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Comment by nprz | Hacker News Reader

Do you think payment processors and ISPs should be able to deny service to customers for any arbitrary reason as well?

Isn't that part of what's critical to have a free market? Sure, there are market inefficiencies when you get to the level that trusts and monopolies exist, don't get me wrong.

Rather than patch the symptoms of the problem, attack the root cause: If companies are acting anticompetitively, stimulate competition in the marketplace. If companies are allowed to make arbitrary decisions (which they should in a free-enough market), seek alternatives, such as government enterprises.

If folks don't like payment processors denying payment or ISPs denying service, seek forming a government enterprise that _can't_ deny service to any citizen.

In a theoretical world, sure. In reality it is government actors that are twisting the arms' of tech companies to remove unapproved speech. So I'm not so sure a government controlled ISP/payment processor/video platform (something like China?) would really fix the situation.

> In reality it is government actors that are twisting the arms' of tech companies to remove unapproved speech.

Uhh... what? Trump and the Republicans are twisting the arms of tech companies to remove speech favoring... themselves?

USA is a union of states. Governors have quite a bit of power as well and plenty of governors endorsed this move by YouTube.

As long as it isn't due to a protected class reason, I don't immediately see the problem. If you break your ISPs TOS, or you commit fraud, it makes sense that those private companies would not want you as a customer.

If this is your argument then you should be against laws that prevent discrimination against a protected class. If the markets are efficient enough to account for free speech issues, i.e. someone can just start another facebook/youtube, the markets should be efficient enough to correct themselves for companies that decide to discriminate against protected classes, i.e. someone can just start another facebook/youtube.

My ISP TOS, to my knowledge, do not contain language about preventing me from retrieving otherwise legal to obtain content, do yours?

That's not a reasonable analogy. a) Youtube's decision (wise or not) is not arbitrary. b) Neither video creators nor viewers are "customers" of Youtube.

The fact that we see ads says otherwise...

The fact that we see ads says we're the product.

Well... they are.

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