You want ethical alternatives? Let’s build a campus where folks can work on them without worrying about how to exist day-to-day (or fund their early-stage development like VC does for surveillance capitalism).
The extent of what public funding is doing today is “Oh, looks like you’ve got some alternative functional, let’s pay you to add Feature X to it.”
Better than nothing?
Sure.
Best we can do?
Not by a longshot.
https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/
Aral Balkan · The Future of Internet Regulation at the European ParliamentA brief write-up of my talk at the EU Parliament last week with embedded videos of my talk and a link to my slides.
Something like "Universal Innovation Income" would be nice: A fixed sum to pay for your apartment and your bowl of ramen, and in exchange you can focus on realizing your ideas.