141–150 of 175 posts
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Google has a single unique flavour of search engine, it's very popular, it's not the only one but it's the one people prefer... How is it any different?
Google abuses its power, similar to what a monopoly can/does do, without strictly being a monopoly. That's part of what the original article is discussing.
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> But being blue isn't a defining feature of Facebook Indeed, nor is it a defining feature of the market. That is exactly my point: if your labe of "monopoly" relies on a non-defining feature of a market that sets it apart from other markets (meaning that there is little competition between borders), you definition of monopoly is useless.
If somebody can usefully use both commodities at once - (using facebook and twitter) I would say that those two companies aren't competing to the point where they can be called the same market.
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If somebody can usefully use both commodities at once - (using facebook and twitter) I would say that those two companies aren't competing to the point where they can be called the same market.
Of course they are. They are competing for eyeballs, user actions and for ads.
Some companies are willingly selling to some other companies, so let's forcibly break some companies apart. How is former a problem, and latter, a solution?
In many cases the economic concept of choice is idealized and doesn't work in the real world. For instance what choice does a consumer concerned about privacy have beyond Android and IOS, or in telecom, oil and other polluting industries and other dysfunctional markets? The network effects of social media cannot be ignored and one may often be forced to participate in a damaging environment that does not respect consumers privacy and basic rights.
Consumers may want a privacy respecting Internet and products but there is no way for them to affect that outcome only through choice, so choice on its own is not empowering. You can only choose what is available. And this is where in democratic societies democratic institutions are expected to step in to limit harm.
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There are alternatives to AT&T or Comcast; you could dismiss concerns by saying consumers prefer their service over wireless or satellite Internet.
The price and quality of service are very different with satellite or wireless. Compared to cable the alternatives are slower, higher latency, less reliable, and more expensive.
Merely being better than the competition is not the traditional (outdated) definition of monopoly.
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Please change my mind on that, but I don't understand the problem with the diapers store example (or any other product for that matter). Amazon lowers the price, so the consumers will get to buy cheaper diapers (sounds good). Apparently Amazon can sell them at a very low margin, it's just choosing one that's just below what competition can offer. Then of course you have an issue with dumping (selling diapers with pro…
I feel like you outlined the problem pretty well. Amazon, because they have information and economic advantage, can effectively manipulate the price of any good they want to make it uneconomical for any other company to play. That's a single company having outsized power to determine the state of the market. Using your example let's say that no other company can sell diapers online. That means for consumers that eith…
If a group of consumers can't or don't want to shop at Amazon, then they've just created a niche in the market (be it due to geography or anti-Amazon sentiment), that would create a demand for a diaper store that would serve those customers, because, by definition, they have just outcompeted Amazon by being more available or appealing to the consumers.
> The only possible argument here is that it's possible to have a singular organization that provides everything better than a diverse competitive market could. Neither history nor theory supports this thesis and the secondary effect on economies and political power compounds the downsides.
I believe history shows that as long as said singular organization it keeps providing everything, it will prevail (in everything). The moment it stops, it collapses and new players come in its place. This is, of course, as long as state doesn't decide to bail it out like it historically did in several heavily regulated industries, which are hard to enter partially because of said regulations. Consumers are rarely hurt in the process, as long as you let the big company take the fall, and let the new better companies grow its place once it stops delivering. If you regulate something like Search, to Google it's just extra operational costs, but as a side effect, Google becomes too big to fall, because no one else can really step in its boots anymore and enter the market.
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As others have pointed out, you just seem to be using a different definition than the rest of us are. A single, unreplicated product is never considered a monopoly. A monopoly implies that customers don't have an alternative.
Google has a single unique flavour of search engine, it's very popular, it's not the only one but it's the one people prefer... How is it any different?
Or look at the browser. Adblockers have been the number 1 extension since browser extensions were a thing. It doesn't take a genius to see why they aren't built into Chrome/FF. It's another classic abuse of a monopoly. They used search to bully their way into being the dominant browser and they use that dominance to protect their ad business.
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…
Probably very easy, but consistently using this strategy would ruin my own business, in effect helping my competition. Now imagine you're Facebook, how easy it was to rule the social media world, and because of series of equally stupid hard-balls you've mentioned, you're 5 years away from being MySpace.
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Of course they are. They are competing for eyeballs, user actions and for ads.
Thats pretty reductionist - so is every newspaper, cinema, and television station. Perhaps your argument is that if a single company controlled all news, television companies and film studios, as well as several large social media properties, they would not be a monopoly - so long as some other large companies existed that competed in other ways for people's time? I mean I can see why you could draw such a conclusion…
Indeed, and that's the key point here. That's what people are failing to understand.
> other side that would suggest that a large company like that would be inherently harmful without actually deliberately leveraging its market share in anticompetetive ways
You might claim that, but your burden of proof is very, very high. And that has nothing to do with monopoly or anti-trust, so you need to create a new law and regulatory framework to act on.
As I mentioned in another comment: The Supreme Court has defined market power as "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market,"(8) and monopoly power as "the power to control prices or exclude competition."
CPMs are falling, users never had so much choice, and DDG, Snapchat and Tik Tok can easily enter the search, social media and ads market.
In other words, even if what you're saying is true, it has nothing to do with this discussion.