This is honestly an issue where I'm undecided- I do not think it it is at all healthy for one tech company like facebook to have such a lion share of social media, especially when it expands across different services- I remember lots of friends saying 'I hate facebook, there's no data privacy... I'm going to just use whatsapp' which sums up how people engage with the lack of competition.
Could you elaborate on what treating big companies like utilities would exactly involve? I am certainly open to that as a compromise solution if everyone is on board and it ends up being the simpler route.
I do worry about economies of scale, hence the very protectionist section 4 when generally I lean more on the free trade side of things (though not with China since they cheat). The objective of that section is to make sure that the new Atlasian tech sector is not simply captured by a bunch of foreign corporations, which would be even worse. Sillicon Valley is still a big contributor to the Atlasian economy after all; it's just that it would be better for everyone if those companies were all separate.
I don't agree that we'd be better off if they were all separate because their size provides convenience for most consumers. Youtube paired with Google means that the platform doesn't need to be profitable to continue existing, something that has immense positive cultural significance. It means I don't have to log into a separate Youtube account just to post a comment. The Youtube algorithm has introduced me to numerous videos I like, to the point I mainly don't actually search things - I just reload the home page and see what they bring up. Due to being logged in gmail I save time and effort in other areas.
Breaking all that up is bad. It's not going to help many people at the end of the day. Speaking as an user of these services, I don't think it'd be good for me. And restricting foreign companies from operating on Atlasian soil only makes it worse, by narrowing the range of options we'd have in the aftermath to a series of subpar options that are less valuable than the sum of their parts.
There's a reason they do this & it's not out of the kindness of their heart- if you're not paying for a product it's because you are the product. Youtube is made with ease of access, and with suggestions so that they can target certain content at you, get you to engage and most importantly get an accurate picture for the advertising they sell.
I think ease of access has to be weighted up with the lack of action on various pretty vile stuff from anti-vax conspiracies to neo-nazis & anti-semetic hate speech.
