It’s crazy how we as a society just accept this as the new status quo as if the world would fall apart if these services were scaled back or redesigned in such a way to reduce sharing and content proliferation on a mass scale. Sure, billion-dollar businesses have been built around these apps, but that alone shouldn’t justify their existence.
Sadly, we’ve seen this before. Back in the 70’s, Ford sold the Pinto knowing that it would result in deaths due to the location of the gas tank. Basically, if they got rear-ended, the gas tank had a decent chance of exploding and killing the driver. Instead of issuing a recall, Ford surmised internally that it would be cheaper to settle with victims.[0]
Unfortunately, social media companies have been so good at avoiding regulation, to the point that the people don’t have a real way to contest these kinds of practices.
The world would not fall apart if we make it impossible to have YouTube, or, for that matter, if we make it impossible for people to personally drive cars. This would, however, make billions of people, who currently derive great benefits from status quo, very unhappy.
Billions of people use YouTube, and like it a lot. They like it much more than what was available before it, given how much time they spend on it now. They would be very unhappy if government decided that "this alone doesn't justify its existence". Why do you think the government back in 70s, government didn't just say "usefulness of cars doesn't justify their existence" and banned them?
Internet video became possible because of broadband. google/yt did nothing magical or noteworthy, they just operate at a loss so no one can compete.
Imagine GM sold cars at a loss, gaining 99% monopoly of your country, then put GPS trackers in all cars and sold everyone's whereabouts to the highest bidder and allowed a foreign government (the US) warrentless access. You're saying our only option is to stop driving cars. I disagree.
No, the world wouldn't "fall apart" if services like Youtube cease to exist, it just would suck more than it does now, for me at least. And that's true for many things like that: Google Maps, Search, Mail.
Because in either situation (with and without Youtube) there are drawbacks, the question then becomes one of weighing those, rather than blindly deciding to rollback.
It’s crazy how we as a society just accept this as the new status quo as if the world would fall apart if these services were scaled back or redesigned in such a way to reduce sharing and content proliferation on a mass scale. Sure, billion-dollar businesses have been built around these apps, but that alone shouldn’t justify their existence.
Sadly, we’ve seen this before. Back in the 70’s, Ford sold the Pinto knowing that it would result in deaths due to the location of the gas tank. Basically, if they got rear-ended, the gas tank had a decent chance of exploding and killing the driver. Instead of issuing a recall, Ford surmised internally that it would be cheaper to settle with victims.[0]
Unfortunately, social media companies have been so good at avoiding regulation, to the point that the people don’t have a real way to contest these kinds of practices.
0: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1977/09/pinto-madness/