Damn. I could really go for some freeze dried apples now. Fuck those things are good.

afaic, if you're in a community you should be expected to contribute
you're using their land and trees, picking the apples shouldn't allow you to hoard them away from others

Who says it's their trees and their land?

Rich people are not a concern if:
- They don't hoard wealth and let it sit in their account
- They don't use the funds to play God
- They don't try to eliminate competition in dirty ways

Hoarding Wealth isn't a problem.Using their funds to play god, as you put it, is only a problem with a complacent population....

what does the second point refer to?

And Yes, I am opposed to corporate protectionism.

Hoarding is a problem. If the funds do not participate in economy they screw up the value of the currency

If company A has been selling widgets for 20 years

and Company B starts selling widgets cheaper, Company A should have to compete with Company B.

if only govs would plug all loopholes allowing heavy tax optimizations (like the google does) they wouldn't have to specifically tax rich 😉

Or they can buy 51% of their stocks, and then just shut the competition down

Also disgusting.

But, of course, that's only a problem if the stocks trade publicly.

If it's privately held, you can guard against that.

or just phone the guys at the other company and agree to stay above a certain price
or advertise your products so differently that consumers can't compare properly

There is a myriad ways to undercut a startup with a big wealth

The main point I think is that we regulate wrong.

Our regulations are set to make it harder to compete

not to make it harder to monopolize.

then there's also sectors where infrastructure costs create natural monopolies (broadband, utilities)

Corporatism favors the big companies. Capitalism creates a more even playing field.

Any industry should be disruptable.

<:thonkraka:430185885720510475>

@RyeNorth Yup. You got it right.

Perhaps disallowing corporations to own intellectual property might help.

Specifically what comes to mind is the pharmaceutical industry.

IP is such a silly concept
owning ideas or concepts makes no sense

Part of the corruption in that field is that it's prohibitively expensive to compete, regardless of how easy a drug is to manufacture.

I can kind of get it for creative purposes

State should also do the kind of "baseline regulation" in some cases, i.e. offer the services at the low (but fair) price so that there would be a baseline and jacking prices up would be not viable for the private sector (unless they can offer some excellent addition that is worth more)

i get the argument that creators deserve credit
but that's not how IP law is structured

This sort of "soft regulation" works much better than any legislation does

I'm not so sure it would.

It lets market do its thing, but sets a limit

The State should not be competing in the market.

why not?

The state should be far more passive than it is.

if they can offer the same or better service at lower price, surely that's good

if the state is passive, it'll simply lose to the competition

@shinsoo Patent and copyright is just abused and misused. Does not mean those types of protections should not exist.