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Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

nytimes.com

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Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#121

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Johnny555 wrote: post #107
fyoving wrote: post #95

Allow me to temper some of the glee exhibited in the comments and even in some of the reports but a key line here is: "The divvying of antitrust enforcement does not mean that the agencies have opened official investigations" It is worth keeping in mind that antitrust enforcement in the US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed and it doesn't appear to be the case when it comes…

there is a long list of companies and markets worthy of antitrust scrutiny... The real drag on the economy are the high prices of healthcare and housing I'm curious what you see as the antitrust violations that lead to high housing prices?

The housing case is non-traditional because the entity the cartel organizes through is the local government rather than a corporation.

You have to live somewhere to get a vote there, so the people (sellers) who already own property in a location get a vote while the people (buyers) who are about to move there don't until after they have and have switched from customer to owner. The result is that the existing property owners have a lock on the local government and pass anti-competitive rules that constrain the housing supply and raise prices.

You might think renters would help there, but there are areas where the majority are not renters, and the areas with majority renters often end up with abominations like rent control which cause market rents to go even higher while neutralizing the threat to the anti-competitive rules by paying off just enough of the tenants to retain local majority support.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#122

Post by Findeton »

JohnFen wrote: post #85
Findeton wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it's bullshit. Not only that, but monopolies are not a bad thing, as long as they are not government granted ones.

> monopolies are not a bad thing, as long as they are not government granted ones. I disagree. Outside of "natural monopolies", monopolies are bad things whether government-granted or not.

No, they are good because they are not forced ones. Like google, anyone could use any other search engine, like I do using duckduckgo. If people use google, it's because they think it's very good and they don't find something that is so much better that they'd leave.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#123

Post by root_axis »

studentrob wrote: post #50
bondolo wrote: post #46

Disappointed that the telecom media conglomerates aren't getting more scrutiny.

Agreed. Net neutrality needs to be an election issue in 2020. Red/blue agree. The most upvoted comment ever removed from t_d was about NN [1] [2]. [1] https://revddit.com/user/yiannopoulos_m?after=t1_dirwgoo&lim... [2] https://revddit.com/r/the_donald

Huh? red & blue definitely don't agree on NN. I know some might point to poll numbers that suggest a majority of republicans support NN, but its important to remember that republicans are ideologically opposed to politicians that support NN. This is similar to how a majority of republicans support universal background checks for firearms but nobody suggests that "red/blue agree" on this issue because, despite supporting universal background checks, republicans are ideologically opposed to the type of politician that supports background checks.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#124

Post by dragonwriter »

dantheman wrote: post #112
twblalock wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have not heard anyone complain in person about the government killing net neutrality. The general public is not harboring resentment about it.

Yeah, I mean net neutrality lasted all of one year -- there wasn't a problem and there still isn't a problem. Perhaps one day net neutrality will be an issue but it's not one now. The issue that local governments granted monopolies to cable companies and telcos -- that's the true problem.

> Yeah, I mean net neutrality lasted all of one year

The FCC policy orientation lasted much longer than that, though the last of the various regimes by which the FCC pursued it only lasted about that long.

Of course, the policy orientation was about maintaining a status quo on the internet which was only starting to crack when the first approaches were taken as commercial ISPs started breaking the way the internet has previously worked either to constrain costs or pursue various synergies with their other businesses; the basic state of neutrality on the internet was older than the FCC policy orientation toward actively maintaining it.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#125

Post by studentrob »

dralley wrote: post #111
studentrob wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Netflix is not, probably because Hastings once said net neutrality is no longer their primary battle. IOW, they will pay to play. Disgusting. The selections make this a transparent move.

Netflix is nowhere even remotely close to being a monopoly.

I agree that Netflix dominating does not make them a monopoly. No more than Google or Facebook.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#126

Post by bitxbit »

I realize this is probably not a popular opinion but Amazon, Google and Facebook are natural monopolies in the businesses they operate in. That is to say the optimal market structure in almost all internet businesses is high concentration with a single organization controlling +80% of market share. So breaking up these organizations doesn’t necessarily solve the problems we are facing today. This is not an antitrust issue. Economically speaking, it will likely be impossible to prove that someone like Amazon behaved in a anti-competitive manner. Same goes for Google. Facebook is the only one I can see broken up largely due to all the negative publicity.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#127

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

fyoving wrote: post #95

Allow me to temper some of the glee exhibited in the comments and even in some of the reports but a key line here is: "The divvying of antitrust enforcement does not mean that the agencies have opened official investigations" It is worth keeping in mind that antitrust enforcement in the US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed and it doesn't appear to be the case when it comes…

It's interesting how the media is owned by the ISPs.

They couldn't possibly be trying to redirect our attention after the Net Neutrality uproar and insane disapproval ratings for Ajit Pai -- could they?

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#129

Post by Johnny555 »

isoskeles wrote: post #114
Johnny555 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a long list of companies and markets worthy of antitrust scrutiny... The real drag on the economy are the high prices of healthcare and housing I'm curious what you see as the antitrust violations that lead to high housing prices?

I agree with the sentiment of the comment you're responding to, but I also think this is a valid question and don't understand why your comment appears to be downvoted.

I agree with his overall sentiment too, there are lots of cases of monopolistic practices harming consumers, but I just don't see the same thing with housing prices. Low interest rate loans and restrictive zoning seems to be more of a problem than a few companies colluding together to drive up housing prices.

Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

#130

Post by mdorazio »

bduerst wrote: post #100
JohnFen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft would have to be doing anticompetitive behavior to be monopolizing the desktop market No. I think the distinction here is important and worth being mindful of. Whether or not a company is abusing their monopoly position has no bearing on whether or not they are a monopoly. You can't abuse a monopoly position if you aren't a monopoly to begin with, after all. The distinction is important because in the US…

Again, simply being dominant in a market _is not_ being a monopoly. Monopolies are definitively the exclusive control or possession of the supply of the market. Just as a Monopsony is exclusive control or possession of the demand in a market. Microsoft has dominant market position but they do not control the entire supply of OS, hence they are the popular choice but not the exclusive choice. Whether or not a monopoly…

I'm not sure where you're getting your definitions, but they're not the ones used by the justice department.

"An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct." [1]

That's somewhat different from your definition in that it is deliberately open to interpretation (the Sherman Act, for instance, doesn't actually define monopoly) and revolves around anti-competitive conduct rather than exclusive control of supply (which isn't required - ex. Microsoft never had 100% of the OS market, nor did Standard Oil have 100% of the oil market).

[1] https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you

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