[GTALUG] OT: How Superstar Companies Like Apple Are Killing America’s High-Tech Future

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: William Muriithi <william.muriithi at gmail.com>

Thanks for the feedback.  I wrote a long reply but I think that it was
more for my benefit than the readers so I've spiked it.

| In my opinion, his argument is apple and the like are bad for the 
| ecosystem because they take advantage of US and to be frank other 
| countries without giving back. There is another reason why apple can't 
| give dividends, it would trigger tax against that dividend. That is very 
| questionable for a company that's based close to university of 
| California, a school that used to get a lot of taxes and responsible to 
| lot of law research that apple is currently using.
| 
| To me, that was his main argument and in my opinion the biggest drive of 
| the current problems.

He doesn't come up with a way forward that would fix any of these
problems.  Fair enough.  But we're in the current situation due to a
certain regulatory and market regime.  This regime, in my opinion, is
largely better than the good old days.

Some observations seem to call out for fixes but that doesn't mean
that there are do-able fixes that solve the fundamental problem.  The
obvious fixes often have unintended consequences.

The good old days depended on stable corporations.  They were, in many
ways, oppresive.  Much of what most of the big corporations did no
longer needs doing.  And we don't remember the many small
corporations.