The vast, vast majority of Amazon's money over the years came from customers, not the Government. Without a dollar in government subsidy, they had billions and billions.
Government regulators:
Did not kick Alex Jones off Youtube. Google Did.
Did not kick Laura Loomer off Youtube. Google Did.
Did not kick Dave Cullen off Youtube. Google Did. Cullen is an Irish citizen and doesn't even dwell in the USA.
Did not kick Enrique Tarro or Alex Jones off their bank accounts. The banks did.
Did not kick Alex Jones, Loomer, etc. off Twitter. Twitter did.
Did not kick Parler off Servers. Amazon did.
Did not kick Gab off Paypal. Paypal did.
Did not kick Gab off Cloudfare. Cloudfare did.
And so forth. That they received a tax break, subsidy, or contract doesn't distract from these facts.
When railroads and standard oil was regulated - because they were monopolies that were gouging people - many people lived in rural areas, the schoolhouse was built personally by the farmers, the teacher was personally known to the inhabitants who hired him/her, and often education stopped around the 6th grade for most. Not much different than Little House on the Prairie style.
The problem with corporations is that the SCOTUS made up the law and declared property - pieces of paper - to be the near complete equivalent (not partial) of human beings. My car cannot give money to a political campaign, it's property. Why should corporations? The shareholders and executives can give money if they want.
I feel like you may be missing my point. Every example you have a bullet point next to doesn't have competition, because government regulates them. While government didn't kick Alex Jones off of youtube, google benefits greatly from government regulation, and government contracts.
Paypal doesn't have competition? It sure does. There are other payment processors. Gab could not find one that would do business with them. Why? The payment processors were threatened by other companies using their services and even banks and systems like VISA. Remember VISA/MC cutting off wikileaks donations?
Just like the Trump Camp had white shoe law firms quit on them. THEIR big powerful corporate customers told them they'd dump the Law Firm if they rep'd Trump.
AWS server farms have competition.
Matze of Parler said in a post he was told by other server farms that other Big Tech Companies pressured them not to provide services to Parler on pain of losing THEIR business. Gab had to build their own everything from scratch.
But it's not just Paypal and Amazon that blocked Gab. They got other payment processors and server farms to do the same.
These are private companies happily cutting off free speech, eliminating competition. They can do it because no other force can stop them.
I've also noticed a lot of companies from WaPo to Sports Franchises to Twitter don't even care about the money, only the power. Gilette and the NFL will insult their own major demographic - middle aged Males - to push a Political Line.
"The payment processors were threatened by other companies using their services and even banks and systems like VISA. "
My point is, why couldn't Gab have their own payment processing in an easy manner? Finance is one of the most regulated industries in existence. As I keep bringing up, KYC, and AML laws are MAJOR hurdles for competition to PayPal, and VISA. The currency itself is a regulation. All of these exist to keep competition out. Otherwise Wikileaks would just start their own payment processing, and to some degree they did with bitcoin, because bitcoin allows them to go around regulations.
"THEIR big powerful corporate customers told them they'd dump the Law Firm if they rep'd Trump."
What would they need these lawyers for if not to protect themselves from all the ridiculous government laws?
"AWS server farms have competition."
Yes, and they have multi billion dollar contracts with the government, so they are tax payer subsidized. As well as the retail side of the business is subsidized with tax breaks, and the USPS.
The vast, vast majority of Amazon's money over the years came from customers, not the Government. Without a dollar in government subsidy, they had billions and billions.
Government regulators:
And so forth. That they received a tax break, subsidy, or contract doesn't distract from these facts.
When railroads and standard oil was regulated - because they were monopolies that were gouging people - many people lived in rural areas, the schoolhouse was built personally by the farmers, the teacher was personally known to the inhabitants who hired him/her, and often education stopped around the 6th grade for most. Not much different than Little House on the Prairie style.
The problem with corporations is that the SCOTUS made up the law and declared property - pieces of paper - to be the near complete equivalent (not partial) of human beings. My car cannot give money to a political campaign, it's property. Why should corporations? The shareholders and executives can give money if they want.
They have become overmighty subjects.
I feel like you may be missing my point. Every example you have a bullet point next to doesn't have competition, because government regulates them. While government didn't kick Alex Jones off of youtube, google benefits greatly from government regulation, and government contracts.
Paypal doesn't have competition? It sure does. There are other payment processors. Gab could not find one that would do business with them. Why? The payment processors were threatened by other companies using their services and even banks and systems like VISA. Remember VISA/MC cutting off wikileaks donations?
Just like the Trump Camp had white shoe law firms quit on them. THEIR big powerful corporate customers told them they'd dump the Law Firm if they rep'd Trump.
AWS server farms have competition.
Matze of Parler said in a post he was told by other server farms that other Big Tech Companies pressured them not to provide services to Parler on pain of losing THEIR business. Gab had to build their own everything from scratch.
But it's not just Paypal and Amazon that blocked Gab. They got other payment processors and server farms to do the same.
These are private companies happily cutting off free speech, eliminating competition. They can do it because no other force can stop them.
I've also noticed a lot of companies from WaPo to Sports Franchises to Twitter don't even care about the money, only the power. Gilette and the NFL will insult their own major demographic - middle aged Males - to push a Political Line.
"The payment processors were threatened by other companies using their services and even banks and systems like VISA. "
My point is, why couldn't Gab have their own payment processing in an easy manner? Finance is one of the most regulated industries in existence. As I keep bringing up, KYC, and AML laws are MAJOR hurdles for competition to PayPal, and VISA. The currency itself is a regulation. All of these exist to keep competition out. Otherwise Wikileaks would just start their own payment processing, and to some degree they did with bitcoin, because bitcoin allows them to go around regulations.
"THEIR big powerful corporate customers told them they'd dump the Law Firm if they rep'd Trump."
What would they need these lawyers for if not to protect themselves from all the ridiculous government laws?
"AWS server farms have competition."
Yes, and they have multi billion dollar contracts with the government, so they are tax payer subsidized. As well as the retail side of the business is subsidized with tax breaks, and the USPS.