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The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

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Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#161

Post by tuna-piano »

tempsy wrote: post #18

I would argue Visa and Mastercard and payment processing at large as the top priority by far. It's crazy that we've given up control as a society of the only mechanisms for electronic payments in an increasingly cashless world to unregulated private entities who continue to jack up fees as often as they can get away with. Makes everything 3-5% more expensive. Ridiculous.

I don't think this analysis is correct.

While it's true many merchants pay 1-3% in processing fees, many of the costs involved are real. Building the network, fraud, rewards to consumers, etc.

Visa's net income is roughly $11 billion a year[1], and they process roughly $11 trillion a year[2]. So their take is ~.1%, not 3-5%.

Note that this ignores that banks may make money off these transactions as well. May be better to look at Discover (the lender and the network) instead of Visa. But I'd think the total take from these companies is much closer to .1% than even 1%.

[1]https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/V/financials/

[2]https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/corporate/media/visan...

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#162

Post by ryanmarsh »

kazinator wrote: post #126
ryanmarsh wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Federal gov't is vast and is not uniformly ineffective. Even within departments tech performance can vary greatly.

> not uniformly ineffective Ha, that's a good phrase to use in a performance review. "On the whole, Bob is not uniformly ineffective ..."

"... and the upside is we gathered some interesting data on personnel performance"

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#163

Post by toomuchtodo »

shadowgovt wrote: post #51
tempsy wrote: post #18

I would argue Visa and Mastercard and payment processing at large as the top priority by far. It's crazy that we've given up control as a society of the only mechanisms for electronic payments in an increasingly cashless world to unregulated private entities who continue to jack up fees as often as they can get away with. Makes everything 3-5% more expensive. Ridiculous.

There is 100% nothing stopping the Federal government from offering a full-faith-and-credit-backed "America electronic transaction system" for electronic transactions, with those fees handled by taxes. But much as there's nothing stopping the Federal government from greatly simplifying the burden and toil of tax season by issuing 90% of Americans a pre-filled-out "This is what you owe; sign this and return it or disp…

> There is 100% nothing stopping the Federal government from offering a full-faith-and-credit-backed "America electronic transaction system" for electronic transactions, with those fees handled by taxes.

That is the plan, albeit the minimal fees involved paid for through users of the Fed’s system.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24103753

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#164

Post by drawkbox »

tempsy wrote: post #18

I would argue Visa and Mastercard and payment processing at large as the top priority by far. It's crazy that we've given up control as a society of the only mechanisms for electronic payments in an increasingly cashless world to unregulated private entities who continue to jack up fees as often as they can get away with. Makes everything 3-5% more expensive. Ridiculous.

Yeah banking and ISPs or the network utility need to be regulated as utilities first. They are both "too big to fail" and local monopolies respectively and they are both abusing their position.

A competing banking system through the USPS is a great idea that needs to be remade, it worked well for a long time in the US [1]. It would eliminate the predatory checks cashed industry and credit through the system would be competitive to keep the private systems in check, much like the USPS does other delivery services or Federal student loan rates keep private rates in check. The same needs to happen for healthcare with a public option. When you have public systems, the private ones have to compete more, it is a win for everyone.

The network utility needs to be split, lines handled by power companies that know how to run a utility, and then the servicers on top that are competitive would also be interest aligned with the network utility users.

I have no doubt this "Google should be regulated as a utility" is being pushed by ISPs that know they are utilities but fought to remove that classification. They deserve to lose their local monopolies and right to that because they abused their position and have turned rent-seeking over capacity expansion with data caps, overloaded nodes, prioritization, dropped packets, all incentives to NOT expand the capacity which is a major problem when the market incentives are aligned against the interests of the country, products and innovation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Savings_S...

