American tech giants are making life tough for startups • Hacker News Board

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#101

Post by orcdork » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 10:16 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #99

iteabagkevin2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t those points sound great for startups and workers? 1) We will give you a large sum of money for your startup. 2) we will pay our workers so much they won’t want to do a startup.

I have a hard time figuring out what to be angry about. One day we're upset at the evil capitalists for paying workers too little. Now I guess we're upset at the evil capitalists for paying people too much.

What about "evil capitalists" using their advantage unfairly to stifle & crush competition, keeping their profits high, while keeping salaries artificially deflated for the majority of workers.

But ok, let's just create this fantastical narrative that "paying workers too little" and "paying people too much" cannot possibly apply at the same time to different segments of the population.

Hell, let's even use the loaded phrase "evil capitalists", a great term if what we're looking for is to deftly avoid any real criticism of capitalism.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#102

Post by osrec » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #30

osrec wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think regulators realise we have a monopoly brewing once they see people buying Google branded milk from Googlemarts, having driven there in Googlemobiles, using traffic directions from... Google.

That's not a monopoly - a monopoly would be if for at minimum one of those things, you could only find a Google-controlled version.

I think it is monopolistic. If one company has so much influence in your life that they can direct you to their own products, so that you habitually start relying on them for almost anything, then they have the ability to develop a wide range of monopolies by influencing your choices. E.g. Google has a monopoly as a trusted source of all information - what's even stranger, is that they are seen as a non-interfering third party by most users - because of this, many other monopolies can emerge, because they have the ability to control "truth" and "popular opinion".

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#103

Post by alxlaz » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:20 AM UTC

pravinva wrote: post #86

isolli wrote: post #83

This article makes the case for government intervention [0]. The central thesis is that, had Microsoft not been sued for antitrust in the 90s and wary of yet another lawsuit, they would have killed Google in its infancy. Apparently anonymous sources in both companies confirmed this would have been a distinct possibility. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against...

Hypotheticals don't work in law. You don't punish someone who hasn't commited a crime.thats common law. Now if it were Europe style civil law, it would be different. Also if Google had died in its infancy, there's nothing that guarantees that another search engine would not not prop up. All great ideas come to fruition when the time is right. 'Search' was ready in 1999. Similarly many falsely believe that the interne…

> Now if it were Europe style civil law, it would be different.

We don't punish anyone for crimes that have not yet been committed either :-).

Microsoft weren't punished because they were going to be killed Google. They were punished for anti-competitive practices (specifically, for abusing their monopoly position), and they had to stop some of them. It's very likely that they would have killed Google in its infancy if they could have continued to implement these practices.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#104

Post by tannhaeuser » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:26 AM UTC

pravinva wrote: post #86

isolli wrote: post #83

This article makes the case for government intervention [0]. The central thesis is that, had Microsoft not been sued for antitrust in the 90s and wary of yet another lawsuit, they would have killed Google in its infancy. Apparently anonymous sources in both companies confirmed this would have been a distinct possibility. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against...

Hypotheticals don't work in law. You don't punish someone who hasn't commited a crime.thats common law. Now if it were Europe style civil law, it would be different. Also if Google had died in its infancy, there's nothing that guarantees that another search engine would not not prop up. All great ideas come to fruition when the time is right. 'Search' was ready in 1999. Similarly many falsely believe that the interne…

Civil law is one thing, and has btw nothing to do with crime and punishment - that would be criminal law.

Protecting a market from becoming a monopoly is another thing entirely; punishment isn't a category here but the overwhelming interest to enable everybody to participate in a market within reason. Shielding individuals from the law of the strong (as in the jungle) and the natural tendency for monopolies is the entire point for a society to begin with.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#105

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:32 AM UTC

orcdork wrote: post #101

Consultant32452 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time figuring out what to be angry about. One day we're upset at the evil capitalists for paying workers too little. Now I guess we're upset at the evil capitalists for paying people too much.

What about "evil capitalists" using their advantage unfairly to stifle & crush competition, keeping their profits high, while keeping salaries artificially deflated for the majority of workers. But ok, let's just create this fantastical narrative that "paying workers too little" and "paying people too much" cannot possibly apply at the same time to different segments of the population. Hell, let's even use the loaded…

Yet us tech workers are some of the highest paid people in the world, and technological progress is advancing at a rate never before seen in human history.

