21–30 of 39 posts
Opening up Facebook is what led to the Facebook APIs and data going in the hands of thousands of 3rd parties (ex: Cambridge Analytica).
Assuming it is possible to "open up" those monopolies, it would require a completely new paradigm.
From a security perspective this sounds like an absolute nightmare.
1) Wait, does DuckDuckGo use Bing’s search index? 2) A good solution would do both- open up the underlying data while breaking up the various ad sales businesses. A great example is YouTube- YouTube should not be able to single handedly demonetize videos- creators should be able to opt in to alternative ad networks so long as they aren’t violating the TOS, keeping Tuba instructional videos in the black ( https://arst…
Separating Android and Chrome from Google Search would limit the obvious temptation for abusing their browser business to help their advertising business. Google has (so far) shown pretty good restraint in their tactics compared to what would be technically possible, but the incentives are massive and might be hard to resist when times get tough.
Enforcing openness in the face of massive incentives to the contrary requires prompt and wise government oversight, which is hard to achieve. The range of subtle tricks that platform companies can pull to slightly break their competitors software is beyond the ability of regulators to control.
Breaking up companies can be a mechanism to enforce openness. For instance, the proposal to separate Microsoft's application business from their OS business (in the late 90s) was in reaction to them giving their own apps special treatment in their OS, so their apps ran better than third party apps. By separating the two business units into separate companies, they would lose the incentive to do stuff like that. Separ…
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/04/depar...
I find it kind of fascinating the different mindsets you see around HN regarding Google/Facebook vs say Netflix/Hulu. With conversations about Netflix and other online content producers people want all the content in the world, at their fingertips for about $15-20 per month and if they can't get it they'll threaten to pirate instead. For them cost but also convenience really trumps all, the idea of having too many se…
You're conflating way too many things and oversimplifying the whole situation into a fictitious idea of conflicting mindsets. First of all, you're treating two very different types of services as equal and identical. Netflix and Hulu are subscription content providers. Google and Facebook can be defined and described in many ways, but subscription content providers is not among them [1]. It's quite natural and unders…
Subscription content business models are straightforward and marketed as such: $ for access.
Ad supported business models are... murkier. And I'd say Google and Facebook haven't done a sufficient job in proactively informing the public about what they collect, how they generate revenue from it, and what's currently stored about a user.
Also, ad supported models have the unfortunate side effect of having revenue directly tied to the greatest possible exploitation of existing data (and collecting greater amounts going forward). Which... aren't great ethical incentives.
There are some natural fracture planes in the big tech companies where it's clear consumers would be better served by antitrust action: 1) Cleave Instagram and WhatsApp off of Facebook, to reduce the consolidation in Facebook's ad business model, and re-introduce competition both in the messaging and influencer-pouting-at-camera space. 2) Break off Android and Chrome from Google (and each other). Both are products th…
They should be able to sell ads to support their free products if they choose. But having the advertising business under the same roof as the product business creates an inherent conflict of interest, not least towards centralization and lock-in.
If Google instead sold ad space and data to AdWords (the external company), responsibilities would be more clear.
This is so uncreative. Besides conveniently forgetting how Twitter starved out its third party apps with breaking API changes, and Amazon's similar strong arming of smaller vendors and services, he doesn't seem to understand why that is bad. Breaking up a company is to address a singular problem - that there are too many interests being held under one roof. By breaking up, you are addressing a need for broader govern…
The fourth amendment is such a 1776 solution, it is 2019 already and time to move on. Cringe
Breaking up monopolies is not an idea that's stuck in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's an idea stuck in reality and reason, and it has a history of working.
Many times it is the simplest and most obvious solution that is best.