[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Do we need a Google Customers Union? Could i...
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Ask HN: Do we need a Google Customers Union? Could it work?
I recently saw that some Google employees are attempting to
unionize and someone mentioned that Google's customers wish they
could unionize. That lead me to wonder: Could Google's customers
form some sort of union and attempt to hold discussions with
Google? On the one hand I think it would in Google's interests to
do everything to prevent having another party to have to negotiate
with. On the other hand, if there was a union of customers and they
occasionally demanded something everyone thinks is reasonable in
the press, that may start something. Especially if Google caves on
some of these issues. What do you think?
Author : CaptainJustin
Score : 308 points
Date : 2021-01-13 11:27 UTC (11 hours ago)
| nt2h9uh238h wrote:
| Your company is user hostile you users are thinking about
| creating a union - because nobody else is caring about their
| interest. Caring about users should be any firms #1 priority,
| lol.
| covermydonkey wrote:
| Wouldn't Google censor the effort in it's news feed and search
| results?
| CaptainJustin wrote:
| I guess but maybe that makes the news and it gains more
| traction?
|
| Also, is there any evidence that Google censors search results?
| dazc wrote:
| You could go back in time 4 years and see what results you
| get for some certain search terms?
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I don't know about technical censorship, but they certainly
| massage the algorithm to get the results they want. Google
| 'American Inventors' or 'how to commit suicide' for a quick
| demo.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The American inventors thing could easily be a result of
| the population of websites that Google is sampling from.
| Culturally, "African-American Inventors" is a much more
| common topic than "America is so great, look at all of the
| inventors that live here." So if you randomly and fairly
| sample from every web page, you are likely to end up with
| exactly what you end up with.
|
| (Disclaimer: I have not actually checked to see what the
| baseline distribution of websites is, I'm just guessing.)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| It would be interesting to see a union of youtube channels. They
| seem to be subject to terrible customer services, arbitrary
| deletion and minimal consultation on changes.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Germany's IG Metall was trying to organize that at some point I
| beleive. I guess it never panned out. [1][2]
|
| 1. https://www.engadget.com/2019-07-29-youtube-union-ig-
| metall....
|
| 2. https://fairtube.info/en/
| DarkWiiPlayer wrote:
| Reminds me of the youtuber union that, as far as I know, went
| nowhere because most content creators apparently prefer to just
| bitch about how bad it is instead of trying to change anything.
|
| I suspect the same would be the case with a users union: nobody
| would join because why would they. Complaining and getting
| outraged about google being evil is fun, but changing it requires
| effort.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| If one is to go this road, one may consider the model of the
| boycott organizations structured by the NAACP---how they designed
| them, how they enforced them.
|
| Practically, the hard power any such organization is going to
| have would start with their spending dollars (and possibly their
| signal... A lot of Google's "special sauce" is big data from big
| usage, and if usage goes down, software quality suffers). Google
| would (and does) listen to a significant percentage of their
| dollars-base saying "Change this or I'm taking my ads to Facebook
| and my infrastructure to AWS." They may perhaps listen to a
| significant percentage of their user-behavior-base saying "Change
| this or I'm using Bing," though it'd have to be a _hell_ of a
| large organization to make a dent.
| knuckleheads wrote:
| Jumping in here to invite you to check out the Knuckleheads' Club
| (https://knuckleheads.club/).
|
| It's a group I founded that is focused on researching and
| regulating Google's search monopoly. Google has abused its power
| and many, many users of Google know it. There wasn't really a
| place or group that can give voice to that anger though so I
| created the club. As others have pointed out, we aren't Google's
| customers, we are just users of their software, the advertisers
| are their customers. I don't think we have enough power as just
| users to be able to get to a point where we can negotiate with
| Google directly and issue demands and extract concessions. The
| power that we do have, as workers within the tech industry who
| understand what Google is doing, is talking with regulators and
| showing them how and why they should regulate Google. I've found
| regulators to be extremely receptive and grateful for the
| research I have provided them (i.e.
| https://knuckleheads.club/2020/10/07/we-crawled-our-way-into...).
| Many of these regulators have the same general complaints we do
| and want to dethrone Google from being king of the internet. I
| support the Alphabet Workers Union and am super happy to see it
| exist and I am working hard to establish the club as a way for
| people working outside Google to make changes to how Google
| behaves.
| supernihil wrote:
| about the common ache of ze internet i've used common-crawl
| with great success
|
| https://commoncrawl.org/
| epc wrote:
| In 1955 IBM mainframe users formed SHARE which grew to be one of
| two mainframe user groups (the other being Guide, defunct since
| 1999). SHARE runs conferences, provides software builds (or did)
| and serves as a way for MVS ("Z/OS" this week) and VM users to
| pool together requests and requirements with IBM.
|
| Kind of surprised similar groups haven't appeared for AWS,
| Google, and Azure customers*.
|
| * edit: I mean customers, people paying hard cash. Users relying
| on free services need to figure out some form of leverage and
| band together behind that.
| williesleg wrote:
| Fake news.
| splaytreemap wrote:
| Entirely depends on what the goals of the union are. If you want
| to improve your position in search rankings, a union is not going
| to help you. If you're a youtube creator who wants a larger cut
| of advertising revenue, a youtube creators union may make sense.
|
| I find it unlikely that there's any issue that cuts across all of
| Google's customers (advertisers, publishers, cloud users, gsuite
| users, etc), so a Google Customers Union probably does not make
| sense.
| jtdev wrote:
| Would be difficult in the U.S. it seems... we've allowed
| corporations to convince an increasingly impoverished population
| that holding corporations to account is "un-American".
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Absolutely not. These are anti-competitive abuses, and the only
| self-executing, guaranteed remedy is to break them up and let
| something else take its place. Consumer unions are a form of
| corporate moat-building that became popular in the 70s and was
| never as effective as proponents wanted it to be.
| farco12 wrote:
| I don't know about specific groups currently implementing the
| idea, but what you're talking about sounds like the concept of
| 'data labor unions' that's been proposed by economist Glen
| Weyl.[1][2]
|
| [1]http://radicalmarkets.com/chapters/data-as-labor/
| [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKEL7I03vrg
| ashneo76 wrote:
| This would be amazing. I have wanted this for years.
|
| * You are renting an apartment from a huge company. The company
| changes a policy. There is no way for you to unionize with your
| neighbors to fight that.
|
| Ditto for trying to fight any big corp like Comcast, ATT, etc.
|
| Our powers are diluted whereas the big forms have warchests that
| a single individual can never match.
|
| A govt was supposed to do this but it is not working.
|
| Doesn't mean that we wait for the govt. The time is now and we
| must act otherwise these but companies will keep running and
| ruining the planet.
| stephenr wrote:
| I think you need to stop drinking the google kool-aid.
|
| A customers union? Are you fucking kidding me? How much anti-
| consumer shit does a company have to do before you'll realise
| they're not in business to serve your needs, they're in business
| to serve you ads.
| mbostleman wrote:
| I can't help but feel that there's a need to substantially
| broaden the idea of monopoly and anti-trust along with
| enforcements and incentives against it. It seems as if the need
| for employees or customers to combine power (earning or buying
| respectively) is inversely proportional to other available
| producers (eg. competition).
| hammock wrote:
| A lot of people here unsure whether OP is talking about users
| (consumers) or customers (advertisers). Given that he used the
| word "customers" it is pretty clear to me...but there is a lot of
| shitposting in here.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I don't think OP made the distinction themselves when making
| the thread. Google has an antitrust case against them that
| helps their customers. We need something else like regulation
| as users.
