Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#451

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

Bhilai wrote: post #316

pradn wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny how Microsoft isn't mentioned in the same breath as FAANG companies. It's in the top 3 companies by market cap, has a dozen billion-dollar businesses, does really well in enterprise, is aggressive in the cloud and hardware, has a large seat at the open-source table these days, and has a large set of older products that keep generating billions. If Apple is in there, why not Microsoft? Both are heavily conc…

Microsoft is pretty big in consumer space as well - Xbox, Skype, Bing ...I think its Silicon Valley vs not in Silicon Valley thing. Microsoft is counted out because of not being physically located in SV. Thats my theory.

[deleted]

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#452

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

lotu wrote: post #414

mabbo wrote: post #97

There's precedent to this in the USA. The US Government once passed regulations that caused one of the largest companies in America to break up into three smaller companies. Today those, three companies are entirely independent, employ over 400,000 people combined, and have a combined net work of over $400B. Those companies are Boeing Aircraft (153k employees, $244B market value), United Technologies (202k employees,…

The problem is this type of vertical splitting doesn't solve the problem of large tech companies. It's like treating a burst appendix with a kidney transplant. The problem of Amazon is that it is effectively the only online shopping place, and thus can act as a Monopsony in hiring it's workers for warehouses, splitting AWS out of that doesn't fix that problem. Maybe you could require that distribution centers be owne…

If we had a progressive corporate tax, I think all the problems would sort themselves out.

You want to build a trillion dollar company? Fine. Corporate tax rate of 50%. You're a small business with less than $1M in revenue. Cool. Corporate tax rate of 0%.

Big companies will break up to take advantage of the tax code. Problem solved.

Instead, the bigger you are, the harder you can lobby for tax breaks. Currently, if you're a $1M company, that sucks. You pay 20%+. If you're Amazon, you pay $0.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#453

Post by sol_remmy2 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:42 PM UTC

cooooooffffeeee wrote: post #425

landryraccoon wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how people’s perspectives might change if the largest and most influential companies of the next century aren’t American.

Spoiler alert: They probably won't be either way. Our population is too small by comparison, we just lucked out in that it took China/India longer to industrialize.

Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. If you attribute America industrializing before China/India as luck, then I will lose trust in anything else you say.

By 1915 America had higher GDP per capita than most of Western Europe - BEFORE WW1. Western Europe had higher GDP per capita than China/India by like 1200 AD. You are so so far off the mark.

Also, India's population only started exponentially growing in the late 1800s. By that point America had already industralized and was already the richest.

Go ahead and put your money where you mouth is, sell all of your US stock, and invest in African stocks since population growth is apparently the only thing that matters.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#454

Post by andrewla » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

Does anyone actually believe that the US government's interventions against Microsoft made the slightest bit of difference, as opposed to huge shifts in the internet and mobile landscape?

You could argue that the emergence of Firefox and Chrome was only made possible by the ability to assign a "default" non-IE browser in Windows, but that ability pre-dated any of the anti-trust stuff anyway; all you got out of that was a mandatory pop-up when you installed Windows asking you if you wanted to use a different browser.

The emergence of Firefox was by itself a huge shift, and Chrome another one, against Microsoft's browser monopoly. Its OS monopoly got broken (insofar as it is broken) by a combination of the rise of mobile and Apples re-emergence as a viable platform. Its office application monopoly got broken (insofar as it is broken) by a combination of online email systems (especially gmail) and the increased availability of online alternatives.

All the justice department did was waste their time; they could have just sat by the river and waited for the body of their enemy to float by instead.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by plandis » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

Despegar wrote: post #429

skrebbel wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would this work in practice though? Eg Amazon. Bezos is a major shareholder. Imagine splitting AWS from the retail arm, which I guess would be a sensible split point. If Bezos controls both, then what would really change? I'm not critical to the idea nor supportive - I'm just curious to learn more.

Did you read her proposal? There would be a structural separation from distribution and first party goods. Just like railroads couldn't own interests in the commodities they were transporting, Amazon couldn't operate a market place and also own private label brands. https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

Where is the demonstrated consumer harm that warrants monopoly treatment? Adding private labels increases the amount of selection consumers have.

You’d think we would hear more about it since basically every physical retailer owns their own brands that they sell in their own marketplaces already.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by mal10c » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

rustyboy wrote: post #431

mal10c wrote: post #401

I ran across two quotes by Warren that caught my attention: > "unwind tech mergers that illegally undermine competition" > "I want a government that makes sure everybody — even the biggest and most powerful companies in America — plays by the rules" The word "illegally" in the first quote really set off my alarm bells. What have large companies like Amazon, Google, FB, etc. done that is considered illegal in this reg…

> "illegal" because Amazon uses their non-retail business profits to identify high selling items, produce them themselves, sell them at a lower price (because they have all the data also), and finally steer customers to those products. They're the market place and a player. This new idea isn't well defined in law, but using your profits from one company to undercut another area is illegal. > "by the rules" is the sam…

I see what you're saying about the first part (the illegal part), thanks for your thoughts on that.

