Where Warren’s Wrong • Hacker News Board

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#111

Post by nabla9 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

hopler wrote: post #98

nabla9 wrote: post #84

Stratechery is weirdly insular site. I don't know the background but it looks like the writer/writers just read business news and create their own ideas and don't like to study or read economics. The "Aggregation Theory" is perfect example of this. It's like the author is not aware that the idea he came up has not been under study for decades and has well developed concepts, terminology and research subject.

Aggregation Theory is brand name he made up to market his consulting services. He's not ignorant, he's selling. The business consulting and person health/self-help industries are full of this sort of thing.

Ah. That makes sense.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#112

Post by jtr1 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #95

There's a lot of common sentiment around politicians that goes something like "It doesn't matter if they got the details wrong, what matters is that they're essentially correct because they see the Big Picture" We see this here, with fans of Warren saying getting things wrong is irrelevant, because we all know FANG is too powerful and she says it. Thus, quibbling over details is nitpicky pedantry. This tactic is also…

This smacks a little too much of "both-sidesism." The substantive difference between the two is that Warren will hire a cabinet of seasoned policy specialists who have the bandwidth to write accurate distinctions into law, while there was never any corollary action for Trump because birtherism was never going to be translated into policy; it was a play to prejudice.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#113

Post by chj » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #74

chj wrote: post #22

The author is nitpicking. Warren may be wrong about the history of bing and google, but that's not really important. She's 100% right about Amazon, and the author conveniently forgot to mention. Most people in tech industry always strive to build monopoly and dominance. In their eyes, Warren's idea is of course insane. But viewing from another point, in order to protect competition and small businesses, her proposal…

The purpose of government should not be to “protect small businesses” - ie protect business models that can not compete in the market

Well, I think all businesses grow from small ones. They do need some kind of protection while they are developing.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#114

Post by tabtab » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

Re: "Bing was not even launched until 2009, eight years after the Microsoft case was settled. MSN Search, its predecessor, did launch in 1998, but with licensed search results from Inktomi and AltaVista; Microsoft didn’t launch its own web crawler until 2005"

Had MS not been pressured by anti-trust scrutiny, they may have bought out early search startups. Therefore, MS may have been "late" to search due to anti-trust pressure, and not because they fumbled, as the author suggests. (We may never really know because this would have happened inside of Bill Gates' head.)

Ironically, MS may have gotten its start by the fact that IBM felt pressured to make an open-architecture PC due to anti-trust scrutiny. Otherwise, they would have prefered to hard-wire their system for their own PC operating system (created or purchased).

Re: "of course a browser should be bundled with an operating system; a new computer without a browser would be practically useless"

Including and bundling are not necessarily the same thing. An OS can include multiple browser brands and/or make it easy for new buyers to install another brand.

Re: "but rather the entire web; what ties things together are not APIs, but links."

But standards are needed for links & browsers to work right across brands, and standards and API's are pretty much the same thing.

Re: "Google would have emerged with or without antitrust action against Microsoft"

We don't know that. See above.

Re: "Facebook was dominant before it bought Instagram and WhatsApp, Google before it bought DoubleClick or YouTube, and Amazon before it bought..."

True, but they were even more dominant after. It's a winner-take-all economy these days, reducing competition. They may have got big being good, but that alone is no guarantee they'll stay good. It's human nature to slack when competition fades. It's why the Gov't is not efficient. (Google Maps has been slipping in quality of late I've noticed.)

Re: "the app market on PCs died in large part due to security concerns"

Come again?

Re: "Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple dominate because consumers like them. Each of them leveraged technology to solve a unique user needs"

True, but once big they start using other tricks besides being good. Oligopolies and monopolies almost always jack up prices and limit choice once competition goes away. MS left blatant bugs in MS-Access for several years once they flattened the other desktop databases. Good capitalism is based on competition. Competition shrinks, and corporate jerkification and slacking goes up. They shift focus from making a better mouse-trap to keeping others out of the mouse-trap business.