| kace91 wrote:
| The point of unions is that workers are the ones keeping a
| company afloat. If they act in sync and decide to stop working
| the company is screwed.
|
| google can very well ignore a union of consumers. The most they
| can do is stop using the services in sync, and arguably the fact
| that they're trying to organise a consumer union rather than take
| their business elsewhere is a red flag that they'll find it
| difficult to do so.
|
| To put it another way, assuming that the sum of all workers is as
| important as the sum of all consumers, there are ~150k google
| employees and ~4.5 billion consumers. since these numbers are
| several orders of magnitude apart, to have a real effect you'd
| need about 10k members of a consumer union to have the equivalent
| force of a worker union with a single member.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| A union telling me to suddenly move off Google Cloud because
| they've told Google they're doing it is unlikely to be high on
| a list of business priorities.
| kace91 wrote:
| That as well!
|
| It's relatively straightforward for a worker to stop doing
| their job for a couple of days/weeks and then resume
| activity. It is not straightforward at all for a private
| consumer to stop depending on google for a couple of days,
| and pretty much impossible for a business.
| pjmorris wrote:
| I was pondering a less organized approach: What if we could
| persuade 'everybody' to take an #InternetDayOff every once in a
| while? If enough people thought it was a good idea and could step
| away, a full 24 hours without traffic to some of the big popular
| services might give them pause.
| PhaedrusV wrote:
| How about an internet year off...
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| Will never work.
|
| You can get stuff like this to work if it's pathetic and
| emotional enough (9/11 minute of silence, clap for essential
| workers from your balcony) and if it's low-cost (shutting up
| for a minute) or no cost (holiday). And that still is highly
| regional. Even "The West" are not that many people.
|
| Sadly, your proposal checks none of the mark. Don't get me
| wrong, I don't think it would be bad or anything, but you know,
| people are people.
| dazc wrote:
| You can vote with your feet and use alternative services. Of
| course, we have gone so far that most people will continue to use
| Google but it does, at least, help send a message.
| dgellow wrote:
| Does that actually matter? Since a while now I minimize my use
| of Google services when I can, but I still have to be part of
| their ecosystem because I interact with others. For example
| Google still has access to almost all my emails, and is very
| likely to harvest the data, even if I'm paying for a dedicated
| service to avoid using Gmail.
| dazc wrote:
| Good point. I guess another way of making a point is by
| having these very discussions in an open forum?
| guerrilla wrote:
| That would be the point of a consumer union, to vote with feet
| en masse.
| amelius wrote:
| I can certainly see YouTubers starting a union.
|
| I can see Apple developers starting a union too.
|
| Basically anything that's a platform where people make money
| could rightfully have a union.
| frenchy wrote:
| Those are really more like employees than customers. The chief
| difference here is that a customer can easily take their
| business elsewhere, and has no use for a union, but an employee
| can not.
| Multicomp wrote:
| I don't need a union if i can pay $250 to have a human pick up to
| help me with my problem(1). but since we don't do that i guess a
| customers union hasn't been tried afaik. why not? i mean voting
| with our wallet is kiiinda like collective bargaining but idk how
| effective that is with googles reach.
|
| (1) my first gmail address, opened when i was 10, forwards
| messages to my current gmail, but both recovery emails are for a
| domain my dad no longer owns and the last passwords i remember
| are no longer valid. i answer enough security questions to make
| them say 'let us look at it' but my hopes are not high...
| jcuenod wrote:
| I have the same problem and I have an adsense account attached
| to one of those addresses. I have no idea how much is in there
| but it grates me that I have no way to recover the password
| even though I literally read every email that comes into that
| address. And maybe worse than that, Google will pocket whatever
| money I made because I can't access the account any more. Gah!
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| So many questions. Would this be a union for all search engines,
| or just Google's?
|
| Why is it needed?
|
| What enforcement would there be, if the search engine were not
| performing to the union's expectations and needs?
|
| Good old fashioned competition has usually been the way people
| deal with a service or product they didn't find satisfactory. Try
| DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, Baidu. Vote with your feet.
|
| I still think Google is the best general search engine out there,
| but DDG is my daily driver because it's good enough and provides
| a bit more privacy (or so I imagine).
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Assuming you could make it work, then of course, yes it would be
| effective. Voting with your wallet works, we know this, so
| orchestrating it formally would work even better. If you had a
| group that could tell Google they control 20% of their income,
| for example, then Google would _definitely_ seek to keep that
| group happy.
|
| But as others have pointed out, you really just created a
| government or a consumer group, and the creation and maintenance
| of that group is a non-trivial challenge by itself.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Google's customers _
|
| For the search engine (e.g. not GSuite), Google's customers are
| actually the _advertisers_ and not the users. This is not meant
| to be a cynical take but just stating financial reality. The
| advertisers are the ones paying billions into Google 's revenue
| to maintain the expensive data centers and host petabytes of disk
| space for Youtube videos. Because money flows from advertisers to
| Google, the advertisers are the ones that caused Adpocalypse[1].
|
| The websurfers querying the search engine are _users or
| consumers_ and not the paying customers. Not sure how a users '
| union would have much leverage since they _don 't pay_. If
| they're unhappy, they can use another search engine (e.g. Bing)
| or influence indirectly (e.g. boycott advertisers which causes
| Adpocalypse.)
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+advertisers+adpocaly...
| matsemann wrote:
| I think most GSuite customers would love a customer union to
| twist Google's arm when they screw something up and refuse to
| answer support tickets..
| indigochill wrote:
| > Not sure how a users' union would have much leverage since
| they don't pay.
|
| Well, advertisers require traffic. If traffic adjacent to
| Google ads dried up, so would the value proposition of Google's
| products to its advertising customers. In this way, users
| collectively could exercise leverage on Google and its
| advertising clients by boycotting sites/services that serve
| Google ads (though good luck organizing that).
| notahacker wrote:
| I think the 'good luck organising that' is the key bit.
|
| The number of people who care enough about privacy to
| consider joining a union dedicated to protesting Google Ads
| but not enough to already use ad blockers isn't going to
| meaningfully affect traffic.
| j_shi wrote:
| Bingo and similar deal with Facebook. The best way to get
| leverage and power with FBGOOG is for advertisers to cooperate
| instead of compete. We are trying to do this with ecomm
| advertisers right now (by getting advertisers to coordinate
| instead of bid against each other) but goes beyond any
| particular ad vertical
| cj wrote:
| > The advertisers are the ones paying billions into Google's
| revenue
|
| I control a decent chunk budget on Google Ads (although
| probably not comparable to Fortune 500 spend) and would happily
| sign up for a customer union, along with a "users union" if one
| were to create one :)
| dalacv wrote:
| The answer to many of our modern problems with technology,
| society, health: just unplug.
| iandanforth wrote:
| This is a good idea. Large, and small, groups of individuals do
| influence massive organizations like Google. Lobbyists do it on
| behalf of groups, taking advantage of their personal connections
| to get access to decision makers. Public action orgs like
| Sleeping Giants use collective shaming to influence decision
| makers. Activists of all stripes use protest and direct action to
| create change.
|
| You don't have to rely on existing assumptions about unions, or
| customers vs user, or many other concerns I see raised in other
| replies. The fundamental thing you're trying to do is influence
| decision makers and a large group of people is certainly one way
| to do that.
