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Comment by graenxa | Hacker News Reader

Who needs public services when you can have private for-profit start-ups?

I'm sure the new startups will always prioritize serving the citizens over making money. After all, that's what private for-profit organizations have a long track record of doing.

In seriousness: I'm sure the listed start ups do good work. There are ways tech can help government and people.

Government 2.0 is awful branding. The idea that you can "upgrade" our government with a handful of private companies is downright anti-democratic. How about instead of trying to replace the existing government with private organizations answerable to a few very rich individuals, you work with existing democratic structures and try to improve them.

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I'm in agreement. The problems of government are best solved by pairing civil servants, the ones who know how to run the country, with enthusiastic, well-funded teams.

The end goal should be open, accessible projects built with open accessible tools.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/

And here in the states we have the USDS and 18F doing great work. The just need more funding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F

Do you have any knowledge about how Code for America is doing? My understanding is that they're more on the citizen engagement side of things and have built a few cool solutions. Maybe we need more orgs like that (or need to contribute more resources to them)?

Code for America continues to grow and release their apps in new areas of the country. They've got their annual summit in Oakland next week (29th) and they'll be looking to get more director level folks involved because of the current growth.

Yes, I think this is a strong example of: when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

YC cultivates some amazing hammers, but I'm not sure the inefficiencies of government are nails, but rather massive systemic issues stemming from cultural beliefs about what fairness, accountability, and democracy should look like. Is it wasteful to create tons of red tape to prevent fraud, for example? Yes, probably. Is a more efficient system which creates opportunities for corruption a valid trade-off? That's where the real debate lies and there are no easy answers.

I would upvote you 10 times if I could. The premise that private corporations will solve every problem by giving citizens what they want/need is a MYTH. Markets and democracy go hand in hand. Markets need democracy (ie a government) to ensure basic stuff like protection of private property, management of public resources, etc.

There are plenty of private companies that are positive or, in many cases, even necessary for governments and democracy to function. The media is one example, and so are internet providers. As this request is written, really any contractor that does something better than the SQ would qualify.

And, of course, YC even funds non-profit startups. Recognised tax-exempt organisations almost by definition work on goals which are also in the government's purview.

As it is, it appears your comment simply takes umbrage with the title? There is even a footnote explaining that the goal here is not to replace government but to improve it. That footnote may have actually been added as a response to your comment, because your's would seem to be a rather odd reading of this request.

> The media is one example

Read (at least an outline of) manufacturing consent. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky pointed out 40 years ago that the media is complicit in propaganda dissemination for the government without any active coercion taking place.

> so are internet providers

This is directly at odds with reality, when internet providers are allowed to run rampant we get anti-consumer behavior that requires things like net neutrality to fix. The fact that state mandated monopolies make problems like this worse is not an argument against the state, but against unregulated/poorly regulated monopolies. Telecom at some level does require actual lines to be run; it's a natural monopoly so we don't have a comcast line, an at&t line, a spectrum line, etc all right next to each other. The alternative is forcing them to work together, which we also could do much better on.

Neither of these companies are necessarily fundamentally evil, but without oversight and accountability can, will, and have done bad things. That's the crux of it all, you can't rely on private companies to self-regulate, they're ultimately only beholden to their shareholders.

I totally agree. My first thought was of the world of Snow Crash where there are districts owned by businesses and individuals that set their own systems of law and order. It was not a pleasant future.

There's definitely some room for nuance though.

Government's actions are constrained by a massive aversion to risk. I think in some areas there's definitely opportunity for private companies to provide services cheaper/better than they currently are while still having room for profit.

Also, contracting out to private entities gives people someone to sue (without leaving the taxpayers on the hook) and the government someone to fire (or not renew their contract) when things get F'd up. Compare the options available to the public if the police misbehave vs if private security guards hired by the city/town misbehave.

Government should contract out the things private industry does better and cheaper and in-house things that private industry cannot do. For example, government should give money to organizations that run homeless shelters, not run the shelter itself. If there are local options for getting rid of scrap metal then the government should not be taking appliances as part of city trash pickup.

There's definitely things that government should be doing (like social safety nets) but not everything government does is stuff government should be spending its time and money doing. For the things that government does not do it should act as a check to make sure nothing gets too out of hand, like an operating system managing resources and the software using them.

I agree with you that there is room for nuance. I do not think the government should be all consuming.

Most of the topics listed in the blog post fall under social safety net.

"...a lack of government commitment to provide equal access to the basic services families need to thrive. These services include access to quality education, affordable housing/healthcare/food, physical safety, accurate news and information, a social safety net, and a livable environment.

We believe that a new generation of technology startups are emerging who will start to address these needs"

They explicitly state they are looking for startups to address social safety net needs. That is what I am criticizing.

Lambda School is in the quality education space. I think lots of viable private companies could be in the more affordable housing, accurate news, or livable environment spaces.

Government 2.0 is not about "upgrading" or "replacing" the government with private companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-government#Government_2.0

Agreed. Companies should do their best within a framework that’s defined by the population through politics. They shouldn’t create that framework.

It's a great fallacy that the government prioritizes serving citizens over "making money". Government always prioritizes making money. Look at the entire democrat political spectrum concocting different ways to increase taxes, and the republican spectrum to increase spending.

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