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#165

Post by bagacrap »

ryanb wrote: post #36
auganov wrote: post #29

I love how few actual proposal there are out there as to what the government should actually do. That is - not just "regulate" or "break them up". I'm talking specifics. Once you start making concrete proposals it becomes increasingly obvious just how hard it is to come up with something that won't make everything worse.

1. There needs to be guidelines for what Google can and can't do with search. Ex: Only 25% of the screen real estate can go to Google-owned ad products for allowing it to continue as a monopoly. 2. YouTube should possibly be broken out as a separate company and it shouldn't get favorable placement and treatment in search results 3. Businesses need to have more control over how their businesses appear when users searc…

Does YouTube get favorable placement in search? I see video results from other sites like Vimeo. I just did a search for a recent sporting event and 6/12 video results were YT. The only "problem" is that YT has such a large share of the online video market.

wrt #3, no, I don't want businesses to control the information I get when I search for them, because I want neutral and true-ish information, not ad copy.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#166

Post by shadowgovt »

12xo wrote: post #145
shadowgovt wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several other competing ad networks, as well as traditional advertising models. Nobody actually has to play Google's ad game; companies continue to crunch the numbers and decide it works out best for them in terms of dollar-per-value-add.

No there is not. There is no competition for Google ad words, just like there is no competition for Facebook. They set the market prices, the middle-men add to that cost and sell their services based on value add...

But AdWords is only one advertising model.

https://www.singlegrain.com/blog-posts/pay-per-click/alterna...

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#167

Post by tempsy »

tuna-piano wrote: post #161
tempsy wrote: post #18

I would argue Visa and Mastercard and payment processing at large as the top priority by far. It's crazy that we've given up control as a society of the only mechanisms for electronic payments in an increasingly cashless world to unregulated private entities who continue to jack up fees as often as they can get away with. Makes everything 3-5% more expensive. Ridiculous.

I don't think this analysis is correct. While it's true many merchants pay 1-3% in processing fees, many of the costs involved are real. Building the network, fraud, rewards to consumers, etc. Visa's net income is roughly $11 billion a year[1], and they process roughly $11 trillion a year[2]. So their take is ~.1%, not 3-5%. Note that this ignores that banks may make money off these transactions as well. May be bette…

the 3-5% number is just a reference to the total “tax” merchants pay for payment processing as a whole - I get that most of that is the interchange fee that is paid out to issuers. but Visa and MC are the ones who dictate the interchange fee rates that issuers receive outside of the Durbin Amendment which capped debit interchange for large banks.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#168

Post by dntrkv »

jakeva wrote: post #62
t0mmyb0y wrote: post #27

Oh god. If google were regulated like a utility...we would be stuck with them instead of letting them go away by themselves. And yes, one day google will fail and bring a bunch of companies with them.

I've heard this before but I'm not convinced. Not every big company fails and goes away. Not every company is Yahoo.

I don't think it necessarily means the whole company will fail, but over time, large companies become more risk-averse which opens up room for smaller, nimble companies to gain market share. Tesla being a great example of this. Hell, Google itself came up this way.

There is also another factor that isn't discussed as much and that's when companies become spread too thin. When a large company attempts to compete in every market, it will be increasingly difficult to be competitive in any of them. Yahoo is a great example of this, they spread themselves too thin, they didn't do any one thing better than others, and over time they were overtaken by competitors.

Re: The case for why Google should be regulated as a public utility

#169

Post by ocdtrekkie »

pb7 wrote: post #96
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect: Nearly all business ventures must use Google. If you do not, you do not exist. Doesn't matter if you're a website or a restaurant. No Google presence, no business. Go run ads for your startup on Bing and see where that gets you. Also, try to be a user on the Internet without using reCAPTCHA... In increasingly more school districts you have to either give Google your kids' data and a Chromebook account or y…

If you have one ISP and they decide to refuse you service for any reason, you don't get Google or any other website. You're putting the cart before the horse.

There are also four national wireless carriers, which offer home service, satellite Internet (including, soon, Starlink...)
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