Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 175 posts

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#81

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

amelius wrote: post #63
ChrisLomont wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>By saying that you're basically throwing the whole concept of "fairness" out of the window, so that's no argument. Is fairness forcing people to spend more money on less desirable products and firms simply because those firms exist? That seems pretty unfair to me. And it's been shown to be bad economics time and time again. Fair seems letting people decide which business they want to purchase from, even if that mean…

It's not a matter of all or nothing. A different way, for example, would be for Amazon to let small bookstores share in the profits, as a compensation for putting them out of business in such unfair way. (That would be fair, but it is unfortunately not how we have organised things.)

Why should small bookstores get a medal for being worse than shopping for books online. I can make dozens of worse experiences than Amazon. Should Amazon have to pay me for each one that is unprofitable?

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#82

Post by bilbo0s »

colllectorof wrote: post #73
ucaetano wrote: post #14

It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused to prevent competition which harms consumers. What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly. The…

>The reason why anti-trust is based on precise economic definitions is that it leaves as little room as possible for the government to favor friendly players. When you need to prove harm to consumers, the bar is high, as it should be. Yeah, I'm sure that allowing companies to merge right until the point where they make consumer's lives a living hell is great for the society and the economy. >The classic example is: C…

>Google, Facebook, and Amazon control not only what you can do as a consumer...

???

I'm not sure this is true?

I don't feel like they are controlling me when I go to Target or Walmart??? But I'm not sure if there is something maybe with the advertising that is making me go to Target and Walmart? Either way, it's totally up to me as a consumer where I spend my money I would think.

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#83

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #66
wpasc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frequently see people say "Google should be broken up" and I want to hear more on that argument. Meaning Google and Youtube should be separated? but then we're no longer talking about just their search dominance right? How could search alone be broken up if a large part of the complaint is about the dominance of their search? Moreover, it is pretty easy to not use google search? Why couldn't someone use DDG, Yahoo,…

There are two arguments, one is about Search as a monopoly the other is about that power as it relates to other parts of the value chain. Google search is fundamentally better than DDG (for most purposes) because it has massive advantages that make it effectively unassailable. For example, I stopped using DDG because I rely on reverse image search. FYI DDG does not have its own crawler, it gets data from other source…

> In order to compete with Google effectively, you'd have to build your own crawler etc.. It's essentially impossible. The number of engineers, data centres other components ... my gosh man.

The Internet Archive does this with an annual budget of $10M. That is clearly not a lot of money compared to the amount on the table.

> If Google decides to get into your line of business, and you are small, they will absolutely wipe you out if they want to, and it has nothing to do with having 'a better product'.

That is what happens if any multi-billion dollar company decides to get into your line of business.

> How could a mobile OS vendor compete in a market where Google is using billions from one market, to dominate a different one, like mobile OS?

This is conspicuously disproven by basically every mobile device maker around, who all maintain their own Android forks, plus Apple.

The point of Android wasn't to dominate the OS market, it was to commodify it -- which it did. But that's the opposite of anticompetitive. Now entering the OS market is trivial because you can start with Android, make zero or more changes to it and you have yourself an OS without paying Google or anyone else a dime. You don't even have to use Google search.

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#84

Post by legostormtroopr »

ucaetano wrote: post #14

It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused to prevent competition which harms consumers. What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly. The…

> Because the cola market doesn't exist in isolation. Colas compete with all other sodas, with water, juices, etc. for a share of wallet and a share of stomach.

You don't understand how much Coke owns or creates do you? They own brands that do bottled water, tea, coffee, juice, milk, sports drinks, energy drinks, alcohol and more [1][2]. Hell, if its a beverage, Coke probably owns a brand that makes it. [3]

[1] https://www.coca-colajourney.com.au/brands/ [2] https://www.coca-colacompany.com/packages/brands [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Coca-Cola_brands

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#85

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

fzeroracer wrote: post #64
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Nobody owed small bookstores a living. > By saying that you're basically throwing the whole concept of "fairness" out of the window, so that's no argument. Not at all. I'm saying that, if the small bookstores are less efficient at providing books to people, then there is room for a more efficient competitor to drive them out of business without any unfair competition taking place. > In my view, Amazon does provid…

The large failure of your argument is that those competitors are not more actually more efficient. This is why large companies are harmful even before they reach the distinction of monopoly; although as an aside I see people here making arguments that monopolies cannot exist. Uber for example is not more efficient than RideAustin, the local non-profit ridesharing alternative. What they do have however, is a large amo…

> Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full control over various parts of a market.

