What upsets me is less the fraudsters, though they are bad as you outline, but just the setup.
Google is in unilateral control of a whole pile of things. Some of them are more critical than others - in particular, if you use a GMail address or Google account to identify yourself to third parties, Google has you by the balls. It has billions of people by the balls. At any time, they could completely ruin your digital life. They don't even need a reason. If they lock you out, you have no way to get their actual attention, or to reverse their decision.
That's coercive power. The need of Google "customers" to keep in Google's good books because it can ruin their day at the flick of a switch is a massive boon for Google.
The power of scammers to defraud local shops pales into insignificance by comparison. And yet, we spend disproportionate amounts of time going after petty crooks, rather than directly addressing large corporations who wield enormous power to enrich themselves with little-to-no blowback. They can pay for the best lawyers on the planet to stretch out and thwart lawsuits and regulatory meetings. They are more powerful than us, and we need to reverse that - unless basically we give up and let them rule us with unchecked power?
A society where everyone feels helpless against a tyrannical ruler is bad, so os one where they can't trust their neighbours. I don't know if they're comparable but I'd prefer neither. I'd like thieves and scammers prosecuted, I'd also like large corporations regulated to within an inch of their lives.
Google is in unilateral control of a whole pile of things. Some of them are more critical than others - in particular, if you use a GMail address or Google account to identify yourself to third parties, Google has you by the balls. It has billions of people by the balls. At any time, they could completely ruin your digital life. They don't even need a reason. If they lock you out, you have no way to get their actual attention, or to reverse their decision.
That's coercive power. The need of Google "customers" to keep in Google's good books because it can ruin their day at the flick of a switch is a massive boon for Google.
The power of scammers to defraud local shops pales into insignificance by comparison. And yet, we spend disproportionate amounts of time going after petty crooks, rather than directly addressing large corporations who wield enormous power to enrich themselves with little-to-no blowback. They can pay for the best lawyers on the planet to stretch out and thwart lawsuits and regulatory meetings. They are more powerful than us, and we need to reverse that - unless basically we give up and let them rule us with unchecked power?
A society where everyone feels helpless against a tyrannical ruler is bad, so os one where they can't trust their neighbours. I don't know if they're comparable but I'd prefer neither. I'd like thieves and scammers prosecuted, I'd also like large corporations regulated to within an inch of their lives.