|
| The effectiveness of such a group will come down to factors such
| as how well you manage message, what access you can get, and what
| degree (and from how many angles) you can apply pressure and
| persuasion.
|
| If nothing else starting a place where Google users can collect,
| vote on, and discuss their top priorities could form the basis of
| discovering how large a group you can attract, where the passion
| exists, and what resources you can muster toward the effort.
| dgellow wrote:
| How would that be different from customer advocacy groups that
| already exist? Is the concept of a customer union similar, or is
| it something else?
|
| First time I read the term, and online searching doesn't give me
| relevant results.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| When I read your second line, for a second I thought you
| weren't finding anything relevant about customer advocacy
| groups and thought 'oh no... it's starting'.
| [deleted]
| jasonv wrote:
| I've wanted (and have been mulling) a boycott platform, but with
| built-in contracts and degrees.
|
| For instance: I commit to not buying Starbucks for 90 days in
| order to support a mandate that they reduce their plastic usage
| 20%.
|
| Or, I will not pay for UFC PPVs for 6 months to protest Dana
| White's support of Donald Trump.
|
| It'd be nice to quantify resistance to corporate endeavors on a
| populist level. Of course, given current social circumstances, it
| would be hard to keep it civil.
| sudosteph wrote:
| I'm down - I 'd rather see a broader -"Personal Data Provider
| Union" though. Since our personal data is supposedly worth money,
| it seems reasonable to least attempt collective bargaining as way
| to negotiate some protections around it. I actually proposed this
| "Data Union" concept a while back on the Andrew Yang subreddit,
| since data ownership is a part of his platform. But unions aren't
| super hot in general right now. I still like them though, and am
| an IWW member exactly because I think they still have potential.
| villgax wrote:
| Isn't HN that platform?
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| Is hacker news an organization whose purpose is to collectively
| organize/create leverage in order to enact customer-positive
| changes in google's policies? Obviously not.
|
| It _may_ be a side effect of the discussions that occur here
| occasionally.
| johncena33 wrote:
| > It _may_ be a side effect of the discussions that occur
| here occasionally.
|
| Occasionally? HN is obssessed with Google. Everyday there is
| at least one hit piece on HN front page. Out of all the
| problems in this world and the tech industry, in HN logic
| Google is the utmost priority.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Such "union" would legitimize what Google has been doing.
|
| That's what governments are for, Google must change the way they
| do "business" (unlikely) AND still be broken up. The exact same
| for other tech behemoths.
|
| That's not gonna happen however, they already own everything
| including government and public opinion.
| paultopia wrote:
| The real issue with customer's unions is: how do you get people
| to make binding commitments to take collective action? Suppose
| everyone agrees "unless google does X, we'll all switch to
| AWS/start searching on DDG," how do you monitor and enforce that?
| (And I have no clue how antitrust law would see the problem.)
|
| Shameless self-promotion: I've speculated in the past that
| software can help here, eg, by hooking into corporate account
| APIs to trigger automatic mass cancellation of orders. That's one
| of the examples of potential "transformative legal technology" in
| this (sadly paywalled, sorry) academic article:
| https://utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/utlj.2017-0047
| mproud wrote:
| Aren't there consumer advocacy groups, like the EFF or the ACLU?
| There are also legal avenues likes class-action lawsuits people
| will invoke to protect themselves and others harmed.
|
| Still, it's private enterprise. If public exposure doesn't work
| on certain issues, I think some kind of regulation is ultimately
| required.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| It's called a "consumer group" or "consumer organization". These
| already exist. [1] In the EU these groups already take action on
| behalf of consumers. [2]
|
| That doesn't mean they don't exist in the US. They do. For
| instance Consumer Watchdog. [3] This group does critically look
| at business practices and models of big tech. [4]
|
| Another example would be the Consumer Federation of America. [5]
| This organization is an umbrella that federates plenty of local
| and regional consumer groups. [6] The CFA also does a ton of
| lobbying with the FCC and other departments. [7]
|
| Those are the more "generic" consumer groups. Looking at specific
| "consumer groups" that lobby on behalf of technology consumers,
| the most visible organization would be the Electronic Frontier
| Foundation. [8]
|
| If you want "discussions with Google" in the most broad terms.
| That's what Congress and the EU Commission have been doing with
| their string of hearings last year. Both public bodies are still
| build on the idea that they represent millions of people through
| the vote. If consumers want to engage in a discussion with a
| multi-billion dollar industry on equal footing, public hearings
| and investigations would be how that goes down.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_organization#United_S...
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-
| privacy/europea... [3] https://consumerwatchdog.org [4]
| https://consumerwatchdog.org/privacy-technology [5]
| https://consumerfed.org/ [6]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Federation_of_America [7]
| https://consumerfed.org/issues/communications/ [8]
| https://www.eff.org/
| kludgeon wrote:
| i think OP is imagining something closer to monopsyny
| smeej wrote:
| Even if it were theoretically possible or legally possible, it
| would remain practically impossible. You'd never even be able to
| get enough awareness of it for people to know about it, much less
| convince people to care.
|
| You'll never get anything vaguely resembling a large enough
| percentage of Google's customers to matter to care about the
| issues at all.
|
| I know that sounds dismissive, but if you step outside the
| "people who know and care about tech and privacy" bubble for a
| minute, it's plain as day. The overwhelming majority of people
| just don't care.
|
| If anything, they _like_ seeing more pertinent ads. They _like_
| that the Google Assistant tells them when there 's traffic on
| their route and they need to leave early. They like the results,
| and they don't even realize there _is_ a cost, much less one that
| should matter to them.
| jmkd wrote:
| This is not only dismissive, but pessimistic and derogatory.
| Consumer confidence in big tech is way below its peak and
| continues to fall. The idea is both practically possible and
| perfectly legal (where you got the idea that a consumer group
| would be illegal I daren't imagine), but as others state on
| this page you would benefit from an actual customer group
| (advertisers) in addition to a consumer group (users). It would
| be great PR for Google to have open channels like this.
| obviouslynotme wrote:
| It would be difficult to form. Not every customer is even close
| to equal. The customers who buy the most from Google already have
| massive leverage. If anything, participating in a union would
| dilute their demands amongst the mob. The union has no forces
| keeping it together.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| I personally see no benefit from a scenario like this and my gut
| reaction is to think "how would this end up costing me more
| money?" and I don't have a whole lot of money to spread around as
| is.
| _1tan wrote:
| This concept might be of interest or inspiring:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_purchasing_organization
|
| I am - or rather my business is a paying Google customer and I
| would welcome this.
| fab1an wrote:
| Back in the Web 2.0 days, I started a "users' union" at the then
| largest German social network StudiVZ. It was only half-joking,
| and to my surprise quickly attracted the attention of the
| network's founders, who reacted in the best possible way, trying
| to utilise it as a feedback channel for the product.
|
| Ultimately, this fizzled out (just like StudiVZ after its
| acquisition and subsequent demise vs Facebook), but I still
| believe there is merit to the idea.
