Apple's last smartphone arrived at stores this weekend and, according to the reports, the Ball of the ball is the iPhone 17 Pro Max. Customers want it for their advanced teleobjective, big screen and battery life. Investors want it to keep up with the jones. While Apple is still one of the most valuable technological companies in the world, there is a growing concern in Wall Street that the industry leader is left behind some of its rivals when it comes to artificial intelligence. Ideally, the new model addresses part of that talk.
Competition: The basis of a free market society. Without competition, innovation is suffocated and the choice becomes an illusion.
Case in question: before 1984, AT&T clients had to rent AT&T phones for their services. It sounds harmless until you realize through a series of acquisitions and changes in the regulatory rules, the telecommunications company could take control of 80% of all phones in the US. UU. This was not by accident. One of the company's first presidents, Theodore Vail, introduced a motto in 1907: “A system, a policy, universal service.” Vail was selling efficiency, but what AT&T finally acquired was an almost total control of how the Americans talked to each other. When Ronald Reagan was chosen in 1980, the only option that almost 80 million American homes stayed was to decide what type of AT&T phone rent.
When the courts broke the monopoly, we not only had more carriers to choose from; We also saw an explosion in innovation. That is what happens when the real choice is possible.
Within a week of the re -election of President Trump, the head of discovery of Warner Bros. David Zaslav said: “It is too early to know, but it can offer a rhythm of change and a consolidation opportunity that can be quite different, which would provide a real and real impact on this industry that is necessary.”
Then Skydance acquired Paramount, and Nexstar has his eyes in Tegna. More consolidation is expected in the media industry. What were once solid walls between the content, technology and distribution are falling apart, along with the modern infrastructure of the corporate media.
For industry leaders such as Zaslav, The Ellison family And other interested parties, chaos is an opportunity to increase profits under the appearance of efficiency. But for the rest of us, we have seen this story before, with AT&T when we were “free” to call, but only a centralized system.
Vail's seductive promise to make the use of the phone lead us to a monopoly. And this consolidation of the media threatens to lulled the country in a false sense of choice when it comes to freedom of expression. Of course, we may still have many channels to choose from, but the decision of what is appropriate to transmit, add online, publish or publish resides in the hands of some private citizens, then there is no real choice.
Not when it comes to freedom of expression.
The main reason why the founders like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin often cited the Roman philosopher Cicero, who defended freedom of expression, was that he warned against centralized power.
After the murder of Julio César, Cicero documented how the erosion of freedom of expression led to Rome away from a prosperous republic where a vigorous debate was encouraged to a repressive empire governed by a unique voice. A society where a worldview was the only acceptable. There were still elections, Cicero said, but without the freedom to criticize the government, the election was nothing more than an illusion.
The American founders also relied on the teachings of the French philosopher Montesquieu, who is attributed to the development of the three branches of the government. Preventing a consolidation of power was key to preventing tyranny, he warned in his work “the spirit of laws.”
“There is no freedom if the power to judge is not separated from the legislative and the executive,” he wrote in 1748.
The danger of the media being controlled by a few conglomerates are reflected in the destiny of the past centralized powers: the fall of the Roman Empire, the rupture of AT&T. The potential damage to innovation is a concern. Speech restriction is the much greater problem. This is because if the citizens only have an illusion of choice, then people only have an illusion of freedom.
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Perspectives
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Ideas expressed in the piece
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The author argues that the consolidation of the media fundamentally threatens freedom of expression by creating an illusion of choice while concentrating control in the hands of some private entities, resorting to the AT&T monopoly that once controlled 80% of US phones and forced customers to rent only AT & T teams until the courts broke the monopoly in the eighties.
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The competition serves as the essential basis of free markets and freedom of expression, and the author states that without a genuine competition, innovation stagnates and the choice becomes meaningless, as evidenced by the explosion of telecommunications innovation and the options that followed the breakdown of AT&T.
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The consolidation efforts of the current media, including the expansion plans of Warner Bros. Discovery, the Skydance Paramount's acquisition and the search for Tegna de Nexstar de Tegna, represent a dangerous tendency towards the centralization of the control of the media under the appearance of efficiency, with industry leaders such as David Zaslav Framing Consolidation. Real accelerated “when you have a primary increase to teachers. Profits.
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The historical precedent demonstrates the dangers of centralized power, with the author citing the transformation of the Roman Empire of a prosperous republic with a vigorous debate to a repressive system under singular control, as documented by Cicero, and referring to Montesquieu's warnings about the separation of powers as essential to prevent tyranny.
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The erosion of the significant election in the media represents a fundamental threat to democratic society, since by transmitting, adding, publishing and publishing decisions rest with some powerful entities, citizens remain alone with an illusion of freedom instead of a genuine democratic participation in the ideas market.
Different views on the subject
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Some government officials and media executives argue that regulatory supervision has legitimate purposes of public interest, and the president of the FCC, Brendan Carr, maintains that the transmission stations “have long retained the right not to issue national programs that believe they are inconsistent with the public interest, including the values of their local communities”[2][3].
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Certain political leaders see the consolidation of the media and regulatory action as beneficial for the country, with President Trump praising the recent media decisions as “great news for the United States” and encouraging additional restrictions on the programming of political comments[1][2].
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The interested parties of the industry argue that consolidation can provide the necessary efficiency and financial stability to media companies with difficulties, with large stations such as Nexstar and Sinclair arguing that the relaxed property rules and the expanded market reach of the market would provide positive impacts for the industry while looking for mergers and regulatory changes[1].
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Some media companies affirm their right to make content decisions based on commercial considerations and regulatory pressures, with entities such as Nexstar and Sinclair that demonstrate that corporate financial interests and regulatory compliance can justify programming changes even when they affect political speech.[1].
