KorematsuFred

I will be able to tell you in a moment as I am installing it at the moment.

Brilliant summary. I would need a VPN mostly to visit some sites while spoofing my location, testing my competitions ux in other countries etc.

I can also see because of Mozilla's reputation employers offering these VPN free of cost to their employees.

These are precisely the areas where government has a role to play but more often than not, this is precisely where FTC, FCC and rest of the alphabet soup seems to fail.

If you government pays for it someone in Washington would. Ideally (and how it happens today to some extent) this much be determined by market.

PS: Note how many folks on HN are making fun of Gender Studies course. This is a great signal for any young kid not to enter that course.

The demand for subsidization of college education is coming from very woke academics who want more taxpayer money for their "woke programs".

College education in USA is ridiculously cheap if you are not looking at top colleges. Plenty of universities in silicon valley which can give you a wide array of useful degrees for very affordable price. Affordable = You can pay your student loans within 2 years of gainful employment post degree.

I have been a party to some discussion around the laws with mid level government officials and this was a bit like an episode of Yes Minister.

One of the government consultants spoke about "Data sovereignty". When someone asked what it meant he spoke for like 10 minutes without actually answering the question. "Data of Indians must belong to Indians", "Data is the gold of modern world" he then referred to various international reports without actually telling what those reports say.

"We must protect our citizens data" one official said as others nodded in agreement. What they imagined here (I think) was data sitting on a hard drive and protected by people with guns creating a parameter around it.

The files of these regulations moved across many tables and many offices. I am told the real estate companies in India had a big role and influence on these regulations.

Yes, ultimately it is a ridiculous law that does not help anyone. It does not protect anything.

American telecom industry has done much better after US government ended government granted monopoly to bell labs. Plenty of literature on that topic actually. Same for aviation.

Whatever bad things you see with ATT and Comcast are actually a direct result of city granted monopolies which will likely be ended by Musk's Starlink sooner or later.

> I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS.

This is an extremist view and basically advocating theft. I do not think IRS has competence to build and run a complex software system.

> Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country

That is debatable.

> There's literally no upside, none at all. They have intentionally sabotaged tax filing and leeched off the people by corruptly inserting themselves as middlemen

They have not inserted themselves anywhere. You are free to use CPA or do all the paperwork yourself and save yourself $70 bucks.

I find this criticism somewhat weird. It is very common for companies or even individuals to promote and support policies that benefit themselves. Intuit is seeking self interest here. But why would IRS and our elected representatives cave in ? Are these people so clueless or unethical that they do not care about their constituents anymore ? And if that is the case I don't see how anyone can bell the intuit's cat.

I remember that John McAfee was a strong supporter of prostitution. In one of the Libertarian party debates he said he is the most qualified person to support this issue because he married a prostitute.

McAfee represented the old west styled "good outlaw" stereotype. Sadly, their times has passed away.

I have not worked as a janitor but I have done menial work far worse than mopping a floor for assured hourly rate.

Being poor sucks everywhere but it sucks less in USA.

My claim is not that being janitor is some kind of gold standard or aspiration in USA. My point is that even such a very low skilled job is good enough to help you survive. You will probably suffer a lot but yet it is way way better than being completely jobless on streets.

Janitor is also not a job for life, it is mostly a stepping stone for something bigger and a lot A LOT of americans do this every single year. Something you will rarely see outside of USA.

I made no such assumption. When I moved to USA from India I would have happily moved in as Janiter. Life in USA as a janiter is way way better than a middle class person in India.

> That wouldn't even make sense if freedom of speech weren't a general concept.

Free speech as a general concept is irrelevant in the eyes of law unless you have some specific law governing the specific scenarios. (Employees being punished for how they voted in general election.)

Free speech could be a virtue but it is a virtue like "not lying". It is perfectly legal to lie in many circumstances.