>Basically, being a rich public company provides legal advantages when the US government has similar goals.

This has always been the case. It's why lots of us who came up in the 80s and 90s embraced the "fuck corporations" and "information wants to be free" zeitgeist of the times.

It's also why the corporate bootlicking on this site is so grating at times. IDK, maybe I'm the only one but it seems like the veneer has worn off and over the last couple years I've realized HN is "special", not because of the reasons its proponents will recite but because it's where you come to post about the interesting technical challenges you solved while designing a system that goes down to the corner store and buys Hitler a pack of his favorite smokes and everyone laps that up.