I also disagree with the parent poster but you absolutely do not either "believe in capitalism, or you don't".

The only pure capitalist societies are anarchist hellholes. Among nice societies, capitalism is implemented all sorts of different ways with the things capitalism does poorly[1] papered over in different ways.

[1] law enforcement, basic standard of living for all, various economic regulations to address market failures, e.g. I can't legally plug in a transmitter at 100MHz and 1000 watts and black out WNBC in my neighborhood, and can't sell capitalist let-the-market-decide food out of a roach den

I didn't intend my first statement to be absolutist, and I do not believe I need to resort to some extreme form of free market society, in order to have my vision of reality work.

gdulli was criticizing a corporation for providing goods and services that a relative minority of the wealthy can provide.

I assert that that criticism is only valid, if you have fundamental problems with capitalism itself. The way I stated that was, "you either believe in capitalism, or you don't." I am not aware of a better way to state that. It's a matter of faith / belief / an assumption. If you share in that view, you can correctly engage in one set of logical discussion. If you do not share in that view, you can only engage in another set of logical discussions. Watching someone criticize a corporation for providing luxury goods is ample evidence that they're having the wrong kind of discussion. Their first necessary step would be to convince me that we should abandon capitalism. Period. There's no other first move in that game.

Well, if we're being honest, this isn't particularly capitalist of Google. It's an idealist, good-intentions-and-ego-driven play. Yes, they want to capture some of the value that they eventually might create but they are not doing it primarily for money.

yeah right!

> You either believe in capitalism, or you don't.

I hope what you really meant was far, far better than what you made it to sound like.

I don't get it. Can you expand upon what you're worried I might have said, which you think is far, far worse?

It seems like you're saying, it's either Ayn Rand or Stalin, there's no middle ground.

I get ya.

From that perspective it's hard to describe exactly what I'm thinking...

If you lean towards "capitalism and free markets are good," then I really don't think you have a leg to stand on, in criticizing a corporation for offering luxury services.

If you lean towards, "Universal healthcare, and this is health care, so therefore the government should have a monopoly on it, except this should be way down low on the list of priorities," then it's a completely different conversation.

And what if I lean towards, "Universal healthcare, and this is health care, so therefore the government should have a monopoly on it, and this should be way up high on the list of priorities"?

Then you'd be right. ;)