Personally I think whether something is state controlled or not matters less and less the larger corporations get. At the end of the day it still comes down to a large power imbalance between these entities and average consumers and citizens.

> Personally I think whether something is state controlled or not matters less and less the larger corporations get.

Except in China where the CCP (the only party that can control the government) has seats on the governance boards of every large company or outright owns others. Companies only exist there with the approval of the CCP (the government). There's no court in China that can overrule the CCP's leadership so effectively the CCP is the final arbiter of what is legal or not.

The US government doesn't sit on the board of Apple or Google. If Apple sued the government over something they could actually win their case and the government would be bound by the court's decision and both parties could appeal that decision.

I'm not saying the system in the US or EU is perfect but it is a very far cry from the system in China. Large companies are literally state controlled no matter how big they are.

And as an average citizen, how does that change anything to me? Whether some government stooge or some corporate stooge tells me to go fuck myself, it makes not one bit of difference in the end. Both are far too powerful for me to fight and take on. Especially when government policy is mostly decided by corporate money these days anyways.

FAANGS took part in illegal surveillance programmes in the past and they are required to share data with the american government. It doesn't make any difference if they're state owned or not, their complicit.

FAANGs are more powerful than state-controlled in many cases. They can change politicians, change economics easily.

I think the CLOUD Acts essentially make them proxies of the state.

> FAANGs aren't state-controlled and Europeans do have access to the American market.

When it comes to war-related issues they might as well be controlled by the US Government, the "private entity" thing is just a cover. Yes, in essence, Putin was right a few years ago when he said something like "the Internet is a CIA project".