In 2013, when #Montreal was deep into its corruption self-investigation, we almost ran out of asphalt.
We'd made a new rule that anyone named during the Charbonneau commission's corruption inquiry was disqualified from being a vendor/supplier for the city.
The hitch was that all of the asphalt suppliers were named. Yes, *all* of them.
So we had to decide “run out of pothole-patching materials" or “continue doing business with corrupt suppliers”.
This is a lot like how big tech feels in 2025.
Sean Coates
in reply to Sean Coates • • •Twelve year old spoiler: #Montreal used the corrupt-suspect companies anyway. We had potholes to fill.
To me, this feels not so different from keeping my Facebook account for the beer groups, our business email on Google because of the spreadsheets/integrations, and even how @pluralistic talks about why he maintains his X/Twitter account.
It sucks, but there aren't alternatives that offer all of the same benefits (and I include “network of people" in this calculation).
cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/co…
Hubert Figuière
in reply to Sean Coates • • •Sean Coates
in reply to Hubert Figuière • • •@hub AFAIK the city didn't have an asphalt plant at the time. The linked article (in the reply) said that council voted to use the declared-corrupt suppliers.
Maybe there's an evolution I don't know about, though. 🤷♂️
Hubert Figuière
in reply to Sean Coates • • •Sean Coates
in reply to Hubert Figuière • • •