The New Gilded Age

[jolly rancher]

I just got a text from my cell provider stating that if I continued my service with them that as of 05/05/2021 I would be agreeing to their new terms of service. I thought “no big deal“ as companies do change their terms from time to time but then I read further and discovered that one of the changes was that as a customer I was agreeing to forfeit my rights to ask for a jury trial and / or be a part of a class action law suit if a dispute arose between this major communications / entertainment corporation and myself. So if this corporation decides to take my money and provide poor service, sell my personal data or otherwise cause my personal data to be made available to another third party without my permission my only recourse would be as the corporation states “individual arbitration“. This makes me wonder what is hidden in all of the multitude of “service agreements“ that we as consumers accept on a daily basis. It is getting so that all facets of our lives are being controlled by gigantic multi-national corporations who continue to monopolize the industries that the average person needs to function with little recourse provided to we the bottom 99%. One would hope the government would do something to breakup these monopolies as was done at the end of the last gilded age over 100 years ago but I am not feeling it in this new gilded age.

 

[WebSnyper]

One would hope the government would do something to breakup these monopolies as was done at the end of the last gilded age over 100 years ago but I am not feeling it in this new gilded age.

So you'd rather the govt get involved...

 

[Ark]

So you'd rather the govt get involved...

Access to the courts for redress of grievances between parties is a basic civil liberty, should the government not protect it?

 

[WebSnyper]

Access to the courts for redress of grievances between parties is a basic civil liberty, should the government not protect it?

He was talking in that last sentence about govt breaking up companies. That's was what my comment was in regards to. Not a fan.

I'm not against access to the courts, but you have a choice to not enter into that contract... besides, not like you are going to challenge the multi million dollar company on your own most of the time. Maybe a class action, and if so, the arbitration requirement could possibly get thrown out.

 

[Ark]

He was talking in that last sentence about govt breaking up companies. That's was what my comment was in regards to. Not a fan.

I'm not against access to the courts, but you have a choice to not enter into that contract... besides, not like you are going to challenge the multi million dollar company on your own most of the time. Maybe a class action, and if so, the arbitration requirement could possibly get thrown out.

The issue being that due to monopoly/oligopoly conditions, you really don't have a choice on whether you enter into that contract. These are indispensable utilities of modern life, most of the time only one or two companies are available to you, and they all use that massive power differential to force you to sign away your access to the courts if you ever have a grievance with them.

I don't believe that's an acceptable state of affairs. The courts exist as the final venue in this country where an average American and a large corporation can argue on an even field. Why should the corporation be shielded from being called into court when the average American is not?

You either have to break them up until there is sufficient competition that better options are available, or you have to disallow companies from using size and market share to coerce customers into signing away basic liberties. Opposing this kind of crony capitalism =/= advocating for socialism.