#monopolies — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #monopolies, aggregated by home.social.
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Yon blue skiers, sky blowers, sky bluers, blowskies, Blue Sky groupies: https://bsky.app/profile/mxverda.bsky.social/post/3mvcjkhiauk2z
#BlueSky #Youtube #POSSE #indie #web #internet #tinternet #online #you #video #videos #VideoEssay #VideoEssayist #VideoEssayists #CrossPost #fandom #critique #shit #enshittification #capitalism #crapitalism #google #googletube #yougle #yoogle #tech #BigTech #monopoly #monopolies
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Yon blue skiers, sky blowers, sky bluers, blowskies, Blue Sky groupies: https://bsky.app/profile/mxverda.bsky.social/post/3mvcjkhiauk2z
#BlueSky #Youtube #POSSE #indie #web #internet #tinternet #online #you #video #videos #VideoEssay #VideoEssayist #VideoEssayists #CrossPost #fandom #critique #shit #enshittification #capitalism #crapitalism #google #googletube #yougle #yoogle #tech #BigTech #monopoly #monopolies
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Yon blue skiers, sky blowers, sky bluers, blowskies, Blue Sky groupies: https://bsky.app/profile/mxverda.bsky.social/post/3mvcjkhiauk2z
#BlueSky #Youtube #POSSE #indie #web #internet #tinternet #online #you #video #videos #VideoEssay #VideoEssayist #VideoEssayists #CrossPost #fandom #critique #shit #enshittification #capitalism #crapitalism #google #googletube #yougle #yoogle #tech #BigTech #monopoly #monopolies
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Yon blue skiers, sky blowers, sky bluers, blowskies, Blue Sky groupies: https://bsky.app/profile/mxverda.bsky.social/post/3mvcjkhiauk2z
#BlueSky #Youtube #POSSE #indie #web #internet #tinternet #online #you #video #videos #VideoEssay #VideoEssayist #VideoEssayists #CrossPost #fandom #critique #shit #enshittification #capitalism #crapitalism #google #googletube #yougle #yoogle #tech #BigTech #monopoly #monopolies
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Yon blue skiers, sky blowers, sky bluers, blowskies, Blue Sky groupies: https://bsky.app/profile/mxverda.bsky.social/post/3mvcjkhiauk2z
#BlueSky #Youtube #POSSE #indie #web #internet #tinternet #online #you #video #videos #VideoEssay #VideoEssayist #VideoEssayists #CrossPost #fandom #critique #shit #enshittification #capitalism #crapitalism #google #googletube #yougle #yoogle #tech #BigTech #monopoly #monopolies
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#Democracy is incompatible with unrestrained #capitalism. #Monopolies powered the #Nazi war machine 85 years ago.
General public knows that #CorporatePower is a big, rising, and terrifying problem. But regulators don't seem to know what corporate power is.
On #antitrust, the #EU buckled to #US under both #GeorgeBush (#Microsoft breakup) and #GeorgeWBush (#GE #Honeywell merger).
Now a new revolt against monopolization is brewing in #Europe.
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#Democracy is incompatible with unrestrained #capitalism. #Monopolies powered the #Nazi war machine 85 years ago.
General public knows that #CorporatePower is a big, rising, and terrifying problem. But regulators don't seem to know what corporate power is.
On #antitrust, the #EU buckled to #US under both #GeorgeBush (#Microsoft breakup) and #GeorgeWBush (#GE #Honeywell merger).
Now a new revolt against monopolization is brewing in #Europe.
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#Democracy is incompatible with unrestrained #capitalism. #Monopolies powered the #Nazi war machine 85 years ago.
General public knows that #CorporatePower is a big, rising, and terrifying problem. But regulators don't seem to know what corporate power is.
On #antitrust, the #EU buckled to #US under both #GeorgeBush (#Microsoft breakup) and #GeorgeWBush (#GE #Honeywell merger).
Now a new revolt against monopolization is brewing in #Europe.
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"If Kagi (a startup with a handful of engineers) can extract useful search results from Google's databases, then Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist that's had its pick of thousands of the top computer scientists from the world's most prestigious universities for a generation – could also do so.
They just choose not to.
They're too big to fail. They're too big to jail. They're too big to care.
Google's AI search isn't a way to fix its broken core product: it's a way to partially remediate the damage Google itself inflicted on the open internet, while imprisoning the web in a walled garden that would make Steve Jobs drool:
(...)
