schubidubiduba

Sure, but if the customer is tax-funded and pays a lot more than the product is worth, that's just a hidden subsidy.

And yes Anti-Trust laws and enforcement exist in theory, and occasionally get applied, leading to small fines. Which is in line with what I wrote. Anti-Trust action has been severely lacking, and I assume that was by design.

I don't think American big tech pays their workers that much more once you factor in tax and social security contributions of the employer, actual hours worked (vs. vacation and sick days taken) etc. etc.

Nobody was talking about sales tax.

The collusion of US big tech with Ireland to pay very little taxes is well documented. You mention many unrelated facts that are mostly irrelevant to the discussion.

Further, America has definitely been pumping money into Microsoft, for instance with hefty defense and public administration contracts. It is incredibly naive to believe that the US allowed the Microsoft monopoly to corner the office market without the opportunity of establishing a digital hegemony being a significant factor.

The situation is, in fact, quite alike to chinese state-sponsored companies. The main difference being the tone of media coverage about it in the western world.

Because they can (partially) legally be held liable to the content of these pages. And because AI-translations often still feel cheap and unnatural

It's not just English. Some words exist in normal english and law english, and yet have entirely different meanings. You have to study to understand the meanings. You have to study to understand the contexts in which words appear and in which they are even relevant.

You severely underestimate the market capture of the Google Play Store, the related network effects, their control over Android OS, and their power and motivation to use all of that to prevent any competition from ever getting traction.

F-Droid is not doing too bad. And yet, the vast majority of people will never ever use it after Google Play implenents their developer verification scare screens.

None of your examples succeeded in an environment that was even remotely as hostile, neither Windows nor Palm could have done what Google does today, without risking a fatal user backlash.

It's one thing for something to be thinkable and imaginable. Of course you can imagine Google Play getting dethroned. It's just so incredibly unlikely to happen without regulatory antitrust intervention that it is pointless to consider seriously.

All of the alternative stores are systematically disadvantaged time and time again due to Google's and Apple's near-absokute control over their respective OS. They are as anti-competitive as they are allowed to be. And the US seems incapable or unwilling to rein them in.

I'm sure Microsoft and Apple could have been able to afford a cheap office given their parents' generous financing.

And, regarding the original topic, we wouldn't have many of these privacy issues if the US had not strategically failed to regulate its obnoxious tech monopolies

I'm sure the employees are (rightfully) worried. However, that does not at all preclude hidden motivations of the CEO behind acquiescing such worries.

It should be noted that GrapheneOS had similar criticisms about almost every smartphone vendor, including Motorola before their upcoming cooperation IIRC.

Most of their criticisms are valid, but they seem to be absolutely unwilling to make any compromise at all.

Not sure if they want to protect their brand, if any of those criticised issues would increase the work needed by them significantly, or why they are like that.

But I would prefer to have a slightly less secure GrapheneOS on many phones, that helps many many more users than just Pixel owners, over the current all or nothing situation.

I am running that on a single 6000 96GB with 4-bit quants for both weights and PLE table. Needs just 32GB RAM and fits snugly into the 96GB VRAM with KV cache equalling ~300k context tokens. Not sure if I quantized the KV

They are certainly trying to

These laws apply to US companies in a more limited way because if we fine them too much they complain to US government that other countries have laws they have to follow. And then the US government intervenes to protect their money and data/intelligence extraction machinery (big tech companies). Usually with at least partial success.

That just sounds like exactly the same as the US companies are doing with their government (trying to get a lot of money out of them)

Corporations being only "groups of people" is kind of wishful thinking. They are one cog in a large machinery that is steered by a few very rich people.

Corporations should not be absolved of criticism. But at the same time it makes little sense to put a hamster in hamster wheel and then blame him for running.

That's because browsers should be free. They are infrastructure, just like bridges. And nobody wants a bridge troll sitting on the single bridge crossing the internet river, demanding money from everyone.