All right folks, let's talk about zero rating, provisioning, network management, #NetNeutrality and the convenient myth of the "bandwidth hog"
To understand anything, you must first understand that there is no such thing as a private company that builds telcoms infrastructure with its own money. Every telcoms company is the recipient of massive public subsidies.
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Corporate crime is underpoliced and underprosecuted. We just choose not to do anything about it. US corporations commit crimes at 20X the rate of humans, and their crimes are far worse than any human crime, but they are almost never prosecuted:
We can't even bear to utter the *words* "corporate crime": instead, we deploy a whole raft of euphemisms like "risk and compliance," and that ole fave, the trusty "white-collar crime":
Using Amazon, or Twitter, or Facebook, or Google, or Doordash, or Uber doesn't make you lazy. Platform capitalism isn't enshittifying because you made the wrong shopping choices.
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Remember, the reason these corporations were able to capture such substantial market-share is that the capital markets saw them as a bet that they could lose money for years, drive out competition, capture their markets.
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Here's a silver lining to global monopolies: we're all fighting the same enemy, who uses the same tactics everywhere. The same tools that allow firms to extend their tendrils to every corner of the Earth allows regulators and labor organizers to coordinate their resistance.
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That's a lesson Mercedes is learning. In 2023, Germany's Supply Chain Act went into effect, banning large German corporations from using child labor, violating health and safety standards, and (critically) interfering with union organizers:
Audre Lorde counsels us that "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House," while MLK said "the law cannot make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me."
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I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel *The Bezzle*! Catch me NEXT THURSDAY (Apr 11) in BOSTON with Randall "@XKCD" Munroe (Apr 11), then PROVIDENCE, RI (Apr 12) and beyond!