I guess the current system isn't so bad.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#106

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

1123581321 wrote: post #66

Clubber wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, but it's close; at least according to US law. Microsoft was deemed a monopoly in 2000 (which is actually legal) and abused it's monopolistic powers (which is not legal) while other OS's existed in the market: Apple, BeOS, Novell, Linux, OS/2, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... .

As you know, Microsoft had more than 90% of the OS market worldwide. While other OSes did exist, they didn’t provide meaningful competition. The person to which you replied meant that Google Milk is only a problem if Google abuses its search monopoly to push the market away from other milk vendors, not that Google isn’t a monopoly as long as another search engine exists. Their main point was that it isn’t abusing a m…

[deleted]

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#107

Post by dijit » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #21

confiscate wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it is because he thinks engineering involves making physical objects, rather than abstract ones. I am a software guy, and I have heard other hardware guys make similar statements as well. An example is a physical car engine (hardware), vs a video game rendering "engine" (software)

Which some what ignores the fact that a 2 stroke engine has three moving parts in its simplest form. and mech engineering doesn't have its clients demand 5 months before a new engine delivery you now make it a rotary Wankel engine as that's the new hotness :-) Ex BTEC A1 (Thermo Fluids ) Eng Tech BTW ;-)

Is BTEC suddenly a notable qualification? And isn't A1 the lowest level (up to 5?). Last thing I heard was that Pearsons BTEC system was a gateway to University in the UK; akin to GCSE or A-Level depending on the level taken. And A1 would be year 10 (14-15 years old) ~ GCSE level grades.. no?

If this is no longer the case my BTEC's are going to get a prominent position on my CV.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#108

Post by justaguyhere » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:52 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #18

rambleraptor wrote: post #2

This is also responsible for geographic inequality throughout the country. The large tech companies are based out of Silicon Valley and Seattle. The majority of their employees and economic activity will be in those areas.

That has gradually changed a lot in the last ten years. A decent house is $150,000 to $200,000 where I'm at. That's 2,000-2,500 sq feet, 0.75 to 2 acres of land. The murder rate here is almost zero, violent crime is very low, and I have access to high speed Internet and normal shopping / consumer goods. I can day trip to multiple major metros. Public housing here is actually nice, safe, clean. The homeless rate is ne…

Which city/state are you in?

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#109

Post by softwaredoug » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:54 AM UTC

oldgun wrote: post #62

> Big tech firms have been known to intimidate startups into agreeing to a sale, saying that they will launch a competing service and put the startup out of business unless they agree to a deal... > Big tech firms are able to shell out huge sums to keep top performers and even average employees in their fold and make it uneconomical for their workers to consider joining startups. Reminds me so much of the show Silico…

I’m not always convinced Google, Amazon, etc can start a product and compete in a new market and have it work 100% of the time. These companies have plenty of their own flops. Many things come to mind: google plus, amazons smart phones, MSs acquisition Skype...

Certainly they have scale advantages, but there’s also diseconomies of scale that can work against them.

Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups

#110

Post by abdullahkhalids » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 11:55 AM UTC

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #105

orcdork wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about "evil capitalists" using their advantage unfairly to stifle & crush competition, keeping their profits high, while keeping salaries artificially deflated for the majority of workers. But ok, let's just create this fantastical narrative that "paying workers too little" and "paying people too much" cannot possibly apply at the same time to different segments of the population. Hell, let's even use the loaded…

Yet us tech workers are some of the highest paid people in the world, and technological progress is advancing at a rate never before seen in human history. I guess the current system isn't so bad.

> technological progress is advancing at a rate never before seen in human history.

I think over the last 20-30 years, the useful and helpful-to-society technological progress as a fraction of the technological industry is fairly low. Most of Silicon valley is figuring out how to extract as much ad value from consumers as possible; except for the single percentage renewable energy fraction, most of the advancements in the energy industry is a net negative for humans; medicine is stagnant because of the increase in complexity and economics; and the list goes on...