I do disagree with your last comment though:

> because America loves the free market, and big business is the enemy of it.

Sure big businesses can raise prices and cause consumers to pay more. But big businesses can also lower prices too by investing in technologies that save money - which we see all the time.

So I guess I don't see big business as the enemy of the free market, after all, there's nothing forcing me to buy from big company A, even if they have a monopoly on a product. The reason is, in a free market, I'm free to discover and pursue ways to side step a monopoly. I don't need the government to help me do that.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by tha_nose » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #326

psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

>But no, because Comcast has -bribed- donated to way more congresspeople than Google... Lobbying is tracked and google spent over 33% more than Comcast - in your own words - bribing members of Congress. The bulk of Google’s lobbying expenditure was for immigration, tax reform and antitrust. I’d say Google’s far better “at playing the game” after all no one is randomly sticking up for Comcast.

To be fair, google spends more than comcast because google, along with facebook, are constantly being attacked by the media and special interest groups.

If comcast was being attacked everyday, they would hike their lobbying budget.

I wouldn't say google is better at playing the game than comcast. Comcast has been playing the game for decades and they have far more political clout than google.

It's funny how people underestimate the power of comcast. They own nbc, msnbc, cnbc, universal, sky and a significant portion of the internet connections as a major ISP provider.

Google is a joke compared to comcast in terms of political power and influence.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by basch » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

delfinom wrote: post #432

Despegar wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read her proposal? There would be a structural separation from distribution and first party goods. Just like railroads couldn't own interests in the commodities they were transporting, Amazon couldn't operate a market place and also own private label brands. https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

So what about Walmart who does double Amazon in revenue AND has their own private label brands? They have so much retail power they are known to get manufacturers by the balls and make manufacturers accept the cost they want instead.

or Costco? $130B in revenue and I dont hear clamor for Costco to be split from Kirkland.

By this logic Apple shouldnt be allowed to have Apps in its App store, right? Or are they banned from selling first and third party phone cases in store?

CVS shouldnt be allowed its own generic drugs.

At what point does this become "companies arent allowed to make/sell their own products if they also resell other companies products."

And lets be serious: you want to take away Google's ability to choose the ranking of results? Thats their entire company's purpose. People go to google because they like the order the results come in. If google starts delivering bad results, that opens opportunity for other companies.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#459

Post by taurath » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #442

luckydata wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because Google/Amazon/Facebook are more consequential to our life and society. But I agree cable companies should also be looked at. TBH there's no hope competition will ever be a thing where heavy infrastructure spending is at play, those companies should be made public and the infrastructure provided for businesses by the government through fees, just like roads and other basic infra.

You can replace Google/Amazon/Facebook in seconds. You can not change your cable provider in a large number of areas, and even many of the ones that you can, you only have 2 choices between Comcast/Verizon/ATT/Centurylink. And, miraculously, as soon as a competitor arrives, you see prices drop and speeds increase. It happened in just about every area Google fiber rolled out to. Comcast also charge $10 for an extra 50…

You're both arguing like its an either-or proposition, and arguing over which one is the absolute best ensures that nothing will get done.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#460

Post by hangonhn » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #375

hangonhn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the case when Standard Oil was broken up and it's not a problem. The retail arm becomes free to get their cloud computing needs from others -- say Azure or Google. Bezos can't force them to get a worse deal at AWS simply because he owns the AWS. A lot of the arguments for breaking up companies come from this. It can make the components more efficient once they're freed from the shackles of being locked in. L…

Except the Standard Oil break-up was considered a failure. The new companies all reported back to Rockefeller. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/15/695131832/anti...

I don't think it's fair to say the break-up was a failure even if in the near term they still coordinated. In the long term, the oil companies competed with each other. Even if Rockefeller became wealthier, it only adds to the original point: breaking up monopolies unlock value for shareholders and increases efficiency. I highly doubt anyone in the main stream schools of economics would call the Standard Oil breakup a failure. That Rockefeller wasn't punished is immaterial to the breakup itself. The point here isn't to punish Bezos or anyone else. It's about efficiency and fairness. In that sense, that goal was accomplished. No single oil company today wields the power that SO once did.

Also, those guys meeting up together at Rockefeller's house to coordinate would likely be illegal today and probably was back then too.