It's a deadly combination: Google has committed hundreds of billions to stock buybacks and its AI money-furnace, financed by mass layoffs targeting the people who keep the core services useful. The too-big-to-care company is still the internet's gatekeeper, but half the guards at the gate have been fired and the other half have pulled so much overtime that they keep falling asleep on the job.Google has become a scammer's paradise.
Take Google's "answer box." This is the part of the search results page that tries to answer your query directly, without sending you elsewhere for that info. Back in 2023, Google's Answer Box was taken over by scammers who impersonated airline help desks. When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
#Google #Search #SearchEngines #AI #AISearch #Scams #AIOverview #BigTech #Monopolies #Antitrust
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"If Kagi (a startup with a handful of engineers) can extract useful search results from Google's databases, then Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist that's had its pick of thousands of the top computer scientists from the world's most prestigious universities for a generation – could also do so.
They just choose not to.
They're too big to fail. They're too big to jail. They're too big to care.
Google's AI search isn't a way to fix its broken core product: it's a way to partially remediate the damage Google itself inflicted on the open internet, while imprisoning the web in a walled garden that would make Steve Jobs drool:
(...)
It's a deadly combination: Google has committed hundreds of billions to stock buybacks and its AI money-furnace, financed by mass layoffs targeting the people who keep the core services useful. The too-big-to-care company is still the internet's gatekeeper, but half the guards at the gate have been fired and the other half have pulled so much overtime that they keep falling asleep on the job.Google has become a scammer's paradise.
Take Google's "answer box." This is the part of the search results page that tries to answer your query directly, without sending you elsewhere for that info. Back in 2023, Google's Answer Box was taken over by scammers who impersonated airline help desks. When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
#Google #Search #SearchEngines #AI #AISearch #Scams #AIOverview #BigTech #Monopolies #Antitrust
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"If Kagi (a startup with a handful of engineers) can extract useful search results from Google's databases, then Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist that's had its pick of thousands of the top computer scientists from the world's most prestigious universities for a generation – could also do so.
They just choose not to.
They're too big to fail. They're too big to jail. They're too big to care.
Google's AI search isn't a way to fix its broken core product: it's a way to partially remediate the damage Google itself inflicted on the open internet, while imprisoning the web in a walled garden that would make Steve Jobs drool:
(...)
It's a deadly combination: Google has committed hundreds of billions to stock buybacks and its AI money-furnace, financed by mass layoffs targeting the people who keep the core services useful. The too-big-to-care company is still the internet's gatekeeper, but half the guards at the gate have been fired and the other half have pulled so much overtime that they keep falling asleep on the job.Google has become a scammer's paradise.
Take Google's "answer box." This is the part of the search results page that tries to answer your query directly, without sending you elsewhere for that info. Back in 2023, Google's Answer Box was taken over by scammers who impersonated airline help desks. When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
#Google #Search #SearchEngines #AI #AISearch #Scams #AIOverview #BigTech #Monopolies #Antitrust
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"If Kagi (a startup with a handful of engineers) can extract useful search results from Google's databases, then Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist that's had its pick of thousands of the top computer scientists from the world's most prestigious universities for a generation – could also do so.
They just choose not to.
They're too big to fail. They're too big to jail. They're too big to care.
Google's AI search isn't a way to fix its broken core product: it's a way to partially remediate the damage Google itself inflicted on the open internet, while imprisoning the web in a walled garden that would make Steve Jobs drool:
(...)
It's a deadly combination: Google has committed hundreds of billions to stock buybacks and its AI money-furnace, financed by mass layoffs targeting the people who keep the core services useful. The too-big-to-care company is still the internet's gatekeeper, but half the guards at the gate have been fired and the other half have pulled so much overtime that they keep falling asleep on the job.Google has become a scammer's paradise.
Take Google's "answer box." This is the part of the search results page that tries to answer your query directly, without sending you elsewhere for that info. Back in 2023, Google's Answer Box was taken over by scammers who impersonated airline help desks. When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
#Google #Search #SearchEngines #AI #AISearch #Scams #AIOverview #BigTech #Monopolies #Antitrust
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"If Kagi (a startup with a handful of engineers) can extract useful search results from Google's databases, then Google – a thrice-convicted monopolist that's had its pick of thousands of the top computer scientists from the world's most prestigious universities for a generation – could also do so.
They just choose not to.
They're too big to fail. They're too big to jail. They're too big to care.
Google's AI search isn't a way to fix its broken core product: it's a way to partially remediate the damage Google itself inflicted on the open internet, while imprisoning the web in a walled garden that would make Steve Jobs drool:
(...)
