“The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be,” he added.

This is a nazi discussing lebesraum.

communism involves the abolition of the government. If you want to know what America does to communist movements undefended by government look at Indonesia in 1965–66

it is a requirement if you want to be a very rich social democracy

Economic liberalization is a defense against the kind of economic warfare that Cuba has been subjected to. Those are really the only two options: play ball with capitalism to some extent, or get strangled by sanctions.

I’ve been speaking with other more informed communists and they’ve told me

Lol this reads like social engineering to shift perception of ingroup mores. I guess I’m paranoid after seeing that Atlantic Council whitepaper calling for greater control of the fediverse.

God-tier title

Hold onto it and talk about it at parties?

If someone else has the main video site on the internet, that is a beachhead for building a larger platform and challenging Google as a whole.

Hahaha… to own them we’d have to pay for them

We’re already fucking paying for them! I’ve made this point twice now.

My brother

I’m out of patience

of Google, not Youtube

That’s my whole point! Google can afford it. Even if YouTube showed zero ads and earned zero revenue Google could afford it.

If I want to support a small creator, I donate. I don’t feel bad about hurting the bottom line of one of the highest-earning companies in the world.

Even if YouTube runs at a deficit, it’s probably worthwhile for Google to control the main video hosting hub on the internet and keep competition out of the game.

So does shipping, etc.

Spending on shipping or manufacturing is a lot less discretionary than spending on advertising. You have broad leeway to advertise less or more, and past a certain point the main requirement is that you advertise as well as your competition. If Google shows fewer ads across the board, even half as many ads, you’re still in business.

What is your proposed alternative?

If you want to talk real life, they’re already raking in $60 billion a year in profit so I see no need for an alternative. If you want to talk hypotheticals, I think central back-end infrastructure like Google’s servers — and the data we put on them — should be publicly owned, with an open-source marketplace of front-end services we can use to access it. We should be able to browse YouTube with whatever site interfaces and suggestion algorithms we find most useful, not the ones most profitable to Google.

Blackrock owns 5% of Tesla

Blackrock’s clients own 5% of Tesla.

Blackrock dies tomorrow if they do anything other than what their clients expect of them. The sole purpose of Blackrock is to invest rich people’s money and maximize returns for them while managing risk. They have some leeway in how they do this, but only up to a point. They’re very good at what they do but they are ultimately replaceable.

Also, when I said “they own the entire fucking planet” in my original unedited comment — which I edited for tone before I saw your near-immediate response — I was referring both google and the companies that advertise through google, which is why I said “they all make enough money already.” All is plural. Google sells enough ads, and their client companies buy enough ads.

Also, Blackrock is an asset management company that handles other people’s money. Google earns 16 times more revenue than them.

I gave you both revenue and profit. Their revenue was $280 billion, not $73 billion. $73 billion was their profit before tax, and $60 billion was profit after tax. $13 billion, the difference, was their income tax.

they took $470 million in losses

According to the Credit Suisse report, which also massively contradicted Google’s own earnings reports, lowballing YouTube’s revenue by a factor of ten iirc.

that…what?

Advertising costs money. To cover that cost, companies charge us more for their goods and services. I don’t know what is baffling to you about this.

Ads are a way for everyone to contribute a super small amount to keep the thing you’re on, online.

In 2022 Google grossed around $280 billion, and only around 10% of that from Youtube. Before tax they profited around $73 billion, and after tax around $60 billion. They’re doing fine selling ads.

And we paid all of that $280 billion, even those of us with adblockers, because companies charge us more to cover their marketing costs. I pay for google every time I pull out my credit card.

I don’t feel like watching ads to convince even more companies to pay google to advertise to me and buy my data. They’re all making enough money already, and every year they spend less of it on wages or tax for society to function. Their money goes to stock buybacks, payouts to their major shareholders, executive bonuses, and think tanks to push policies and social trends that hurt all of us.

It really doesn’t. A lot of the time they’re flippant not because they have no interest in discussion but because so many libs dismiss and sneer at their vilified and misunderstood political positions — I’ve seen people literally assume they’re Trump supporters or Putin supporters and go around saying so to anyone who asks — and it makes discussion frustrating or outright impossible. Conveying a lot of background information to someone who is hostile and not listening is difficult. So they’re flippant, and it becomes a vicious cycle.

practically the complete IDF was in the West Bank at that time

anyone have sources or more info on this? to what extent is this true?

if the US government cared about protecting Palestinians I don’t think we would be in this situation

These people have no interest in good faith arguments

This is such an obnoxious sweeping statement.

What are you saying?

I know I’m dreaming here, but central internet services like google search and youtube should be utilities controlled by the public.

The video pool that Youtube draws from, generated by the public, should be public property, hosted on public servers, internationalized somehow, with an opensource market of frontend interfaces and algorithms to deliver that content to people, instead of one youtube algorithm and one interface designed to meet the profit incentives of google. People should be free to use the algorithm and interface they find most useful.

that’s pretty much only happening in China

To my knowledge, pretty much all of the wealth gains have been in China.

Socialism means the state has social support networks, but largely works under capitalist rules

Not quite! What you’re describing is “social democracy” — capitalism with safety nets, where production is still controlled by owners rather than workers. “Socialism” means worker control of production. If we want to be accurate with our terms, “Nordic socialism” should really be called “Nordic social democracy.”

“Communism” is more of a dream for the future. It refers to a classless, stateless society where everyone has what they need and no one is exploited. “To each according to their need, from each according to their ability.” No nation has seriously attempted this, because if you overthrow your rich capitalist overlords and then immediately dissolve your state, the next day you’ll be bombed and invaded and the rich capitalists will be right back in power. That, and also all successful socialist revolutions have occurred in very poor countries, and their first priority after the revolution is usually to rapidly develop and industrialize, which tends to require a strong central power.

In practice, when a state labels itself “communist” it means they are committed to achieving a communist future, and in the meantime to fending off capitalists while developing their economies, institutions, and cultural norms. The authoritarianism of post-revolutionary communist states is meant to serve those purposes.