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Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In

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151–160 of 309 posts

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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is your evidence? I cited mine above. My evidence is the congressional record which indicates republican politicians overwhelmingly oppose NN and democratic politicians overwhelmingly support it. I wouldn't regard a single post on a subreddit as evidence; it is at best an anecdote, and one of dubious credibility IMO.

> congressional record Politicians do what their constituents want now? That's new. > I wouldn't regard a single post on a subreddit as evidence Visit [1]. See the spike in the graph? That is the link I posted above. It is not anecdotal. As I said, this is the most upvoted comment ever removed from that sub. [1] https://revddit.com/r/the_donald

An overly-censored troll subreddit [1] is far from being evidence of anything, much less voting stances for bipartisan politics in legislature. In fact, any subreddit for that matter is not a good indicator.

[1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-...

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

#152
post #98

In my career, first it was IBM, the unstoppable juggernaut that was going to take over the world. Then it was Microsoft, and everyone forgot about IBM. Then it was Apple, and everyone forgot about Microsoft. Before IBM, it was RCA. Everyone has forgotten about RCA. It's like in retail. First it's Sears, the unstoppable juggernaut that will take over the world. Then it's Walmart, and Sears is bankrupt. Now it's Amazon…

> It's almost as if the theory that monopolies inevitably grow to take over the world has serious problems. That's a straw man. No one is saying monopolies are immortal. An economy where monopoly usurps monopoly, one after the other in a continuous cycle is a problem, too. If you want a real debate, make the case that the world wouldn't be better off if these tech giants were split up like Ma Bell was in the 1950's a…

> Make the case that we're better off having ONE giant social network, ONE giant online retailer.

That's a straw man. I see no need to assume that a case needs to be made for one or many social networks or online retailers. I understand you think there is one, but I think this is an odd "choice" you believe we are supposed to somehow make as a society through government. Why are we (you) saying we need legislators or courts to decide what the exactly correct number number and size of social networks is? Like it or not, it seems the people have spoken. We want a few large social networks that are owned by publicly traded companies, and many small, esoteric ones very few people have heard about.

> How often are promising young product or service companies bought out by giant companies just to be left to dry on the vine, no longer a threat to their new owners?

They don't have to accept those offers. If they really wanted to "threaten" these companies rather than seeking to be bought, they wouldn't have been bought.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chargebacks are overwhelmingly positive. It allows you to use your credit card fearlessly knowing the card companies have your back. Truthfully, if they decreased payment volume or "dragged the economy" card companies wouldn't offer them.

The problem with chargebacks is that they're mandatory, even in cases where the seller is more trustworthy than the buyer. Then you end up with all the losses associated with buyer fraud even if the overwhelming majority of legitimate buyers would have enough faith in the seller to waive the ability to conduct a chargeback in exchange for a discount in the amount of the fee that has to be charged to cover them. The f…

> The problem with chargebacks is that they're mandatory, even in cases where the seller is more trustworthy than the buyer. Then you end up with all the losses associated with buyer fraud even if the overwhelming majority of legitimate buyers would have enough faith in the seller to waive the ability to conduct a chargeback in exchange for a discount in the amount of the fee that has to be charged to cover them.

This is actually accounted for in the merchant interchange rate. It varies by MCC (merchant category code) [and potentially merchant to merchant] and the frequency of chargebacks is built into how much the merchant pays for processing. Further, that bubbles up to the customer in terms of the pricing. Merchants may offer cash or other payment method discounts, so in a sense, what you're asking for already exists. Merchants do not opt into it because it's not in their interests.

That said, that's not how the math works out. If a buyer has a number of chargebacks, the buyer may be investigated and has their account suspended or is charged with fraud. This works both ways. Again, merchants and payment networks are aligned in this case, both make money on greater transaction volume, this feature increases transaction volume, that's why it's there, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Also, paying per-transaction isn't really insurance as it leads to massive adverse selection risk. The most helpful chargeback for me personally was a two thousand dollar chargeback against Expedia where they refused to refund a refundable ticket. I filed a chargeback and I got the money back within a few days.

It's a good thing, unless you've got data to back your case.

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

#154
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?

There are two prominent examples of antitrust/monopoly problems in the U.S. real estate market: MLS and dual agency. The MLS seems to be complicit in forcing home sellers into paying higher buyer agent commissions: https://therealdeal.com/national/2019/05/22/doj-demands-core...

With consolidation of real estate brokerage firms, many home buyers may have overpaid due to a single firm representing both home seller and buyer, known as dual agency: https://therealdeal.com/2019/05/01/houlihan-lawrence-fails-t...

There is a third issue of large private equity firms buying large volumes of houses that may, in the future, warrant an antitrust investigation.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 propert…

I don't think that's really an anti-trust problem, and I don't think you can call a majority of voters in an area a "cartel". It's a matter of giving the majority of residents/voters what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.

> I don't think that's really an anti-trust problem

What kind of problem is it then? High prices being maintained by a purposeful conspiracy of existing owners to constrain supply sure sounds a lot like an antitrust problem.

> It's a matter of giving the majority of residents/voters what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.

But it's not necessarily bad for them. They make more money by monopolizing the local real estate market in the same way as any other cartel monopolizes anything.

Even if their choices are bad for the city itself, they may be planning to sell and move to another area before the long-term negative consequences to the city are felt.

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

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> congressional record Politicians do what their constituents want now? That's new. > I wouldn't regard a single post on a subreddit as evidence Visit [1]. See the spike in the graph? That is the link I posted above. It is not anecdotal. As I said, this is the most upvoted comment ever removed from that sub. [1] https://revddit.com/r/the_donald

An overly-censored troll subreddit [1] is far from being evidence of anything, much less voting stances for bipartisan politics in legislature. In fact, any subreddit for that matter is not a good indicator. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/dissecting-trumps-most-...

The popularity of the topic and its censorship is evidence that the powers-that-be will put down NN wherever they have a chance.

What would you use as proxy? r/conservative? They support NN too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/6mtvln/net_ne...

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

#159
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I find your examples convincing. MS still firmly monopolizes desktop OS (over 85% market share there). Sure, that market has lost weight due to the rise of mobile, but last I checked we're all still doing our day jobs on desktop computers, and for most office workers (who aren't developers), that's synonymous with working on a Windows machine. For 20-30 years people have had effectively no freedom to cho…

Marketshare != Monopolizing Microsoft would have to be doing anticompetitive behavior to be monopolizing the desktop market. Things such as forcing OEMs to not allow linux support, or banning iTunes installation on Windows. Simply being popular isn't the same as a monopoly. Apple has, on the other hand, been monopolizing their iOS devices with the app store. It is the only way to install apps on iOS and Apple has pla…

> Microsoft would have to be doing anticompetitive behavior

You mean like when they actually did and got caught? I'm not sure I understand your take.

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

#160
post #13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Microsoft really have any monopolies? They have a big OS market share, but operating systems have become less and less relevant as mobile computing grows. Same deal with office. Bing is nowhere near the market share as google. Azure competes with AWS and others. Xbox competes with Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft store competes with Steam. IE and edge are also being beaten by Chrome. I think the argument that Micros…

>Same deal with office. Excel? I'm in the finance world and I can say with confidence that they've got 100% market share. We use google sheet too. Every day even....for tracking everyone's QuizOfTheDay scores. Great track but not even close to Excel replacement.

My office is on Google docs completely. No point in shelling out the $ for office when you get Google docs as part of enterprise gmail. Bear in mind that just because it has near 100% market share in specific fields doesn't mean it's got 100% market share in aggregate.
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