Feels like it's getting worse too. For example, things like Google Home and Alexa discourage choice. "Order me a pizza" means they are now either kingmakers in the space, or incented to open their own pizza business. I'm not a fan of big government, but at some point depending solely on their goodwill seems dangerous.
"order me a pizza from domino's." "order me a pizza from papa john's."
Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
41–50 of 352 posts
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet, only very large companies are able to make a certain class of investments in infrastructure and services — that push technology and society forward as a whole — that small to mid companies due to lack of capacity never could, and governments due to lack of vision and political will never would.
That's true, but it's not clear which way the causality runs. If wealth were more evenly distributed, ordinary people could pool their resources to make the same investments. They can't do that now because they have no disposable income to invest.
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet, only very large companies are able to make a certain class of investments in infrastructure and services — that push technology and society forward as a whole — that small to mid companies due to lack of capacity never could, and governments due to lack of vision and political will never would.
That's true, but it's not clear which way the causality runs. If wealth were more evenly distributed, ordinary people could pool their resources to make the same investments. They can't do that now because they have no disposable income to invest.
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#44Feels like it's getting worse too. For example, things like Google Home and Alexa discourage choice. "Order me a pizza" means they are now either kingmakers in the space, or incented to open their own pizza business. I'm not a fan of big government, but at some point depending solely on their goodwill seems dangerous.
If using a virtual assistant for ordering, I'd instruct Alexa (or Google or Siri) to order a specific pizza in a specific size from a specific pizza delivery. And if not satisfied with the result of a request, I'd want to be able to specify: "Never order again from the delivery you used last." - or I'd never use the assistant for this task again.
But most likely, I'd just order by hand or phone (instead of voice assistant) as long as I can't tell the voice assistant to just order "my standard pizza" based on my order history.
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#45Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#46I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy. If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value t…
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#47I am ultimately skeptical of companies that get all of their revenue from advertising and who fail to make money from sales of products. The value of online advertising is massively inflated. Of the tech giants, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft seem to be in the best shape at the moment. They make their money from selling real products and services to real end users. Amazon is strong but not unbeatable. Walmart in partic…
> Microsoft's wins are hard fought and fair Was giving Internet Explorer away for free along with Windows and bankrupting Netscape fair ?
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#48I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy. If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value t…
There is no reason for breaking up Google or Facebook. Their only monopoly is over advertising, and most people don't care about that. Advertising isn't a thing people crave.
If anything, break up the ISPs like Comcast!!
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#49I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy. If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value t…
do you have any evidence that your suggestions will actually improve the consumer experience or are you just suggesting killing businesses because of a gut feeling and some anti corporate sentiment? >If we let monopolies take over, then the economy of the world will start to mirror the economies within these large corporations. None of these companies can be said to be monopolies. > We will gradually lose freedom of…
Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?
#50Regulation only makes the largest companies that much more untouchable. Why not invest what would have been spent on regulation instead on education? That way the next pioneer could be fostered. Or invest in subsidies for health and wellness and food programs so the next Zuckerberg doesn't go hungry and can have the luxury to innovate (terrible analogy since he came from a middle class family but still). Or if you do…