The current era of worldwide communication and trade has given raise to absolutely humongous international private megacorporations with literally hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions, of active customers, who are in some aspects for all intents and purposes more powerful than most governments, at least when it comes to free constitutional countries.
These giant megacorporations could for all intents and purposes be considered "quasi-governmental": Not only do they have hundreds of millions of people, sometimes even billions of people, as their customers (which is way more than the majority of actual countries), but often the services provided by these megacorporations are not just inconsequential nor discardable or replaceable at a whim.
Indeed, when it comes to several of these megacorporations, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of smaller companies, as well as their millions and millions of employees, heavily depend on the services provided by these megacorporations for their day-to-day operations, work and business. These services are used for communication within the company, storing data and assets, and outright part of their daily workflow, as well as communication and dealing with other companies and customers. We have become a world where if all these online services provided by these giant megacorporations were to be suddenly removed, the world would face an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions because the day-to-day operations of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of smaller companies would be severely disrupted and hindered.
Moreover, the influence of these giant international megacorporations extends to countless private citizens as well, as many of them use these online services in their daily lives, such as for communication, organizing events and so on. While in this case a complete removal of these online services would not be equally disrupting and catastrophic as in the case of companies, it would still be quite a blow to the daily lives of millions of people, completely cutting off their ability to communicate with family and friends as well as participate in many activities (in some cases even relevant to their living).
Thus, these giant international megacorporations have an enormous amount of power in their hands. Their services could well be compared to the services provided by governments: Where governments provide services like roads, public transportation and law enforcement, these megacorporations provide services like online communication, data storage and sharing, team workflow management and organization, and so on. In both cases a disruption of these services could be quite catastrophic to the daily lives of millions of people and smaller companies.
In other words, in some aspects these megacorporations could well be compared to governments on their own rights. Governments that control the lives and living conditions of and provide essential services to hundreds of millions, even billions of people.
There are a huge differences between actual governments, at least when it comes to free constitutional countries, and these giant megacorporations, though. For example:
- Actual governments cannot censor your speech and expression of opinions, nor can they restrict your ability to communicate with other people by using the services provided by the government. These megacorporations can.
- Governments cannot appropriate, confiscate or destroy your property, even when said property is under the jurisdiction of those governments, without a good legal and constitutional reason to do so. These megacorporations can, for whatever reason they want, or no reason at all.
- The people running the government and making laws and regulations are elected by the people. They are also public personas, known to the public who elected them, and are accountable to them. The people running the megacorporations are all unelected and unaccountable, and in the vast majority of cases are anonymous and unknown to the public whose lives those unelected people have power over.
- Governments, especially law enforcement and the judicial system, has to strictly follow the law when judging citizens and assigning punishment to them. Punishment cannot be imposed arbitrarily and on a whim, and must always follow the law and the burden of proof is on the government to prove that the citizen is guilty of a crime or infraction. The megacorporations, however, can punish their customers (eg. restrict and limit their access, remove their content, or outright ban them) for whatever reason they want, at a complete whim, without having to follow any rules or regulations, not even the ones that the megacorporation itself has created, and they can do so with complete impunity and without accountability. The megacorporation has no burden of proof, no duty to prove the customer guilty of a punishable infraction.
- When accused of a crime or infraction by a government, citizens have the absolute right to defend themselves, to present their case, and for this defense to be heard and fairly evaluated by a judge and, in some cases, even an impartial jury. Citizens have the absolute right to face their accusers and know exactly who is accusing, who is prosecuting and who is judging. In the case of megacorporations, however, customers are most usually not provided any means to defend themselves, to present their case, nor to have it heard and evaluated by impartial judges and juries. The people behind the scenes doing the judging and imposing the punishments are almost always completely and purposefully anonymous and unaccountable, and customers have no right to face their accusers.
- In the case of governments, the law always imposes maximum penalties for crimes and infractions, and these cannot be exceeded. In the case of megacorporations, however, there are almost never any established maximum penalties, and the anonymous faceless unaccountable "judges" behind the scenes can impose any penalties they want at their own whim, even if it's completely disproportional to the severity of the infraction (such as permanently banning someone for merely using a slightly inappropriate word.)
- In most governments there's an appeal process in place to complain about a judgment that's seen as unfair, excessive or even unlawful. In the case of megacorporations there's almost never any appeal process in place, and even in the rare cases that there are, the process is equally unfair as the judging process itself (in other words, it's dealt with by anonymous faceless unaccountable people behind the scenes, possibly even the same person who imposed the penalty in the first place.) Even if someone was banned for something that was in no way against the rules established by the megacorporation, there's usually no appeal process to reverse the ban (and even if there is, there's absolutely no guarantee that anybody will pay any attention to it.)
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