On a side note: the author of this post is an EU focused reporter who echoes every anti google sentimente coming from there -> she is linking to the twitter of the guy who runs the PR for the media lobbying cartel in DC that lobbies against google -> and he in turn is posting a clip of the former state AG now senator that regularly attacks/sues google.
> Discovery in high-profile cases will wind up resulting in a gigantic PR disaster, which means that the company settles for basically whatever damages the aggrieved employee asks for.
Yes, they are a commodity, so either they can invest in their education and skills to make themselves more valuable or make it easier for companies to take on more of that "commodity".
A stronger safety net that would allow unemployment workers to acquire new skill is a much better social endeavor than antiquated labor unions.
1. I can't take seriously someone who writes "the cost of injustice" in this context.
2. When unions muddle the machinations of corporate management and production ultimately shutting the whole thing down surely they will be happy about the power balance they achieved.
In a free market an employee's own abilities and the dynamism of the economy determines their value. So the trick is to invest in one's education and coming up with policies that keep the economy chugging at a healthy pace, labor unions is not such a policy.
The reason "auxiliary" workers get a raw deal in this country is that health insurance is dealt through employers via a terrible WW2 era tax incentive.
If companies didn't get on the hook for providing health insurance they would directly employ more people instead of using contractors.
So this is why I'm worried about labor unions in tech and the private sector in general; they are never the solution, and their lack isn't the cause to any of the described problems.
Whatever your thoughts about arbitration there is no denying that it's the quicker and cheaper method, what this unfortunate development accomplishes is enlarging the pool of well to do clients and plaintiffs for the lawyers to exploit.
In a related note: organized labor almost killed the US car industry, when economical foreign cars got popular, domestic car companies couldn't quickly make the necessary adjustments to compete with the foreign product largely because of the inertia of union agreements.
Labor unions are adversarial to change and innovation and especially in this era there is no place for them and hopefully automation will eradicate them completely, it's disheartening that many HN commenters would support such antiquated and inefficient agreements.
If I understand this correctly the videos in question are family videos uploaded and monetized by parents, and the issue is that perverts are commenting on them, right?
Invariably a small percentage of people are going to suck, it's the way of the world, what is YouTube or anyone to do about it? Are they now responsible for everyone who watches a publicly available video?
This brand of hysteria is the product of alarmism, and sensationalism regarding everything social media, it's gotten ridiculous when we blame theses platforms for all of humanity's failings and newspapers are advocating for censorship.
The media will always sensualize the tiniest flase positive/negative that will always exist, not because they don't understand how this stuff works but because generating outrage is their business model, and if they can show how their "journalism" can affect change by getting advertisers to drop one of their most hated rivals that's just gravy.
More like the next frontier in which legacy media companies are going to attempt to generate ill will towards internet companies and suggest they should apply censorship or be censored by governments.
It's quite the ecosystem.