It's a deadly combination: Google has committed hundreds of billions to stock buybacks and its AI money-furnace, financed by mass layoffs targeting the people who keep the core services useful. The too-big-to-care company is still the internet's gatekeeper, but half the guards at the gate have been fired and the other half have pulled so much overtime that they keep falling asleep on the job.Google has become a scammer's paradise.
Take Google's "answer box." This is the part of the search results page that tries to answer your query directly, without sending you elsewhere for that info. Back in 2023, Google's Answer Box was taken over by scammers who impersonated airline help desks. When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves:"
https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/05/absentee-landlord/
#Google #Search #SearchEngines #AI #AISearch #Scams #AIOverview #BigTech #Monopolies #Antitrust
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Demand Is Booming for New #NoTech, #Repairable #Tractor
"There is consumer pressure to back away from technology that is unnecessary to perform everyday tasks."
by Jason Koebler
Jun 3, 2026"The secondary market for decades old, low-tech #JohnDeereTractors has been booming for years as farmers have sought reliable tractors that they can actually fix without having to deal with John Deere’s repair monopoly. A Canadian company has seen that demand and came up with a radical thought: What if they made a new, repairable, 'no-tech' tractor to solve what has become a gigantic pain point for farmers?
"Alberta’s #UrsaAg says that it has been inundated with demand after announcing its tractor, which costs roughly half as much as a Deere and has the benefit of not being a repair nightmare. We have for years covered the frustration that farmers have felt as they have been locked out of their Deere tractors with digital rights management systems that prevent them from fixing their machinery, tractors that won’t run because of minor sensor failures, and crops that literally die on the vine as they wait for an 'authorized' repair person to fix tractors during critical harvesting periods.
"Ursa Ag markets its tractors as '#NoFrills' and 'built to last.' Ursa Ag’s Doug Wilson told me that the company designed the tractor because of a need in the marketplace for a new machine that isn’t loaded with tech and is easy to maintain. The company follows in the footsteps of consumer electronics companies like #Fairphone, which makes a repairable smartphone and #Framework, which makes modular, repairable #laptops. The demand Ursa Ag has seen is part of the backlash to manufacturer repair #monopolies and the injection of #technology and #InternetConnectedSensors and terms of use into even the most basic of gadgets.
" 'I talk to farmers every day and I hear from farmers every day about how they went out and bought machinery from 1987 so that it wouldn’t have a computer on it,' Wilson said. 'All of this came from a simple discussion with a customer who wanted to be able to turn [the tractor] on at the start of the day, to use it, and shut it off at the end of the day. It needed to work, so that’s what we built.'
"Ursa Ag’s tractor has been hyped in agriculture circles after Wilson showed the tractor off at a Canadian farm show and it was featured by Farms.com. Wilson said more than a thousand farmers have contacted him after that show, from roughly 30 countries. 'I got a handwritten letter from a farmer in France who doesn’t own a computer and wanted us to mail him information about the tractors,' he said."
Read more:
https://www.404media.co/demand-is-booming-for-ursa-ag-new-no-tech-repairable-tractor/ -
"In 2021, the virtual world was the future of the internet. The pandemic had sequestered everyone indoors, heightening the appeal of digital communities. Facebook rebranded to Meta — a sign of the tech giant’s investment in and commitment to the metaverse as the future of the internet. Despite losing billions in VR, Meta released an upgraded version of the Quest 2 headset and began focusing on launching a higher-end Quest Pro. At the end of the year, it announced its plan to plunk down a rumored $400 million to buy the independent VR gaming studio Within, maker of a popular fitness game called Supernatural. Less than five years later, however, it shut the game down, leaving a community of avid fans bereft.
To former FTC chair Lina Khan, there’s a lesson in the ultimate fate of Supernatural, and the community that had grown up around it. She’d know — because she tried and failed to block Meta from acquiring Within.
