Hi, we're a tech startup run by libertarian Silicon Valley tech bros.

We're not a newspaper, we're a content portal.
We're not a taxi service, we're a ride sharing app.
We're not a pay TV service, we're a streaming platform.
We're not a department store, we're an e-commerce marketplace.
We're not a financial services firm, we're crypto.
We're not a space agency, we're a group of visionaries who are totally going to Mars next year.
We're not a copywriting and graphic design agency, we're a large language model generative AI platform.

Oh sure, we compete against those established businesses. We basically provide the same goods and services.

But we're totally not those things. At least from a legal and PR standpoint.

And that means all the laws and regulations that have built up over the decades around those industries don't apply to us.

Things like consumer protections, privacy protections, minimum wage laws, local content requirements, safety regulations, environmental protections... They totally don't apply to us.

Even copyright laws — as long as we're talking about everyone else's intellectual property.

We're going to move fast and break things — and then externalise the costs of the things we break.

We've also raised several billion in VC funding, and we'll sell our products below cost — even give them away for free for a time — until we run our competition out of the market.

Once we have a near monopoly, we'll enshitify the hell out of our service and jack up prices.

You won't believe what you agreed to in our terms of service agreement.

We may also be secretly hoarding your personal information. We know who you are, we know where you work, we know where you live. But you can trust us.

By the time the regulators and the general public catch on to what we're doing, we will have well and truly moved on to our next grift.

By the way, don't forget to check out our latest innovation. It's the Uber of toothpaste!

#startup #business #tech #technology @technology

@ajsadauskas @technology These guys are not "libertarians", at all. They are, in fact, the antithesis of libertarian. They are authoritarians who believe in liberty only for themselves.

@gcvsa @ajsadauskas @technology I suppose that depends on your definition of “libertarian”, but in reality it is proven time and again that the pipeline from libertarianism to fascism is both short and quite linear.

https://medium.com/discourse/the-libertarian-to-fascist-pipeline-is-shorter-than-you-think-2f2a98b2690e

@bitbear @ajsadauskas @technology Of course it is, because most of those people never really had any critical interest in Liberty. What they were looking for was "license". The vast majority of people self-identifying as "libertarian" are actually the antithesis. They were always fascists and other assorted authoritarians and totalitarians, to begin with.

When the subject of Liberty arises, the way to distinguish between actual libertarians and false libertarians is to ask, "Liberty for whom?"

@bitbear @ajsadauskas @technology If the answer is not "Liberty for All", then you are not speaking to a libertarian, you are speaking to a fascist. "Liberty for some" is an oxymoron.

@bitbear @ajsadauskas @technology I don't care how many brain-dead, knee-jerk lefties claim libertarianism is a right-wing ideology, and I will not concede the field to fascists wishing to falsely claim Liberty as their purview. The basis of Liberty is and can only be Equality. Those who claim otherwise are simply wrong, or evil.

We must be Free, because we are all Equal in dignity. No other definition of Liberty is self-consistent.

@bitbear @ajsadauskas @technology It's important to understand that Fascism is the ideology of "blood and soil".
@bitbear @ajsadauskas @technology If you want to learn about what actual libertarianism is, I'd be happy to discuss it. If you want to spout nonsense at me, I have better things to do with my time.