A thing that HNers have been speculating will happen for years, but which has so far failed to materialize.

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#86

Post by bilbo0s »

nicoburns wrote: post #32
ucaetano wrote: post #14

It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused to prevent competition which harms consumers. What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly. The…

> What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly. No, they're saying a company can have too much economic power without being a full monopoly.

>No, they're saying a company can have too much economic power without being a full monopoly...

But that's not a problem.

Monopolies are problems, not strong economically powerful companies. I mean, up in my neck of the woods, ADM and Cargill are unimaginably powerful economically speaking. But it just makes no sense to say that they are as dangerous as having one company that IS the entire food market.

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#87

Post by fzeroracer »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #85
fzeroracer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The large failure of your argument is that those competitors are not more actually more efficient. This is why large companies are harmful even before they reach the distinction of monopoly; although as an aside I see people here making arguments that monopolies cannot exist. Uber for example is not more efficient than RideAustin, the local non-profit ridesharing alternative. What they do have however, is a large amo…

> Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full control over various parts of a market. A thing that HNers have been speculating will happen for years, but which has so far failed to materialize.

Failed to materialize would be objectively wrong. I even gave you a direct example in the tactics that Walmart pulled in order to destroy local stores.

You can also look at how dreadful the situation is for ISPs in America.

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#88

Post by toast0 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #74
toast0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument goes roughly as follows: Google is able to use its lead in search to exert undue influence on other markets. Google can (and has) ocassionaly placed banners suggesting a switch to chrome, influencing the browser market. Google showcases YouTube videos above other video results, regardless of the relative merits of the videos. Similar things in other verticals. Additionally, search dominance leads to domi…

> Google can (and has) ocassionaly placed banners suggesting a switch to chrome, influencing the browser market. But so can anybody else. Google sells ads on their search engine to anyone. If you asked nicely enough with a large enough pile of money they would presumably even sell you a banner placement. What is the objection supposed to be? That Google didn't pay itself for the ad space? How would it have changed an…

How much would Google charge me to put a prominent banner next to the search box saying that Google recomends w3m for the best browsing experience on Google search?

My guess is they would have considered it before they had their own browser, but now that chrome is something they've invested in, it seems like something that is not for sale.

How much of an impact is that placement? I don't really know, but I bet Google has data on it. Discovery on a case like this would be interesting.

Anyway, the point is that's something they can do, because they control so much of search. Bing putting up a banner that says hey, why don't you use Edge, pretty please doesn't have as much impact, because Bing has a smaller market share.

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#89

Post by ucaetano »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #84
ucaetano wrote: post #14

It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused to prevent competition which harms consumers. What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly. The…

> Because the cola market doesn't exist in isolation. Colas compete with all other sodas, with water, juices, etc. for a share of wallet and a share of stomach. You don't understand how much Coke owns or creates do you? They own brands that do bottled water, tea, coffee, juice, milk, sports drinks, energy drinks, alcohol and more [1][2]. Hell, if its a beverage, Coke probably owns a brand that makes it. [3] [1] https…

> You don't understand how much Coke owns or creates do you?

Oh please...

Re: Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly”

#90

Post by chrisco255 »

ucaetano wrote: post #14

It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused to prevent competition which harms consumers. What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly. The…

The government can rule it however they want. They can use existing trust-busting precedent to pick apart the large firms if they want to, just like Standard Oil, AT&T, etc. It would take an act of Congress or the FTC. It would take a lot, but it could be done. Microsoft fit your definition with 90+% of desktop OS market share in the 90s and they had to settle with the government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...). That the government has been asleep at the wheel as Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google have risen up is irrelevant. All it would take is an aggressive anti-trust leaning Congress or President to shake things up again.
Post reply on HN