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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#41

Post by nradov »

40acres wrote: post #4

As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti-trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust. For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, b…

I can't imagine how in practice we could construct a regulatory regime which would prevent large tech companies from acquiring small start-ups which represent only a potential competitive threat with little current market share. How would one even define a "market" in legally defensible way? Would Instagram have been counted as being in a market of just consumer instant messaging mobile apps? All instant messaging services? All social media? All communication tools in general?

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#42

Post by joshAg »

Zecar wrote: post #6
malka wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if such things are meant to be monopolistic, then the state should manage it.

You want the state in charge of managing communications between friends and family members?

more than i want facebook or google to, yes.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#43

Post by rootusrootus »

dwater wrote: post #15
40acres wrote: post #4

As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti-trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust. For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, b…

I was just watching an interview between Scott Galloway and Richard Kramer discussing if the big 4 will be broken up. An insight I hadn't heard before was that anti-trust in the US is based on consumer harm, and since consumers get services from these companies for free, by this measure there can't be consumer harm. However, if you consider the advertisers (who are actually funding everything) are the consumers, they…

Perhaps we need to update our laws to reflect that data has value. Certainly these companies understand how much value it has, so consumers are paying, but because it's more of a barter than actual cash transaction, we treat consumers as if they are getting something for free.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#44

Post by minikites »

x220 wrote: post #10

>Capitalism, according to all these men, is about frictionless, seamless engorgement. I could not care less about the opinions of thirty-something techies about political ideologies. At a time when capitalism seems more attacked in the West than at any other time in modern history, I think it is deceitful to talk about capitalism from the point of view of the group of the most unethical business leaders in America. W…

>We wouldn't tolerate someone defining socialism from the point of view of dictators.

Venezuela, Stalin, Mao, etc all get brought up constantly in discussions about socialism/communism.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#45

Post by shereadsthenews »

40acres wrote: post #4

As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti-trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust. For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, b…

Acquisition by Google is the only reason YouTube exists. If they had to pay for their networking they could not have survived (Google owns its own fiber and doesn't pay anyone for transit). If you are taking a consumer benefit angle I don't see how you conclude that Google should have been prevented from buying YouTube.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#46

Post by tivert »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #45
40acres wrote: post #4

As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti-trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust. For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, b…

Acquisition by Google is the only reason YouTube exists. If they had to pay for their networking they could not have survived (Google owns its own fiber and doesn't pay anyone for transit). If you are taking a consumer benefit angle I don't see how you conclude that Google should have been prevented from buying YouTube.

> Acquisition by Google is the only reason YouTube exists. If they had to pay for their networking they could not have survived (Google owns its own fiber and doesn't pay anyone for transit).

Even if that's true (which I doubt), Google is not the only company that owns fiber.

> If you are taking a consumer benefit angle I don't see how you conclude that Google should have been prevented from buying YouTube.

The GP was talking about a "shift away" from the "'consumer welfare' view of anti-trust," because that view permits acquisitions like that of YouTube by Google.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#47

Post by ucaetano »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #31
mattmaroon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also particularly hard to break up attack company because of the value of their digital real estate. You can break Google up into as many companies as you want, but whichever one owns google.com has been basically unaffected. It's unclear how you'd break them up in such a way as to meaningfully increase competition in a search market where consumers reflexively turn to Google.

I don't agree with this at all. If you break up youtube from google, I think people will treat those very separately - they serve very different purposes. Same with facebook and instagram.

People already treat them very separately, I'd be surprised if most of the public (not HN) even knows that Google owns YT.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#48

Post by mtgx »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #45
40acres wrote: post #4

As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti-trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust. For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, b…

Acquisition by Google is the only reason YouTube exists. If they had to pay for their networking they could not have survived (Google owns its own fiber and doesn't pay anyone for transit). If you are taking a consumer benefit angle I don't see how you conclude that Google should have been prevented from buying YouTube.

Someone one else would've bought YouTube. Or Vimeo would have become the #1 video site, and then maybe Microsoft or Amazon would have bought it. Still better than Google alone owning most of the biggest traffic sites.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#49

Post by 40acres »

Barrin92 wrote: post #39
40acres wrote: post #4

As talked about in this article, I think the main catalyst to increased anti-trust scrunity will be a mind shift away from the "consumer welfare" view of anti-trust. For the most part, big tech companies provide amazing service. I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. Yes there may be some fakes on Amazon, and DDG in some use cases may be better than Google, b…

> I can't think of another industry that has a product as good as the tech companies of today have. The first step towards saner attitude towards tech is stopping with this glorification of tech. With the exception of Google or say wikipedia, who have made knowledge accessible in unprecedented manner, modern technology companies (the name is imprecise, because it is really just digital technology) have not as much im…

I'm not measuring by impact but by service, whether or not Amazon.com is impactful for the history of the world is not the question here.

The question is under a jurisprudence of "consumer welfare", how can you go after a company that can ship you anything you want in 2-4 days?

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#50

Post by pitaj »

jpollock wrote: post #26

"when AT&T was broken up in 1984, a torrent of new products came on the market, everything from the first answering machines to early ISPs." Since the RBOCs were local monopolies, it wasn't the breakup which resulted in the opening of the network. They didn't have competition until 1996, when the local loop was unbundled, allowing CLECs to appear. The tradeoff was that if they could demonstrate local competition, the…

At&T was also a monopoly created by the government. It was in no way spontaneous.
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