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| This is typically called a "Government". In the US we used to
| have this at the town, state and federal level. And these
| "governments" wouldn't just work with one company, but a many
| companies.
|
| The way they worked is people would vote for representatives that
| help make decisions that were in the interests of people, and
| this would reign in the power of extremely large and powerful
| companies.
|
| In some parts of Europe they still have these.
|
| Unfortunately in the US companies were foolishly permitted to
| both purchase the voting power of representatives and directly
| influence the will of the people to render the government
| virtually useless (though still a useful distraction for the
| people)
| pvorb wrote:
| In the EU, a company can choose from a pool of many governments
| and picks the one that suits it the best and then gets access
| to every other country. And there are not that many other
| countries, which have a government which fit yoir definition.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| You are free to simply NOT USE GOOGLE. It's not that hard.
| Literally, I abandoned all my Google services in about a week
| with no interruption to my needs.
|
| Imposing your authoritarian will on people in a competitive
| marketplace is authoritarian socialism. It would be one thing
| if Google offered something akin to a monopoly. But they don't.
| Full stop. Everything they do as a service is done by someone
| else (and better in most cases).
| orblivion wrote:
| FWIW the idea of a Consumer's Union already exists (at least in
| name): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Reports
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Companies also pay lobbyists to influence the government
| itself.
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| I had the exact same thought when reading the title and only
| came here to see if there would be clarification in the post
| body. No, it's just...a government.
|
| This has to be peak tech-bro thinking. Also, it is obviously
| not the solution. What would prevent this, ahem, union from
| developing the same cancer US (and by extension) Western
| governments have right now?
|
| The problem is at a societal level, which makes it so
| uncomfortable. If you discuss this, you are also discussing
| astronomical SF salaries, Move Fast And Break Things, Software
| Is Eating The World and all that stuff the HN community is very
| proud of.
|
| So let's dicuss a not government-government instead! Also see
| the AM/FM dilemma (Actual Machines / Fucking Magic)...
| solidsnack9000 wrote:
| That is a misunderstanding. No, a government is not an advocate
| for every private interest shared by sufficiently many people.
| In fact, the tendency to treat it that way is exactly what is
| causing so many problems in the USA.
|
| Civil society organizations are what historically made
| democracy stable in both the USA and in Britain (Francis
| Fukuyama explores this point in some detail). They
| counterbalance both the government and commercial
| organizations. We really should be thinking more about how to
| organize to make common cause without it turning into a
| question of who controls the government at a particular time.
| To a substantial degree, the stable and useful function of
| government in a market democracy is providing a fair way for
| different groups to sort out their differences -- in this case,
| Google and consumers -- and that can't work when the government
| is seen to belong to one of those groups.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| In Italy, one of the biggest[0] (if not the biggest)
| supermarket chain is a consumers' co-operative[1]. They are
| just filling gaps and often preceding legislation regarding
| ethical consumption, I think it's a pretty good concept after
| all.
|
| -[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coop_(Italy)
|
| -[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_co-operative
| thotsBgone wrote:
| But is there anything stopping people from forming a second
| government on top of the first one?
| minikites wrote:
| The parent post is a really stunning example of why more STEM
| majors need required humanities classes. Without knowledge of
| history, you get Elon Musk inventing a worse subway system from
| first principles and nerds holding him up as the next Steve
| Jobs because they don't know any better either.
| fakedang wrote:
| And even grant themselves equal rights as citizens and
| influence government.
| akarma wrote:
| Highly recommend The Corporation by Joel Bakan.
|
| It digs into how corporations are essentially psychopaths --
| they put profit first, and if they appear to be good or
| generous, it's only because the money it takes to cultivate
| that image is going to be a net benefit to them.
| arcbyte wrote:
| Nope. Organizations come in many kinds, including
| corporations. They're all just ways of organizing people, who
| have rights that they can choose to come together to
| exercise. That's it.
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| That is wrong actually. Organizations are even somewhat
| defined by having goals or agendas independent of the
| _entire_ body of people making it up.
|
| That is not neccessarily bad (It would suck if the tax
| office would entirely redefine itself every couple year)
| but it is something to be aware of.
| hashkb wrote:
| Are you saying that the political will of a corporation is
| no more or less than the sum of the political wills of the
| people in the corporation?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| In theory, yes. In practice though, it's the shareholders
| that call the shots, and the employees are threatened
| with getting fired if they try and organize and start
| making demands.
|
| But that's where governments can come in, and implement
| things like basic worker rights.
| scatters wrote:
| In theory, that's how it works in practice. In practice,
| though, the shareholders have a lot less power than that:
| they only get to vote at the AGM, and that's very much a
| managed democracy - the managers being the C-suite, and
| the majority of shares held by institutional investors
| who will vote whatever way is recommended by the
| officers.
| Bakary wrote:
| I don't think it's even true in theory since corporations
| live in a larger context of the country or countries they
| are in.
|
| As for countries themselves, we could argue that they
| also live in a context of all the other countries, but I
| would say that for the reasonably large ones it is the
| case their political will is roughly equivalent to the
| collective sum.
| inscionent wrote:
| Technically the political will of a corporation is no
| more or less than the sum of its bank account.
|
| To this point maybe no more or less than the sum of its
| Named Officers' political wills.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Nope, corporations are what is called a "legal person",
| which is, well, a "person" of sorts. That is, it is its own
| entity with its own will and liability for its actions.
|
| This legal person is effectively controlled by a very small
| group of people, but it outlives them as these titles are
| replaced (new CEO, changing board). Everyone else
| contribute to its function, but not its interests. They are
| recruited to work for the entity through an uneven
| symbiotic relationship, where the entity covers the simple
| short-term needs of individuals.
|
| It then uses it the power amassed to benefit itself, and
| those in control. Either by simply being large, or by
| trading the immense resources it can produce.
|
| To the entity, the individual is no more important than a
| random cell in your body (left small toe fibroblast
| anyone?). And just like in your body, only a small number
| of cells get to drive the machine.
|
| This is very different from a grouping of individuals,
| where individuals are merely cooperating towards a
| democratically elected goal.
| naim08 wrote:
| Thats right, corporations have legal person status &
| protection (kinda odd) like any other American citizen,
| but you can argue they have more rights than the average
| american citizen.
|
| Anyway, corporations, for-profit that is, are driven by
| one tenet & one tenet alone, which is their bottom-line.
| And they only answer to their ruling shareholders.
| Customers, employees, their own product, the USA govt,
| etc are all secondary.
| kingludite wrote:
| > This is typically called a "Government". In the US we used to
| have this at the town, state and federal level. And these
| "governments" wouldn't just work with one company, but a many
| companies.
|
| Sounds like a good idea!
|
| > The way they worked is people would vote for representatives
| that help make decisions that were in the interests of people,
| and this would reign in the power of extremely large and
| powerful companies.
|
| Ah yes, people were so sophisticated before the internet. I
| find it hard to remember how things even worked.
|
| The representation was a fantastic solution for the
| communication over distance problem.
|
| Today it would be rather silly to propose representation. I
| don't need anyone to represent me. Strength in numbers is
| enough.
|
| While big [worker] unions are powerful they do tend to get
| distracted by large issues. Smaller tailored unions spend all
| of their time on their much smaller scope.
|
| It is also very helpful for Google to see which issues users
| would like to see addressed. They probably have them documented
| internally already but cant find a way to prioritize them.
| There could be constructive dialog rather than a moaning
| contest that addresses only the company most moaned about.
|
| As with employee unions, being a member makes the employer act
| entirely different.
| [deleted]
| kiliantics wrote:
| I think representation is not only intended to solve the
| distance problem, but is also a form of efficiency, so that
| you don't have to weigh in on every little detail of
| society's organisation and therefore have time to get on with
| your own business.
