Hacker News Reader

Comment by drdeadringer | Hacker News Reader

A teacher I had in High School explained a particular portion of history to us about like this: "I can rule via Love or via Fear. People can fall out of Love; People don't fall out of Fear." So this monarch dictated government via Fear, and it worked until he died [which is the point much of the time].

Now, the monarchs may not die. "Facebook Forever" as reality? A 'Black Mirror' episode isn't a far stretch, and to be fair so is the opposite -- both of which we can see in reality today.

Being skeptical of tech companies is great. Behaving appropriately is also great. Going "all or nothing" can be debated. I'm interested in hearing about something in the middle, should such exist.

View on HN

Not wholly on topic, but for some added depth to that "love or fear" dynamic, I suggest reading Montesquieu's "The Spirit of the Laws." He analyzes different forms of government (democracy, aristocracy, monarchy, and despotism) and their animating principles. For democracy, it's virtue. For monarchy, it's honor. For despotism, it's fear. It's a much more thought-provoking look at how authority works in governance.

Montesquieu also described separation of powers in the same book [1]

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers#Montesqui...

Companies come and go. If I have grandchildren, chances are high that they won’t have a clue what Facebook or Twitter or Amazon was, besides the senile stories from grandpa about what computers were like during the Stone Age.

You can also rule by utility and dependence. People don't just love FAANG, they need FAANG because they provide indispensable tools which yield vast utility.

You can also use addiction as a strategy to create dependence, but this is a strategy: users will inevitably realize there's more harm than good being done. It also means you're at risk of become a fad. I actually think Facebook's pivot from user engagement maximizer to social fabric platform reflects some internal awareness of the vulnerabilities of an addiction-focused business strategy over the long term.

Besides Google’s search I can’t think of any FAANG service/product that would be indispensable for the average Joe, being the only service that has no real competition. For all the others, people would replace them relatively easy. Could you provide some examples?

People need Microsoft Windows to operate their businesses and do their jobs, Apple phones and Netflix subscriptions are much easier to replace.

I can’t think of any FAANG service/product that would be indispensable for the average Joe

Hence Facebook's goal to move into fundamental infrastructure with both this company town plan and internet.org

Same with Google Fiber etc...

The ultimate goal for a tech company is to provide what utilities and public infrastructure cannot.

I want to agree with you, but realistically I think a lot of people have come to view Amazon at least, as pretty indispensable. Between their retail offerings, and AWS, they’re into a lot!

Maybe I’m biased because I’m living in a country where Amazon has little to no presence and there are just other retailers to fill the gap, other delivery companies etc. so life goes on. I never heard anyone cry for Amazon to come to our rescue.

For average joes today:

- Facebook: Rolodex

- Apple: Simple, low-hassle, powerful tech

- Amazon: Supply chain, low prices, long-tail product discovery, stellar shopping experience supported by an tremendous economies of scale, compute, internet infrastructure

- Google: Search, email, maps, productivity software, compute, internet infrastructure

For as long as these companies remain dominant in these categories continue to provide value to customers, they will not be replaced. They continue to grow exponentially in major part because of the very real value they provide and the lack of viable competition from outside of these groups.

> addiction as a strategy

I neglected this vector whilst recalling my previous comment, and I acknowledge addiction as a viability towards ruling over others. Putting ethics, morals, and similar aside for sake of power -- addiction I feel is a "better" method of ruling than fear, given that fear is "better" than love. Why go after all the trouble of scaring people about "the enemy from the East/West/Whatever" back and forth forever when you can just jack them up happy on Jizzum 3.4? You don't, so develop Jizzuj3.4 as you scare people from East and West.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com