Has anyone opposing this action thought maybe an aggressively competitive tech corporation doesn't want to be held liable for assisting in distribution of a drug that isn't nationwide legal? They have way larger concerns than worrying about this.
Which nation? Not mine. And that's the problem, now we're having foreign morality imposed upon a populace (where it is entirely legal) based upon the preferences of another nation (or really the whims of this particular corporation).
You could say "just use another app store", but that's really not a viable option. When a company's store policies becomes a limiting factor for your (fully legal and ethical) personal choices,I think we have a problem.
It's not really morality at all. Most recent U.S. presidents have partaken in at least one illegal drug. It's just the law as it stands now. They have their reasons (whatever they may be) and that propagates to entities with legal exposure. Unfortunately, sometimes that's just the way it is until it changes.
Big national banks and credit card providers now openly take and store payments for marijuana dispensaries. Companies happily provide them with insurance and mortgages. There are mutual funds and ETFs on national exchanges that invest in such businesses (and you can buy into them as well, from anywhere in the country).
Somehow I don't think Google is scared of getting into trouble for allowing an app that has a web browser with a reference to marijuana. It is a moral stance, nothing else.
These may be apps for legal dispensaries, but that's by state. Obviously there is no use for the app outside of the legal zone, but does thet really look good?
Yes, a lot of modern apps are turning into embedded blink and v8 solutions that port existing websites. Regardless these "apps" are still directly related to marijuana. I dont think it's a moral stance, I think Google doesn't want to be visibly apart of it. Financial institutions are a lot more private and ambiguous in their weed assistance.
I've sampled plenty of wares and yet to see a vendor that isn't cash only. Is this very recent news? Hasn't trickled into my neck of the woods yet. Those ETFs and stocks are for canadian companies too I believe, even though they are on the NYSE.
Which credit card providers openly take payments from dispensaries?
The closest I have seen is a provider that will let you buy bitcoin (and then immediately use the bitcoin to buy the pot, in the same POS terminal transaction).
> If the industry was more competitive they wouldn't be able to turn away money.
This is the stupid libertarian answer for everything, not so different from communism in its arrogance and over-simplification of human motives and behaviors. If the XX century taught us anything, it's that there are no simple answers.
It the industry was perfectly competitive, nobody would be able to turn away money. We would have the perfect whip, making us all labor for all of our waking hours, no holidays, no weekends. Consumers would have perfect choice at the lowest possible prices. They would, however, have zero free time to exercise this "freedom".
Too much competition is cruel and wasteful, leading to a dystopia where, if you take 1 second of rest, someone else might not. Too little competition kills motivation to do the things that are hard but essential, leading to mass starvation and social system collapse.
The answer is democracy, which is not a simple answer nor a silver bullet. But it's the best game in town. When things go too far in one direction, it is the citizen's right and duty to push them in another one. Sometimes the government interferes too little, sometimes too much. Bureaucracies and technocrats might be unsexy, but they lead to a more pleasant and humane world than slogans.
Tech companies should not have the final say on what you can are not use markets for. In a democracy, rules of society > rules of companies.
Just because someone talks about "free market" and "competition" doesn't even mean they're a libraterian.
The problem in question is actually something that competition (capitalism) would very effectively solve. The reason it's not being solved is a failure of the government to break up clear anti-competitive behavior which I think GP was getting at.
Google has exploited their dominance in the OS market to in order to completely control the phone app market. Nobody except for invidual governments should have control over any market because it gives companies the power to favor their product over others.
Google controls the app market: they will eventually favor their apps
X controls the tellcom market: they favor their media at the expense of others
Just because a company isn't being anti-competitive YET doesn't mean they won't in the future.