|
| That said, we throw away a lot for this "efficiency" and end
| up with corrupt political parties and lobbies that act
| completely against our interests. Maybe we can't have a true
| democracy unless everyone is putting a lot of time into
| participating in decision-making, rather than just hitting
| the ballot box once every couple years. I actually think this
| idea of doing things the "hard way" usually getting better
| results applies in almost everything, personally.
|
| There are lots of alternative models out there to the one
| that is glorified in the US, invented by the Founding Father
| deities some centuries ago. There has been more than a little
| innovation since. Worker co-ops -- which have existed for
| almost as long as the US, or longer in some sense -- have
| experimented with many structures where workers or consumers,
| or both, share power in how the company is run. Alternative
| government structures with more direct representation and
| delegation have also been attempted, e.g. the democratic
| confederalism approach in Rojava, which also includes worker
| and land co-operatives for organising their industries.
|
| I think this discussion is also leading towards the
| suggestion that Google's services should become more like
| utilities and therefore be publicly owned and managed.
| Basically nationalised. This makes a lot of sense when you
| consider how powerful the search engine is and how much of
| every person's data and flow of information is controlled by
| Google. However, it wouldn't make sense, or at least it
| wouldn't be fair, for the US to be the government that
| nationalises Google, since it's not only the US population
| which uses this "utility". It seems we need to invent a new
| kind of concept that considers the global population as a
| "public" that owns and controls these vital global resources.
| tehjoker wrote:
| No, unions and governments are very different things. The fact
| that we left things to the government without grassroots power
| is in part what allowed regulatory capture to persist.
| eigenrick wrote:
| I think they were specifically referring to the "Customer's
| Union"
|
| Employees Unions are unions. The needs supplied by a
| Customer's Union should, in part, be supplied by a
| Government. The other needs could be called a "Consortium" or
| a "Industry Working Group".
|
| If it were targeted specifically at Google, there might be
| legal ramifications. So such a Working Group might need to be
| focused on Ad-buyers or SEO Professionals at large.
|
| Such groups already exist.
| tehjoker wrote:
| An "Industry Working Group" is an elite consortium and
| rarely acts in the interests of the people. A grassroots
| organization can focus on Google or anything else it wants
| to do. If it needs to broaden its umbrella slightly that
| would be better as its more sustainable.
| idrios wrote:
| But this actually brings up a good question about the role of
| unions to begin with. Everything you just said could be equally
| said about worker's unions, so why do we have worker's unions
| either instead of just using the government?
|
| I like OP's suggestion of having a consumer's union. In an
| analogy to a software stack, having the government responsible
| for this is analogous to building a monolith, while making
| unions is analogous to a microservices solution. Integrating
| this role into the government could become bureaucratic and
| comlicated, maybe ineffective because of it, but a consumer's
| union might work but with it's own set of particularities.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Everything you just said could be equally said about
| worker's unions, so why do we have worker's unions either
| instead of just using the government?
|
| Mostly for historical reasons - it was workers unions who
| fought and paid in blood for worker rights, and no one (other
| than the Nazi regime and various real-Communist countries)
| tried to have governments assimilate unions.
|
| Another reason is that governments are slow as molasses to
| react to changes. A union is way faster and it has (by its
| existence) a direct connection to the immediate needs of the
| workers.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| > Everything you just said could be equally said about
| worker's unions, so why do we have worker's unions either
| instead of just using the government?
|
| Why not ask the reverse question? " _Why do we have a
| government instead of just having a workers union?_ ".
|
| This is actually the political project of anarcho-
| syndicalists [1]: workers could self-organize the production
| and the collective life through democratic federalist
| instances. The idea has been theorized since at least 1906 in
| the Charter of Amiens [2], an historical text of syndicalism
| [3]: https://www.marxists.org/history/france/cgt/charter-
| amiens.h... where we can read " _the union, today a
| resistance group will be, in the future, a group for
| production and redistribution, the basis of social
| reorganization._ ".
|
| At least in France, the biggest workers union (CGT) is still
| organized in a way that would allow this, by having both
| geographical and per-industry-branch instances (sorry I lack
| the proper words to describe this in English).
|
| It is also what the Spanish CNT did during and after the
| Spnish Revolution of 1936 [4,5].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Amiens
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Revolution_of_1936
|
| [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Catalonia
| lhorie wrote:
| > Why do we have a government instead of just having a
| workers union?
|
| By "instead", do you mean having no government whatsoever?
| Who'd be responsible for traditional government
| responsibilities in that case? (such as police,
| firefighters, water/sewage, garbage collection, etc.) I
| don't think unions can take on any of those tasks in any
| meaningful sense (e.g. do you get 5 firefighter corps from
| different unions to come to the same fire in an apartment
| complex?)
| proverbialbunny wrote:
| It has to do with size. On one end of the spectrum, there is
| unions which represent just a single company. On the other
| end of the spectrum there are governments that represent the
| consumers (and workers in theory) of an entire country.
|
| In the middle between the two extremes tend to be where the
| local maxima is. The ideal setup is industry wide
| governmental organizations and industry wide unions, so there
| is a fast food union that regulates the price all fast food
| companies pay their workers, an industry minimum wage instead
| of a global minimum wage. This is how Switzerland does it,
| and it works quite well. This way different industries get
| tailored results for their workers and businesses that works
| best for them. Likewise, because all companies have to follow
| these regulations, new non-union companies can't swoop in and
| undercut the older unionized companies running them out of
| business, which is what happened in the US and one of the
| reasons we have so few unions today.
|
| In this ideal setup there is industry wide governments
| representing consumers, so there is a fast food government
| that works on food regulations for customers. These
| governments have a larger federal government that passes
| guidelines smaller governments can follow. So eg, there is a
| country wide FDA that sets guidelines, and each kind of
| smaller government can choose to follow it or modify it as
| necessary to meet their specific situation.
|
| However, for this to work, customers exclusively need to be
| represented in the government, not businesses. Likewise, for
| this to work unions need to be represented by just the
| workers.
|
| There has to be a way to balance the demands of the workers
| vs the demands of the customers vs the demands of the
| businesses. If business fail over this, it's not handled
| well, so there needs to be some sort of pro business
| oversight as well (usually handled by a court system of some
| sort, but it doesn't have to be handled this way). For this
| to work properly there has to be severe limits and
| regulations on the power of unions and governmental
| organizations. Too much power to unions and goverments and
| businesses are restricted, which can be harmful to the larger
| economic economy, similar to how fishermen are limited in how
| many fish they can catch to not squash the ecosystem. Because
| of this there needs to be a government for businesses, eg
| minimum profit margin laws and what not. Workers and
| consumers can not milk the cow to its death, it needs to be
| healthy and happy too, so much so others are inspired to
| create a business.
|
| This kind of system does exist today, in part in many
| European countries. Switzerland and Nordic countries are the
| closest. The only difference is governments are based on
| party, and those larger governments have strong power over
| smaller industry regulators. If the larger government has too
| much power over industry regulators it opens the door for
| corruption. There needs to be a balance of power to hit a
| local maxima.
| lhorie wrote:
| There's one big structural problem with the idea of a
| consumer union: what happens when negotiations break down.
| Typically for a worker union, that means the union tells
| workers to go on strike. Imagine being told by your union
| that no one should use google.com/gmail/maps/docs/etc until
| further notice. It wouldn't fly no matter how you slice it.
| toper-centage wrote:
| People striking by not using Google would save Google
| money. Instead, people should all do a coordinated DDoS on
| Google, send thousands of mails per second, click on all
| ads, etc
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| People boycott products all the time. This would be no
| different. If you really wanted to have an impact, you get
| a few hundred businesses together and they all drop their
| contracts with said companies and find new vendors.
