and the big 4 banks, and walmart, and a bunch of other industries. we're in a monopoly age.

Why don’t we target the 6 (or however many) companies that own 95% of everything in the media?

Unless they’re reined-in, progress will be elusive; their megaphone must be silenced!

And media companies...

Especially the media companies! They put artificial limits on the range of acceptable thoughts, acting as both a muzzle and a noose around the neck of the public.

Yes because there is absolutely no way for you to get your thoughts to people worldwide without depending on big media…

Parler

Strawman in any case, having a technical option doesn’t negate massive horrible effects on the public.

So it’s a straw man that anyone can’t just set up a blog or do podcast and publish their ideas?

It’s a strawman because GP wasn’t commenting on whether or not there is a technical way of reaching the public, but rather that media consolidation hurts the public. Those are orthogonal issues.

It’s not orthogonal, consolidation of media is only important if it keeps people’s messages from getting distributed broadly. Is that really a problem in 2023?

The “media” - ie ways to reach people is less consolidated now than any time in history.

I can invent a new protocol and app right now thats 100x easier to publish on and access. No one is using yet, is the harm of propaganda stories in corporate media lessened in any way by the fact of that tools availability? No

You don’t have to event an app. You can set up a web server in your own home to get your views across.

In fact, you don’t have to do that. You’re getting your views across right now.

Yes, that doesn’t mean the corporate media doesn’t have a huge amount of influence due to their consolidation. Technical ability to communicate is not the only factor in power of reach. I’m not sure how else to explain it.

And yet, without any media support, civil rights leaders were able to effect change in the 60s.

Maybe people these days are just lazy?

Maybe they're just propagandized to death and don't know what they don't know.

Right because in the good old days, people weren’t propagandized to think it was dangerous for Black and White people to drink from the same water fountain or go to the same school, that gay people should go to jail (“anti-sodomy laws”) and that it’s a sin against God to allow interracial marriages (laws against miscegenation).

Not to mention the whole era of McCarthyism

Oh but remember: "Bigger is better!" and "Economies of scale"/s

Capitalism is based on competition, but the rules of said competition are largely written by the winners of said competition - this isn't a perversion of capitalism, this is capitalism as it has always functioned in reality. Like, oil companies get significant political sway over our policy on climate change, which is why over the last 40 years, the biggest sources of emissions reduction were the 2008 GFC and the 2020 lockdowns.

The #1 reason why Comcast hasn't been ousted by local community fiber networks is because Comcast politically lobbied to make it illegal. This is normal. The solution is to cut the moneyed interests out of politics as harshly as possible, because otherwise we'll always require the permission of junk-food companies before we limit how much sodium is permitted in kid's food.

Lobbying needs to be rate-limited to match what individuals can say.

Level the playing field by making the largest possible political contribution equal to a multiple of the minimum wage which one could reasonably expect someone earning that to donate in a given year, then require that each contribution be made using a check or money order mailed with a hand-written note in a first-class envelope.

I object a lot less if the trustbusters don’t stop with tech and apply their hammer equally to other industries, agree with telcos/ISPs (I’m not sure how uncompetitive airlines are, they seem really low margin). I haven’t really seen evidence that Khan is interested in going after non-tech companies though. (Would love any pointers to the contrary.)