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Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

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Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#151

Post by polishTar »

jfoutz wrote: post #102
devuo wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

Not quite sure i follow. Do you mean like self driving cars, neural networks, mapping the human genome, or perhaps the internet? I guess IC's might be a good example, but the air force was really the only buyer that could afford them. I dunno, maybe we're moving to a new model. the 20th century way seemed to be to pour massive amounts of money into research at universities, then commercialize whatever whatever happen…

> Corporations do interesting work, but they're sooooo resistant to change, it seems like their inventions always die on the vine.

Some do, others have been able to remain relevant for a very long time. Thankfully we have a societal mechanism to prune unproductive companies, it's called bankruptcy.

> Are you thinking google would be willing to risk their ad revenue for a cool new tech? Or microsoft their os/office money? or apple and phones? etc.

So far they have. Google for instance started its self driving car project in 2009, at the height of the recession. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to dismiss the project as wasteful spending when everybody else was tightening their belt.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#152

Post by 0x737368 »

crowbahr wrote: post #139
43224gg252 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze I think there are alternatives for all of those, many open source.

But none work together so seamlessly. I'm with that guy: the ease of life is amazing with Google. I'll buy movie tickets online then get an alert about driving conditions and when I need to leave to arrive on time. That's something your open source maps program can't do because it doesn't have access to my email. And if it did I wouldn't use it because it'd be sitting there combing my email constantly which isn't eff…

But you need to consider the amount of data Google is amassing from people using solely their services. And then sells that data to advertisers. If this trend continues eventually they'd be able to know more about you than even the closest of your friends.

Is this really such a great price to pay for your privacy? For it to be easier to look up your friend's phone number from your email list?

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#153

Post by friedman23 »

0x737368 wrote: post #146
friedman23 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats on your degree in econ. You would think that someone with a degree in econ would believe it wise to first establish what the negative externalities are and what externalities regulating away the existence of large business would produce before defending the idea of doing so. We already know that with the existence of Google we get free products like search, mail, video, etc. Do you have evidence that when we…

Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services, that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate. Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies, by allowing them grow even further everything would just turn in a way that would allow such companies to make even more money, whilst increasing the gap between the rich and the poor…

> Even if we assume that allowing Google to exist as a monopoly does bring better services

How is google even a monopoly? Bing exists, yahoo still exists. In Asia Google isn't even the most popular search engine.

Want me to show you how google is not a monopoly? A company with monopoly power would be able to raise the price of its service to the price the market can bear. If google put search behind a pay wall, Bing would destroy it in market share.

> that's a small price to pay for not having to be subjugated by a conglomerate.

So now you are not using economic arguments but appealing to emotion.

I just need to point this out

First you felt the need to off hand mention your (clearly undergraduate) degree in economics which had absolutely zero relevance to the discussion.

Secondly, you are using appeals to emotion without any basis in fact. "Google is an extremely successful company and we use them in so many things! They must be evil!"

Try using evidence. I'm not going to argue against your fear mongering only point out that like almost all fear mongering, it is not based on fact.

> Countries can already barely withstand pressure from big companies

There is absolutely zero evidence of this. None of your arguments are based on evidence. The US just fined Volkswagen billions of dollars. The EU is ready to fine Google billions of dollars. Apple paid japan hundreds millions of dollars in fines. All the banks responsible for the financial crisis in America and the EU paid hundreds of billions

> In many cases even better services because the prime objective is to make a program that would help the user, not make money for the company.

Again you have no evidence of this. If smaller businesses were able to provide better services people would be using dedicated email providers, not gmail. They would be using flickr instead of google and apple photos.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#154

Post by bmelton »

devuo wrote: post #116
lisper wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, but it misses the point. Capitalism and democracy work best when there is competition. Monopolies -- both economic and political -- generally lead to bad outcomes. When ultimate decision-making power becomes too unevenly distributed, it becomes very difficult to prevent monopolies from forming.

I agree, but then that's why we have governments and why monopolies are all but outlawed in most democratic countries.

I don't know about other countries, but in America, being a monopoly is not at all outlawed. The criminality associable to monopoly here is when a monopoly abuses their monopoly power.

If I am the only company in America that produces widget x, I have a de facto monopoly, but I am not guilty of anything until and unless I attempt to exert my monopolistic influence to prevent competitors from taking my market share. If I am a pure monopoly, then it's possible that just running a loss-leading sale could result in antitrust violations, but if I am not a monopoly, or if I am a minority provider of widget x, then loss-leading sales are a presumptively lawful activity.

Edit: I believe closeparen makes this point more precisely with his post in this same topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14528355

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#155

Post by wildmusings »

soared wrote: post #96
wildmusings wrote: post #7

I 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…

So you're skeptical of every TV station and radio station too?

Yes! I am. They are getting ravaged by the likes of Netflix and HBO.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#156

Post by anigbrowl »

devuo wrote: post #35
jondubois wrote: post #14

I 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…

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.

governments due to lack of vision and political will never would

Yes, remember that time General Motors sent humans to the moon?

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#157

Post by anigbrowl »

devuo wrote: post #105
akjetma wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not 'lack of vision and political will' that stymies government initiatives--that's some TED talk bs. and i shudder to think that we're necessarily dependent on the benevolence and 'vision' of large companies to drive society forward.

Then what does? Most of the innovation we have witnessed and enjoy in our society for the past 20-30 years has not been driven by governmental money or agencies but by private money.

Go read The Dictator's Handbook.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#158

Post by bmelton »

camillomiller wrote: post #99
devuo wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

They push society forward along THEIR agenda. That agenda can be the most open, inclusive and diverse agenda ever, but it's gonna be the agenda of a corporation nonetheless. In my ideal world, you know who should be in charge of such a push? American friends, please, breathe deeply: The State should.

I don't necessarily disagree with the premise, but I take pause at the notion that the American state does not have its own agenda.

We've seen the state infiltrate encryption standards to deliberately weaken them. We've seen the state deny and attempt to suppress dissident truths. We've seen the state spy on its citizenry using loopholes and non-standards. We've seen the state fund drug cartels, collude with the media to influence the public, pass cronyist legislation to benefit campaign donors, etc.

Why should their agenda be considered any less self-serving than that of a corporation's?

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#159

Post by anigbrowl »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #115
camillomiller wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They push society forward along THEIR agenda. That agenda can be the most open, inclusive and diverse agenda ever, but it's gonna be the agenda of a corporation nonetheless. In my ideal world, you know who should be in charge of such a push? American friends, please, breathe deeply: The State should.

I'm largely a social democrat, but LOL if you think the government would be even a quarter as competent as Google at pushing technology forward. Just read any description from people who've worked at both normal government IT shops (really anywhere that's not 18F or the USDS) and private industry how they feel about governmental technology culture and processes. Like okay, investing in infrastructure, like putting fi…

You're assuming our current goods and ills are somehow inherent. This is what happens when people don't study history.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#160

Post by 659087 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #115
camillomiller wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They push society forward along THEIR agenda. That agenda can be the most open, inclusive and diverse agenda ever, but it's gonna be the agenda of a corporation nonetheless. In my ideal world, you know who should be in charge of such a push? American friends, please, breathe deeply: The State should.

I'm largely a social democrat, but LOL if you think the government would be even a quarter as competent as Google at pushing technology forward. Just read any description from people who've worked at both normal government IT shops (really anywhere that's not 18F or the USDS) and private industry how they feel about governmental technology culture and processes. Like okay, investing in infrastructure, like putting fi…

Luckily for the government, Google's innovation in mass surveillance helps them fill in the gaps.
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