, the die-hard free marketeers, the people who have never experienced need or privation and can not imagine how these conditions affect others, descend like hyenas on carrion. Having once been one of these long ago, I offer sympathy to them, and challenge them to revisit these comments in, say, 50 years, after which they may be able to imagine that you don't need a gazillion dollars, three homes and a senator or two to be happy.. And consider whether these views have enhanced their quality of life, and whether the quality of life for those with whom we share the planet might also be worth their consideration.
  • There are tons of lands where government eviscerates private enterpt....oh we don't wanna live in those.

  • Better bet: abolish captitalism entirely. Good luck with that. The human greed and human lust for power factors don't go away.
    • They don't go away in socialism or communism, either, which is why socialism always ends in a spiral of totalitarianism.

      • Note that I wasn't endorsing either Socialism or Communism.
        But I am saying that Capitalism in this country (and perhaps much of the world) is way, way, WAY out of control, corporations have too much power and too much say, and too much sway in our society(s) and that's hurting everyone that isn't them.
  • When I was younger, I had more enthusiasm towards attempts to put more things into public property. I was charmed by the idea of advancing society not by selfishness but by the will to fulfill the needs of the people. Nowadays I am more skeptical about it, because I realised that when you put something into public hands, it doesn't actually become property of the people, but rather of the politicians; who then manage it not in a way that meets the public interest, but rather in a way that will get them re-e
  • You know what i think would achieve the aims just as well if not better? Transform corporations such as Google, Facebook, & Microsoft into worker-owned businesses. That means that every worker is a member & a shareholder. As such, they elect & employ the board of directors & have a vote on certain aspects of how their companies are run. It may be easy for a closeted board of directors to agree to egregious business practices & unethical behaviour but it's much harder to do when they're h

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