Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the down votes prove your point... Incredible.
I love how downvotes on Hacker News have become a totalitarian attack on free speech.
They're proof of cowardice and intellectual dishonesty. That's enough.
Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
191–200 of 309 posts
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> there wasn't a problem Throttling traffic to certain websites [1] is not a problem? The reason net neutrality policy came into being is ISPs were beginning to violate it [2]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/22/major-int... [2] https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/expla...
The article authors didn’t understand peering agreements that have always been a thing. If one network receives more data than it sends there have always been price negotiations.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#193Earlier 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
> Politicians do what their constituents want now? That's new. Clearly there is a strong correlation between political identity and the politicians that are elected to represent those identities since democrats overwhelmingly vote for candidates that support NN and republicans overwhelmingly vote for candidates that oppose it. This is pretty simple to verify based on the congressional voting record, the machinations…
Net neutrality is not what most people are voting on.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#194And not Comcast, Walmart, AT&T? ... I wonder why
Gotta give money to the winning team... Alphabet: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000067823&cy... Apple: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000021754&cy... Amazon: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000023883&cy... Facebook: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000033563&cy... --- Comcast: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals.php?id=D000000461&cy... Walmart: htt…
To be clear, it's illegal for corporations to give money directly to federal candidates. This is a tally of donations from employees of those companies, which makes this a function of workforce ideological leanings more than anything else.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is actually accounted for in the merchant interchange rate. It varies by MCC and potentially merchant to merchant and the frequency of chargebacks is built into how much the merchant pays for processing. But the number of chargebacks is as much related to the frequency of buyer fraud in that industry rather than anything the merchant can control. If it's all buyer fraud then the rate is high, but how do you so…
> But the number of chargebacks is as much related to the frequency of buyer fraud in that industry rather than anything the merchant can control. If it's all buyer fraud then the rate is high, but how do you solve that other than by moving the liability back to the buyer? You are. Retail price is adjusted to account for interchange which is adjusted to account for risk. Merchants can offer cash discounts. > It's the…
> You are. Retail price is adjusted to account for interchange which is adjusted to account for risk. Merchants can offer cash discounts.
That's not moving the liability the buyer, that's just part of the insurance cost. It doesn't cause the buyer to be less careless or care more about security. And there is still currently no plausible cash-equivalent over the internet.
> Again processors make money when transaction volume is higher. If this reduced transaction volume why would they do it?
Insurance companies make more money when everybody has to buy insurance. How is that an argument for forcing everybody to buy insurance? "Middlemen make more profit" is an argument against.
> Average merchant interchange is around 3% and there are 2% cash back cards, so it’s 1% net, meaning I’d be out $2000, so break even.
You're using peak cash back and average interchange fees. The cards with 2% cash back aren't the cards with 3% interchange fees. And you're not accounting for the merchant losses from the chargeback itself which causes them to have to charge higher prices. Meanwhile a legitimate $2000 chargeback is atypically large.
Those numbers go even further south for people with bad credit who can't get a cash back card and then have to shop at low income merchants who suffer a high customer fraud rate, meanwhile they won't be making a large legitimate chargeback because they can't afford purchases that large to begin with.
> Not to mention the interest-free one month loans, car rental insurance, loss insurance, warranty extensions and so on.
Marketing gimmicks that purposely sound valuable but aren't worth very much in practice.
> So you’re speculating in spite of the fact interests are currently aligned.
You're asking for data so I'm asking to run the experiment. How else do you get better data?
And your claim that the interests are aligned ignores the cost of the insurance. If you can get a discount for waiving your right to a chargeback for a merchant you trust, it's basically free money, and your interests are both aligned in not paying for insurance you don't need. If the fee is then high to have a right to do a chargeback against the shady merchant you don't trust, maybe there is good reason for that.
> And setting aside that the choice specifically exists for all brick and mortar merchants - so is there some reason they’re a poor sample?
The sample is confounded because many merchants don't offer a cash discount but many credit cards still offer cash back, and cash is slower, so many customers prefer credit cards for reasons outside of the ability to refuse charges later.
But even then, many people nonetheless pay cash, especially when the discount actually exists. If the value of being able to do a chargeback was so great, why would anybody ever do that? More importantly, why shouldn't they be able to, including over the internet?
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Visa and Mastercard have a pretty effective duopoly, too! Their fees and chargeback procedures are a drag on the entire economy. Getting banned by them effectively kills your ability to accept payments, and many legal but politically unpopular businesses find themselves in the crosshairs.
Can we include Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to the list of monopolistic anti-competitive financial companies?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but we've almost immediately started down the road that HN user fyoving is cautioning us against. The idea that our government is going to go after financial firms is a bit fanciful. (In all honesty, legally speaking, fyoving is even correct in asserting that they aren't even going after tech firms.)
When you're getting people's hopes up by making them think that something is going to happen, and then nothing happens. People immediately blame big banking, big finance, big tech, corrupt politicians, corruption in general, etc etc. Which is entirely understandable. People get upset at dashed hopes. They look for something or someone to blame. And to be fair, sometimes it's even true that corruption is part of the reason.
But this time I have a strong suspicion fyoving is likely correct for a more systemic reason. Any sort of action against a lot of these companies, tech or finance, won't pass muster with the courts. It's not corruption, it's just the law. Which we can change, but it's really hard to do so because there are good reasons for some of these laws. (One way to address that problem though is to add new laws instead of changing the current ones, but there is going to be natural resistance against that too.)
I suspect that's the entire reason a certain segment of politicians are trying to bring action against the tech giants within the parameters of current law. Because they know it won't work already. They know how the supremes will rule on any such actions. (Rulings the supremes won't even have to hand down because the agencies in question will probably decide against wasting the time taking any actions in the first place.)
It's terrible. A likely diversion of 10 years minimum, during which no one will actually be able to gain any traction towards changing the laws because these elites will be wagging the dog making people think something is going to happen under current law. We should have pushed for changes in the law first. Then gone after the big businesses. But that was probably just a pipe dream of mine anyway. It was never gonna happen.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I shared aggregated statistics calculated across a whole subreddit's history to make my point. That is a fair basis for discussion.
You cherry picked a deleted comment from a troll subreddit to act as an indicator of the entire Republican party stance on Net Neutrality.
> You cherry picked a deleted comment from a troll subreddit
No, as I showed, that post is the most upvoted removed comment in the sub's history.
If you think t_d has no influence over the republican party, you do you. This is my last comment in this thread.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#198Allow 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…
Replace "big tech" with "big banks" and this is almost word for word what I hear from my friends on Wall Street. The fact is that these are some of the most powerful companies in the world. Tech has skated by with a tiny fraction of the scrutiny that similarly powerful industries get. You say that it doesn't appear customers have been harmed by these companies, but maybe it doesn't appear that way because nobody with…
This is actually a decent point, and tech has only recently realized that they need lobbyists in order to smooth the legislative runways (this is the most charitable description I could imagine for what is being done here).
Congress & the executive may want to look into this with cool heads rather than doing the lambasting song and dance. There’s a lot of s&p 500 money in the companies they are going after, and I’m getting the feeling that the “enormous tax cut” is really just gonna end up as cushion for trillions in dumbass value destruction.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#199Earlier 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?
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…
I agree that being forced into 6% commission regardless of the effort it took to buy/sell your house is a problem, I don't think that extra few percent is what's pricing people out of buying a home.
Re: Antitrust Troubles Snowball for Tech Giants as Lawmakers Join In
#200Earlier 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.
Natural monopolies are just as bad if they exploit their monopoly, which they will certainly do if they’re left to their own devices.