Warren's argument may not be perfect, but lack of competition clearly stifles the market in my observation of several decades dealing with the likes of Microsoft and the big telecoms, let alone the history of airlines, IBM, AT&T, eyeglasses, etc.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#115

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:10 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #96

cm2187 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually amazon is the one that I would say doesn't have a monopoly. It doesn't have a monopoly in the retail space (far from it), nor in the cloud hosting (let alone server hosting) business, nor in online streaming (music/tv). Google on the other hand has close to a monopoly on search (and browsers). Facebook on social medias.

everyone is stuck on the word monopoly. Antitrust law is much larger than just monopolys. and, if you can prove it, predatory pricing is illegal. amazon is absolutely subsidizing a bunch of stuff with profit from elsewhere. if and what and how the government can do something about that is a huge can of worms with wide reaching implications outside the tech industry. IF the government wants to get involved with separa…

So since most of the things we use everyday on the Internet is free, that means most products we use are run by companies that are using predator pricing.

Does that mean that HN should also come under scrutiny because it can price HN free? What if I wanted to start a competitor to HN? Should the government make it so there is an environment that makes that easier?

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#116

Post by cgriswald » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #78

oflannabhra wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure we should be heralding the fact that a single company has not captured all of commerce as a win for competition.

And it “captured it” because of the incompetence of the previous incumbents in retail - Barnes and Noble, Toys R Us, Tower Records, Walmart, etc. Why should the government punish companies because they were able to disrupt incumbents? Should we also punish Apple because RIM and Palm couldn’t compete?

You seem to be arguing for a winner-take-all approach to the market.

Should future competitors to [monopolistic entity] be punished because [previous competitors] were unable to effectively compete?

In any case, I don't think punishment is really an apt metaphor for breaking apart a monopoly.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#117

Post by jopsen » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

sib wrote: post #50

mtmail wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"[Amazon] has captured 43 percent of all internet retail sales in the United States, with half of all online shopping searches starting on Amazon. In 2016, it had over $63 billion in revenue from online sales in the United States — or more than the next 10 top online retailers combined. It controls 74 percent of e-book sales, is the largest seller of clothes online and is set to soon become the biggest apparel retail…

Exactly, so, not a monopoly in ecommerce. And only a single-digit share of commerce . And, of course, there is literally nothing inherently illegal (in the US, at least) about building a monopoly in any case.

Monopoly or not isn't necessarily the question... In the EU the issue often seems to be abuse of market position.

If Facebook were to lock Apple users out of new critically important Instagram filters because they wanted to sell the FacePhone. One could argue that they shouldn't be allowed to abuse their market position in social media to make unfair inroads in the phone market.

IMO, these things are hard to regulate, and most of our walled gardens are surprisingly interoperable :)

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#118

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

chj wrote: post #113

scarface74 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of government should not be to “protect small businesses” - ie protect business models that can not compete in the market

Well, I think all businesses grow from small ones. They do need some kind of protection while they are developing.

So I have this great idea to delivery pet food. Should the government protect me while I grow it?

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#119

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

product50 wrote: post #101

chj wrote: post #22

The author is nitpicking. Warren may be wrong about the history of bing and google, but that's not really important. She's 100% right about Amazon, and the author conveniently forgot to mention. Most people in tech industry always strive to build monopoly and dominance. In their eyes, Warren's idea is of course insane. But viewing from another point, in order to protect competition and small businesses, her proposal…

You need to get into specifics vs. trying to just provide your general view. The author you are claiming is nitpicking is Ben Thompson - the most prolific tech strategist of our times. And look at your response which offers nothing interesting at all. Do you have any suggestions on how to make these breakups happen given all the nuances and challenges? And please get into details vs. pretending they are not important…

[deleted]

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#120

Post by treis » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

jmrobertson wrote: post #29

chj wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite some shady stuff going on in the App Store. People have to live with that, because there is no alternative. https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/15/sneaky-subscriptions-are-p...

Right, so imagine separating Apple/Google totally from its current oversight position, and having a totally open app store. Like the world _just_ got past learning not to click 'download here!' on a browser, and that was after 20 years of the internet. I'd be open to alternative proposals, but separating the App Store with no replacement is not a secure solution by any means and causes more problems than it solves, a…

>Right, so imagine separating Apple/Google totally from its current oversight position, and having a totally open app store

That's not the point. The point is that Netflix, HBO, Spotify, et. al. have to pay the 30% Apple/Google tax while the movie, music, etc. products from Apple/Google don't.

Warren's proposed rule is, effectively, you can produce something or you can sell something, but not both. Apple would need to decide if they want to be an app maker or an app seller.