|
| Happens every day in business. People switch vendors all
| the time. Saying that Google is too big and it would never
| happen is a bit myopic don't you think?
| rocqua wrote:
| Addblock usage / private mode / not being logged in, could
| be seen as a strike?
| smaryjerry wrote:
| It should be like an uploaders union for YouTube or
| something really. I think that type of organizing has been
| attempted but they are too big and too global to even care
| if a even all the big stars in one country band together.
| jfengel wrote:
| Striking is the last resort of unions, but it's not their
| main mode of operation. Some unions can't strike at all.
| But they are often supported by laws which give them
| leverage without having to strike. Strikes are bad for
| everyone concerned. The union also has agreements with the
| company that give it power, again, precisely because
| strikes hurt everybody.
|
| Unions are mainly about giving workers a unified voice, in
| the democratic sense -- this is what most of us want, and
| we all agree to abide by it. The main job of a union is
| doing that voice, rather than having to leave that up to
| the many individuals, who usually lack the experience to do
| it well. It's nearly always routine, and if the word
| "strike" is even mentioned it's because things have
| seriously gone off the rails.
|
| Google could theoretically empower a users union to
| represent users, in the same way, and the government could
| beef that up with laws. It's not impossible.
|
| The impossible part is how you elect union leadership. Not
| with hundreds of millions of people. Unions are fractious
| enough as it is with tens of thousands of workers all
| united by similar work environments. The election would be
| nearly as hard as electing a US President -- more so than
| any individual Senator.
| silexia wrote:
| A consumer union is a fantastic idea! If you give government
| this power, they will not listen to consumers or the
| business... Government only listens to politicians. Google
| wants more revenue and is highly motivated to work with a
| consumer group.
| Chant-I-CRW wrote:
| When a workers' union calls for a strike it only works if
| most of the members support the strike. The potential
| benefits must outweigh the risk of hardship and
| inconvenience. Often the majority of workers support the
| strike because they are in a shared situation and will all
| receive some level of benefit if it works.
|
| A consumer union, to have enough momentum to actually make
| the Googles and Amazons even blink, would need hundreds of
| thousands of members. That vast quantity would need to
| agree to collective action and then follow through. If the
| consumer union reps determined the best way to convince
| Google to make a change was to hit them in the pocket book
| then the majority of the union members would have to cancel
| subscriptions and deal with the inconvenience.
|
| It is my pessimistic opinion that the general consumer base
| would not follow through on whatever action the union
| selected. In the unlikely event they did follow through,
| even a hundred thousand users dropping a Google product or
| leaving Amazon Prime would barely impact those companies
| enough to make them alter their policies or improve their
| service levels.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| But if it were 100K of their biggest/highest paying
| consumers who make up the bulk of the union, they would
| at least come to the table. I share your pessimism of
| inaction.
| lefrenchy wrote:
| Well workers unions represent the workers more directly than
| the government does, and specifically for that workplace.
| [deleted]
| paultopia wrote:
| Disagree. Yes, government regulation would be nice. But it's a
| little unfair to accuse the OP of trying to reinvent government
| by proposing that consumers organize outside of government.
|
| People organize to engage in collective action outside of
| governments all the time. In addition to labor unions, consider
| civil society nonprofits. It's not bizarre or (as another
| comment suggested) some kind of tech-bro magical thinking to
| say "hey, the government isn't regulating this group of people,
| let's organize to get some collective power going."
| airza wrote:
| The magical thinking comes from trying to organize a
| significant portion of Google's customer base (all android
| phone users, all google search users, etc) spontaneously into
| a body that can really damage their value proposition
| financially. In a labor union _all_ of the value is generated
| by a bunch of people who are geographically close together
| and able to organize more easily :)
| paultopia wrote:
| Oh sure, that would be extremely difficult for lots of
| reasons. But I took OP to be asking in good faith if those
| difficulties could be surpassed, not assuming they could
| be.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Absolutely. And remember we're not customers, we're the
| product. So you might call us workers too.
| geofft wrote:
| We're the "product" of services like advertising, but I've
| seen very few individuals express opinions on Google's
| advertising product (beyond "stop," or at best "stop
| tracking me"). Our opinions tend to be on services like
| Gmail and Drive and Reader and Hangouts. In that case,
| we're closer to a customer - or more accurately, we're a
| positive externality. Google _does_ offer paid support for
| most of these services, including an account rep that you
| can actually talk to in person. But you have to be paying
| for them. Individuals who use Gmail for free are
| effectively just publicity for Google so they can convince
| large employers to pay them for Gmail.
| cataphract wrote:
| More like a Consumer Protection Association.
|
| They're using involved in lobbying the government, but not just
| that: also resolution of disputes between members and companies
| and doing product reviews, for instance.
| fergie wrote:
| Are we talking about _customers_ or _users_? They are two
| different things, often with competing agendas.
|
| Its great that some American Google workers have decided to
| unionise (in practice, a significant proportion of their EU staff
| will already be unionised), and they are right to point to
| ethical issues as the reason for doing so. In the medium term, we
| are going to see some sort of professional regulation in software
| engineering, if for no other reason than to ensure that
| Terminator and Black Mirror don't become a reality.
|
| The situation with customers and users is different. They already
| have ultimate power over Google since they can simply go
| elsewhere. The best way that we can keep Google decent is by
| ensuring that competing services can emerge. Unionising
| customers/users would actually make them more invested in Google
| which would be self-defeating.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I would argue that they cannot effectively go elsewhere and
| competing services cannot emerge. The reason for this is that
| the Google Search index has been built over decades into a
| unfathomable search index that is beyond compare. If the index
| were made public, with a usable API, then other companies could
| provide alternative search experiences, however developing an
| on-par search index is nearly impossible, even with the
| strongest venture backing imaginable. Furthermore, since google
| controls the index to the worlds information they are able to
| delist topics or pages that users may want to see.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Customers? I think you mean users. People using Google are not
| its customers. These people are the source of its raw
| materials.
|
| Google's custoners are the entities that purchase the products
| Google produces with that raw materials (i.e., data).
|
| This will help get you up to speed.
|
| https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...
| lesderid wrote:
| I pay for additional Google Drive storage.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Do you pay full price? For do you think that price is
| subsidized by Google's ability to harvest your online
| activity?
|
| I suggest you list to the link above. You're not the
| customer.
| lesderid wrote:
| In fact I believe I do. I just checked it again, and they
| have exactly the same (or higher) prices as major
| competitors (MEGA, Dropbox, OneDrive, Backblaze).