“You need to have some regulatory humility because you don’t always know on the front-end how certain products are meaningful for certain communities,” says Khan. The FTC’s Meta lawsuit was often framed as an abstract attempt to rein in Big Tech. But in the end, the acquisition’s human cost was obvious — and an example of precisely why antitrust law matters. “Bringing to light that [Supernatural] was a core way for communities to stay healthy shows that there were real stakes here.”"
https://www.theverge.com/report/896820/lina-khan-ftc-meta-supernatural-antitrust
#USA #SocialMedia #VideoGames #VR #Meta #Facebook #Monopolies #FCT #LinaKhan #Antitrust
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Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·Pluralistic: Where did the money go? (08 Jan 2026)
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/08/after-the-moneys-gone/
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"Then, back lit, filling the saloon doors, amid swirling dust, staring down the debauch...comes Lina Khan."
https://3m.fyi/posts/the-redemption-of-lawyers/
#LinaKhan #CoryDoctorrow #Monopolies #lawyers #PowellMemo #PowellMemorandum #Bork #Nixon #Reagan #AntiTrust #Oligarchs #Oligarchy #Plutocrats #Plutocracy #Trump #Law #BreakEmUp #Litigate #democracy #FTC #Mamdani #Zoran #NYC
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...#thepeople have become so addicted to aggressive #consumption and so dependent on the mega monster #monopolies supplying their #addictions that they have forgotten how little they actually need and how much power they already possess within themselves to create what they need for themselves!
#wakeup now please. these "#machines" keep us embryonic to make us feel weak while feeding off our strenths to #empower only themselves.
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The payoff from Thiel’s early gamble in Trump is a lesson that has not passed others by.
As with their other obsession, #crypto, the best time to have invested in Trump was 2016,
and the second best time is today.We already have a word for what we’re watching now:
it’s #oligarchy.And we’ve already seen how this plays out.
In Putin’s Russia, political and commercial interests are one and the same.
Thiel is betting
– again
– on the same phenomenon in America.Betting that he will be first among a new breed of tech bro oligarchs
– a new super-class of #broligarchs.In Trump’s America, there will be hard choices for everyone, including the billionaires. --
Though it may be less hard for them.Vance has said he wants to #deregulate crypto and
unshackle AI.He’s said he’d #dismantle Biden’s attempts to place safeguards around AI development.
And while he has it in for the #legacy #monopolies of Google and Facebook
– the platforms that his ideological bedfellows in the “new right” see as part of the “censorship industrial complex” suffocating rightwing speech
– Silicon Valley is betting on a gloves-off, regulation-free, pro-business #goldrush.Another Peter Thiel acolyte was on stage at the Republican National Convention last week,
electrifying the crowd:
#Hulk #Hogan.Hogan is less well known as one of Thiel’s longterm bets, though in some ways he’s even more instructive than Vance.
In 2007, the online magazine #Gawker outed Thiel and ran a series of unflattering articles about him.
It took him years, but he ultimately got his revenge, covertly funding Hulk Hogan to the tune of $10m to sue the publication for invasion of privacy and forcing it into #bankruptcy.
On stage at the RNC, the wrestler, a permatanned orange, ripped off his shirt for the man who increasingly looks like he’ll be America’s next president.
Or, if JD Vance, is correct, the man who will prove to be the #Caesar he says America needs.
A man who he has already urged to fire the nation’s civil servants to
💥 “replace them with our people”,
to defy the courts and rule his own way.Or, to put this in simple terms:
to foment a #coup.Thiel knows what every investor knows. That a crisis is an opportunity.
And that if Trump succeeds in tearing up the federal administration,
there is not only billions to be made in the ensuing market #turmoil but that a new breed of oligarchs,
close to Caesar’s throne, will be the first to share the spoils.And chief among them will be Thiel.
It’s not a stretch to see how #Palantir, his data-mining company
– that under the Conservatives got its teeth into the NHS
– will profile and surveil and target Caesar’s enemies.And Thiel’s track record in winning, in successfully betting on the longest of odds, on biding his time, is maybe the most chilling of all the factors in a fortnight that has started to feel like the start of a run on the bank.
Biden’s debate disaster,
Trump’s victorious assassination survival,
and now Silicon Valley’s ascension to the presidential ticket.The broligarchs have made their move
– and the rest of us need to understand exactly what that means.#tech #elite #Sandberg #Page #Bezos #Peter #Thiel #tech #bro #Vance #Elon #Musk #Marc #Andreessen #Ben #Horowitz #Winklevoss #Chamath #Palihapitiya #David #Sacks #Palantir #Vance #Mithril #Capital #Narya #Capital
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I need to follow more interesting people. Any recommendations?
I'm interested in #Tech, #monopolies, #UKPolitics, #socialism, #Sociology, #SocialJustice, #restorativejustive, #pacifism, #geopolitics, #HumanRights, #migrantRights, #Palestine, #economics, #MMT, #Philosophy, #Realism, #leftism, #nonviolence, #psychology, #management, #systemsdesign, #unions, #WorkerRights, #solidarity, #intersectionality, #history, #heterodox views, anti-#techhype etc. and probably a fair few other things.
🙏