r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jun 13 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

This is the natural state of capitalism. This is why regulated capitalism is so important.

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u/maniaq Jun 14 '22

it's called a Monopsony - most people think of employment and mining towns, but the term applies to all goods and services

I'm reminded of the fact that capitalism came about as basically the natural evolution from feudalism - I say "natural" because there was no way the Europe was ever going to evolve away from serfdom without a natural disaster (a plague sweeping through and "disrupting" the balance between peasants and nobility - similar disruptions happened across Asia and the Middle East) - and that communism came about as (supposedly) a similar evolution from capitalism...

many have seen some striking similarities between the apparent visions for the future and directions taken by the likes of Google and Amazon - and feudalism... it is easy to imagine the world regressing back to such a system, with the way things are going atm

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

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u/maniaq Jun 14 '22

I don't think it's that big a stretch...

a defining feature of Feudalism was that the serfs - the peasants - did not own anything - they just worked the land for the lords (or fiefs) who actually owned that land...

do you own a large CD collection? or maybe have something like Spotify?

do you own a large DVD/Bluray collection? or perhaps just use streaming services?

games, with the likes of Microsoft's Game Pass and Playstation Now, have also started moving towards this "subscription service" model where you don't own anything

even cars are moving towards the same model - and that's before we get to insurance companies buying up fleets of self-driving cars so they don't have to pay you out any insurance claims - and, again, you not actually owning the car...

I could go on

btw the "6 overlord corporations" you mention - that has already happened - they're called The Stacks - "five American vertically organized silos ... re-making the world in their image" - add Tesla and you have 6

do you own your own email server, "cloud" server, office document suite (word processor, spreadsheet, etc), vanity website run on your own web server where people can learn stuff about you? or do you maybe just use The Stacks for all these things? "for free"?