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| One product is not a business model. Please take a moment
| to update your software:
|
| https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-
| und...
| muzani wrote:
| People do pay for Google products, Gmail and Google Maps
| being some of the most common.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| And what percentage of Google's revenue is that?
|
| It is by no means their bread and butter. In fact, it's
| been argued (by Thiel) that much of Google activity outside
| its core business is a smokescreen for its monopoly and
| other exploits in data harvesting/advertising.
| danielheath wrote:
| Corporations are typically on the hook for those bills;
| very rare for an individual human person to be directly
| responsible.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| Just to point out services that average consumers do
| actually pay for: YouTube Premium, apps and media on
| Google Play (which Google gets their cut of), Google
| hardware (Nest/Home products, Pixel products, etc.),
| Google Fi and Fiber, and increased storage in Drive and
| Google Photos. There's undoubtedly others I am forgetting
| as well.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Of all the users and all of Google's revenue, what
| percentage are we talking about? It's not as significant
| as you're assuming.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| I never said it was. It definitely pales in comparison to
| ad sales and enterprise business. Just pointing out that
| there are indeed consumers who are paying Google for
| products and services.
| amelius wrote:
| > They already have ultimate power over Google since they can
| simply go elsewhere.
|
| This is like saying if you complain about the government you
| can always "simply" move to a different country.
| egonschiele wrote:
| That's what I was thinking too. Maybe that's true if you're a
| large company with lots of people competing for your
| business. But if you're a small company advertising on Google
| Ads for example, you need them more than they need you.
|
| I wonder if a union would make sense for a certain size of
| customer?
| wackget wrote:
| > They already have ultimate power over Google since they can
| simply go elsewhere
|
| I always think this kind of "free market" thinking is spoken by
| people with an incredibly narrow world view.
|
| You, personally, might be aware of all the evils and ills to
| which these companies subject their users, but the average
| consumer is blissfully ignorant or simply doesn't care.
|
| You might be educated or enlightened enough to be aware of the
| risks these services pose, but again most people aren't. Is the
| average WhatsApp user (especially in the huge markets such as
| India where people are generally poorer and less highly
| educated) really going to care about the implications of
| privacy policies etc.?
|
| Those users aren't even going to think about switching to a
| competing service because (e.g.) all their friends and contacts
| use WhatsApp.
|
| When a company gets as big as Google, Facebook, etc. then
| competition starts to not matter and that's why the "free
| market" idea holds zero weight.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| But most of Google's biggest projects (with the exception of
| Youtube) just don't have the network effects you're
| describing. There's no reason I can't use Bing when my
| friends use Google, or Protonmail when my friends use Gmail,
| or Firefox when my friends use Chrome, or an iPhone when my
| friends use Android.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| or Maps
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> professional regulation in software engineering, if for no
| other reason than to ensure that Terminator and Black Mirror
| don't become a reality.
|
| Engineers have professional associations. That never stopped a
| single engineer from building weapons of mass destruction.
| Lawyers are subject to perhaps the most intricate body of
| professional regulations and so lawyers rarely ever do anything
| that might hurt society at large. Professional organizations
| exist to benefit their members. They don't exist to prevent
| social ills. That is the role of government. A bar association
| for software engineers won't prevent Skynet. Government
| regulations setting limits on the powers attached to AI might.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| > Government regulations setting limits on the powers
| attached to AI might.
|
| This only works if all governments agree on this rule. AI is
| an economic competitive advantage, and it's in every
| countries best interest that advances in AI are developed in
| their borders.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Lawyers are subject to perhaps the most intricate body of
| professional regulations and so lawyers rarely ever do
| anything that might hurt society at large.
|
| Patent trolls and the copyright mafia are a scourge on
| society... the amount of progress that they have blocked for
| decades is astonishingly bad.
|
| And that's not even coming remotely close to the lawyers that
| aided organized tax theft (aka "tax optimization") or
| threatened the foundations of democracy itself (Giuliani and
| the rest of Trump's associates).
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Patent and copyrights are embodied in the U.S.
| constitution, so if you have an issue with that take it up
| with the Founding Fathers. The specific details of IP
| protection are determined by Congress, so if you have
| issues with the details take that up with your local
| federal legislator.
|
| Tax optimization is generally promoted by _accountants_ not
| lawyers, though tax is an area that both accountants and
| lawyers can practice and so some lawyers are certainly
| involved in tax avoidance advising. Though as tax is also
| one of the few areas where advisors can go to prison for
| their advice (and moreover, for advice that was technically
| within the bounds of the text of the law at the time the
| advice was given), few lawyers are willing to get involved
| in tax avoidance that is borderline tax evasion.
|
| Guiliani and the rest are facing disbarment or worse for
| their roles in threatening the foundations of democracy.
| Like most punishments, this one must take place _after_ the
| offending act is committed, since we can 't preemtively
| discipline someone for something they haven't actually done
| (yet).
| gus_massa wrote:
| I agree with most of your comment, but
|
| > _A bar association for software engineers won 't prevent
| Skynet. Government regulations setting limits on the powers
| attached to AI might._
|
| A government regulation will only ensure that the government
| get the AI power fist, they need it to combat terrorism or
| something. And anyway, Skynet was a project of the government
| ...
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I'm OK with government getting AI tech first. In my country
| I have say in how my government works. If I don't like what
| they are doing I can elect better people, even run for
| office myself if necessary. I don't have any control over
| tech companies or other private actors out to make a buck.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Combat terrorism or protect children.
| V-2 wrote:
| The distinction between users and customers is blurry. You can
| be a user _and_ , effectively, a customer even if you pay with
| something else than money (eg. we pay Facebook with our data).
| pjc50 wrote:
| Boycotts are a classic means of effecting consumer pressure,
| but their effect is pretty limited.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _in practice, a significant proportion of their EU staff will
| already be unionised_
|
| Citation needed. Unions are something that's actively
| discouraged within US multinationals' EU offices as well, so I
| wouldn't be so sure the overall picture is rosier in Europe
| than it is in the US.
| soco wrote:
| There's no umbrella answer but overall it is rosier in every
| aspect. For example, EU has a mandatory thing called
| "employee representatives" (although created at employees'
| initiative, it cannot be blocked) and some EU countries
| mandate also union members into those. Obviously these
| constructs will create a lot of friction with US management
| style, but I'd say that's the very reason they were created.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _overall it is rosier in every aspect_
|
| It's definitely rosier in most aspects insofar as
| protection of employee rights is much better at a
| legislative / public level in Europe, and therefore there's
| more supports available.
|
| These may however often be your company's HR dept. ticking
| boxes (HR departments of course by and large existing to
| protect the company from potential employee complaints
| first and foremost, rather than to protect employees). In
| the case of a US-based office where such state-mandated
| supports are absent, and the employees have put together a
| body to enable collective bargaining, the supports--while
| less official and state-supported--may be of more immediate
| material benefit as they practically address current
| grievances.
|
| > _some EU countries mandate also union members into those_
|
| Do you have a reference for this? I'm curious to know which
| do and which don't (it's certainly not anything that's been
| brought in at a Directive level).
| soco wrote:
| In Spain is mandated while in Germany, the Netherlands or
| UK it's just customary, and for the rest it might be
| anything in between. Here's more about it, see respective
| "workplace representation" sections: https://www.worker-
| participation.eu/National-Industrial-Rela...
| guerrilla wrote:
| I just read that they were mandated in Germany at
| Amazon's FCs. Is that not true? (Sorry, original article
| in printed Swedish.)
| joshuamorton wrote:
| This gets tricky because there are Unions[0] and works
| councils in the EU, and they're different. Works councils[1]
| are usually per company, while unions are not.
|
| Neither maps precisely onto the conventional American
| definition of a "Union"[*], nor onto the AWU, which is a
| members-only union. I'm not sure how many Google employees in
| europe are _Unionized_ , but I know works councils exist in
| multiple nations.
|
| [*]: My understanding is that a works council is government
| mandated, and a small group of employees can set one up, they
| have some formal negotiating power like a NLRA union, but
| don't represent all employees, and have a limited set of
| things they can negotiate about (for example they can deal
| with work conditions, but I don't think they can negotiate
| pay or strike). EU trade unions are big national
| organizations, one per industry that do lobbying and counter
| corporations. Conventional US NLRB unions have a monopoly on
| negotiations with the company, but require 50%+ membership.
| Members only unions have no formal legal power beyond non-
| retaliation, but can still negotiate with a company (about
| anything).
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unions_in_Europe
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council
| xmodem wrote:
| One customer/user going elsewhere will have no impact on
| Google's bottom line, though.
|
| Getting enough people to to stop using Google products for a
| day - or enough creators to set their videos to private for a
| day, for instance - would have an impact, but sadly is probably
| impossible to organize on a large enough scale to be effective.
| solarkraft wrote:
| > They already have ultimate power over Google since they can
| simply go elsewhere
|
| So can the employees, in theory. Unions exist because in
| reality it isn't that simple - arguably it's very similar when
| using it. Though I wonder how that could be dealt with through
| a union instead of plain old regulation.
| ghaff wrote:
| >we are going to see some sort of professional regulation in
| software engineering
|
| That could trivially exist. There is PE licensing in other
| areas of engineering (and used to be in software) although it's
| not super-common outside of civil engineering given the purpose
| is mostly to sign off on stuff that goes to government
| regulators. Of course, it probably doesn't make much of a
| difference--the ACM and IEEE already have codes of ethics. And,
| by the way, that now means you probably can't be a software
| engineer if you don't have a 4-year degree from an accredited
| school along with some other requirements.
| tlb wrote:
| Worker's unions have tremendous negotiating power. They can call
| a strike and expect all their members to obey it.
|
| A customer union would have to be able to credibly threaten: all
| our members will stop using your products until you agree to our
| demands.
|
| It's hard to imagine enough G customers doing this. The customers
| who care enough about privacy to take simple steps like using DDG
| and installing ad blockers, aren't a big source of revenue for G
| anyway.
| chrisandchips wrote:
| Who are we considering to be google's customers here ? Someone
| will have to pay union fees and elect representatives,
| presumably. I can see this being a big hurdle for the idea.
| vondur wrote:
| I don't think so. If they had to offer support for these services
| that they provide now, people would have to pay for it. At this
| point so many people have been using free email, photos storage
| etc.. that I can't imagine many people would want to pay for it.
| f6v wrote:
| That's what you need a government for. How would that even work?
| How many people do you need to get any kind of leverage? And how
| would you make any decisions?
| m-p-3 wrote:
| Maybe some kind of ombudsman (government-mandated, with some
| legislative ability) that is mediating the conversation between
| both parties and tries to find a good middle-ground or correct a
| wrong.
|
| Too many Google customers gets wronged without the ability to get
| reparation or to talk to an actual person, and considering the
| size of Google that is unacceptable with the impact they have on
| everybody's lives.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| That's not a "Union" in the usual sense of the word as its used
| currently.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Ultimately unions are about power - transferring an individual's
| minuscule power in the employer-employee relationship to
| themselves, to aggregate into something big enough to make a
| difference to the employer.
|
| First question would be: how big would this union need to be to
| make Google do/not do things?
|
| Second question would be: emphasising that it takes away power
| from the individual (or in your idea's case, the individual
| Google customer), who would sign up to that?
|
| What I could see is another company forming that resells Google
| Cloud, and gets better discounts and better representation
| because of it. Normal market stuff.
| hkt wrote:
| Yes! There is already such a thing for a bank in the UK:
|
| https://saveourbank.coop/
|
| A large enough group of people directly switching as members and
| influencing others to do the same can work to keep a company in
| line. It'd be unique and awesome.
| pba wrote:
| I would say neither 'government' nor a 'union' are the answers in
| this case. In the mostly free-market based economy that we live
| in today (thinking of the USA and most European countries) the
| proper solution is to 'vote with your dollar' and go with a
| provider other than Google. This increases market competition and
| incentivizes Google to improve their services.
| [deleted]
| caeril wrote:
| No. Just stop using their services/products and block all their
| prefixes at the network edge. They've had ample opportunity to
| not be evil, and they've chosen precisely the opposite, every
| time.
| CryptoPunk wrote:
| This could be done via blockchain-based smart-contracts. Self-
| executing contracts could trigger a mass migration of user
| accounts to another SaaS provider if some set of conditions are
| met, like for the example, the number of accounts party to the
| smart contract reaches a predefined threshold.
|
| The purpose of this smart contract could be even more general
| purpose than that, in being structured as a Decentralized
| Autonomous Organization (DAO), with accounts voting to decide
| what the accounts will collectively do.
| snambi wrote:
| why not? it should be possible. I don't think it is against the
| constitution.
| john2010 wrote:
| may be site where you post all your complaints will be delisted!
| jkarni wrote:
| I've thought a lot about digital unionization [0] in the past
| year or two, primarily because I think it's an important approach
| to a number of problems we are witnessing. The thoughts below led
| some friends and I to start building https://izens.net/ as one
| general approach to this problem.
|
| The first thing to notice is that the calculus of unionization or
| collective action is very different than what we historically
| know. As a user, whether you see yourself as a customer or a
| laborer vis-a-vis Google, in both cases your position is
| different than traditional customers or laborers. The importance
| of convenience for all your transactions is much bigger. We
| probably aren't willing to spend an hour a week going to union
| meetings, because Google isn't as significant to us (as users) as
| a traditional employer, and because we have a similar
| relationship to a variety of other companies (Facebook, Amazon,
| Apple, etc.) as to Google, which would by analogy thereby entail
| a lot of time.
|
| Moreover, it is much harder to build a social relationship with
| people in similar positions. At a job, or at a checkout line, you
| meet people in the same place as you. With a Google service, it's
| just doesn't happen naturally that you encounter people (and can
| easily and spontaneously communicate with people) in the same
| position as you (even though there are likely so many more). The
| companies themselves control how you inhabit their "space" -
| whether you can "meet" other people in the relevant way currently
| depends, for instance, on whether there is a chat or forum
| connecting you to those people. And of course, relying on their
| graciousness for that space is not going to go down well most of
| the time [1] as soon as this collective organization starts
| becoming significant. (This sort of control of how social
| interactions take place has been compared to the British
| enclosures.)
|
| There are probably a number of valuable ways to collectively
| organize in this space. But the above considerations, and the
| fact that our own skills (and hence ability to contribute) are in
| programming and design, led a few friends and I to an idea: that
| we could create those spaces for collective organization via
| browser extensions and phone apps. The idea is that you install a
| browser extension (we haven't started on the app), and join one
| or more unions (or campaigns). The browser extension, based on
| the policy files of the unions you've joined, can a) block the
| website for some period of time for all its members, with some
| message; or b) display a banner when a member visits a site. The
| union members discuss and decide what the policy will look like.
| From there you can organize boycotts and make demands.
|
| (https://izens.net/ (and the browser extension) is still in it's
| early phases, so feedback is much appreciated!)
|
| [0] I agree that it may be misleading to think of it as a
| consumer union in most cases, for reasons other people have
| mentioned. On the other hand, the Posner & Weyl idea that we are
| data laborers suggests it might be a labor union. Ultimately,
| none of this matters much to the broader points.
|
| [1] Compare this to moving out of WhatsApp, which I'm in the
| process of doing. I can use _WhatsApp itself_ to get in touch
| with the people I want to coordinate with, thus making that
| coordinating relevant and timely.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| If you have so many problems with a vendor that you need
| collective bargaining among customers then you really need to
| find a new vendor.
|
| You do not need a union, you need to move on. Let Google fail if
| they can't figure it out.
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