Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 177 posts

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#121

Post by jamra »

waylandsmithers wrote: post #117
pyrrhotech wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is not predatory to me. It has greatly improved my life from a convenience and cost perspective. They also recently raised their wages for all warehouse employees such that it's one of the best places to work for unskilled labor in many locations. Amazon has made many small time merchants rich through their platform, and it's software engineers are among the highest paid in the industry, so I have to strongly…

As a parent who has basically never had to think about running out of diapers thanks to Amazon, I couldn't agree more (and sure, there are other companies who could do this). This has nothing to do with anti-trust but out of all the major tech corps Facebook really seems the most like a big tobacco company- sure they are adding value to the economy and ostensibly giving individual consumers something they want, but a…

That’s really funny to me. One of the criticisms I’ve read about Amazon is how they destroyed diapers dot com.

There could have been several other sites all worth billions of dollars without the need for a single one stop shop.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#122

Post by mthoms »

dhyreueu wrote: post #91
ethbr0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is crack cocaine. Most people aren't informed about the dangers, and by the time they understand, they're addicted. Moreover, it was explicitly and willfully designed to work that way.

They're not addicted to Facebook you just don't like that the social landscape is changing. Calling people was terrible compared to the convenience of social media, sure it was more intimate but most people aren't looking for intimacy in every interaction they have with their friends. A lot of the time they just want to shoot the breeze. People like memes, seeing what trendy garbage with avacado on top their friends…

>They're not addicted

>I recognize that some people do get addicted

>the only thing they're addicted to if anything is convenience

Since you're a bit err.. "conflicted" on this subject, you might want to read some research.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=social+media+addiction&...

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#123

Post by anoncake »

leetcrew wrote: post #100
durnygbur wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon from Europe's perspective: - IT - an average employer at best including salaries, extremely competitive workplace, offices in most expensive cities, I don't think they offer any equity - warehouses - they were wrecked by German unions and opened 4 warehouses in Poland serving exclusively German market and burdening the brand new EU-funded highways, as if they were shunning from complying with the German labor…

if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?

It's really a problem with the EU. Its member states still compete with each other too much, companies shouldn't be able to shop around for the laxest labour laws like that.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#124

Post by jeffreyrogers »

koonsolo wrote: post #21

So on one hand Facebook is a monopoly and something needs to be done about it. And on the other hand, the only real competitor is Chinese so it needs to be banned. I know my reasoning is not well thought out, but I just find it funny.

They want more domestic competition obviously, not foreign.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#125

Post by jimkleiber »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #89
durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Amazon is not predatory to me. It has greatly improved my life from a convenience and cost perspective. They also recently raised their wages for all warehouse employees such that it's one of the best places to work for unskilled labor in many locations. Amazon has made many small time merchants rich through their platform, and it's software engineers are among the highest paid in the industry, so I have to strongly…

It may be a benevolent monopoly to you but that doesn't mean it's not a monopoly. The predatory behaviors seem to be focused on other companies, other competitors, not on consumers. Actually, seems they are treating consumers very well (often thru very low prices subsidized from profits elsewhere) to drive competitors out of business.

So from a consumer standpoint, perhaps it is good now, but we also don't know how much better it could be if there were competition. From a competitor standpoint, it sure doesn't sound fun. I have friends who sell things on Amazon and if they get too big, sometimes Amazon even squeezes them out of their business.

I wonder if antitrust law is to protect consumers or to protect other potential producers. Regardless, I imagine some of the idea behind it is that monopolies have relatively unchecked market power and while they can be good to consumers, they can also turn bad for consumers with little freedom for consumers to leave.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#126

Post by kyuudou »

anoncake wrote: post #123
leetcrew wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?

It's really a problem with the EU. Its member states still compete with each other too much, companies shouldn't be able to shop around for the laxest labour laws like that.

I disagree, consumers should be able to decide if they want to buy a product or not and do their due diligence investigating the producer.

The countries where labor is cheaper benefit by getting more work and ultimately they uplift themselves.

Now, if it comes out that such labor is abused or managed corruptly and so forth, that is a product I will not knowingly or willingly buy.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#127

Post by kyuudou »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #93
durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Personally, I think we should rephrase this. Facebook is not evil in and of itself. Facebook's management is evil. Amazon's management is predatory. Microsoft is good (at the moment), because they have leaders at the helm that are taking notice of how to do things in a more ethical manner. We need to start assigning blame to people to start correcting the problem. It's too easy to just pass of blame and say "Well, th…

> Facebook is not evil in and of itself.

Yea but wasn't it basically a DoD spawn? Since LifeLog failed?

I mean, no need to get around messy privacy laws if you can convince people to voluntarily upload data on every aspect of their daily lives. It's brilliant. Evil, but brilliant.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#128

Post by kyuudou »

zrth wrote: post #107
kemiller2002 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think we should rephrase this. Facebook is not evil in and of itself. Facebook's management is evil. Amazon's management is predatory. Microsoft is good (at the moment), because they have leaders at the helm that are taking notice of how to do things in a more ethical manner. We need to start assigning blame to people to start correcting the problem. It's too easy to just pass of blame and say "Well, th…

> Facebook is not evil in and of itself. Facebook's management is evil. Sarcastically this make me want to reply that John the ripper was not evil. John the ripper's brain was evil.

Hah. John the Ripper[0] was a pretty useful piece of code back in the day. Now Jack the Ripper... I'd say if stories are true, he and his brain were evil, yes.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Ripper

Hmm it looks like it's still being maintained.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#129

Post by leetcrew »

anoncake wrote: post #123
leetcrew wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?

It's really a problem with the EU. Its member states still compete with each other too much, companies shouldn't be able to shop around for the laxest labour laws like that.

preface: likely an ignorant opinion from an american.

from across the pond, it looks like the richer EU countries (eg, germany) essentially want to have it both ways. they want to have strong worker protections and prevent poorer EU countries from enabling labor arbitrage, all while having relatively unencumbered trade within the EU. at the same time, they don't want to provide the economic aid to the poorer countries that would reduce the incentive to do this sort of thing. seems like a "pick one" type of situation.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#130

Post by xutopia »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #89
durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Amazon is not predatory to me. It has greatly improved my life from a convenience and cost perspective. They also recently raised their wages for all warehouse employees such that it's one of the best places to work for unskilled labor in many locations. Amazon has made many small time merchants rich through their platform, and it's software engineers are among the highest paid in the industry, so I have to strongly…

You forget all the successful merchants that have their products copied by Amazon and undercut. They'll embrace you on their platform but use their knowledge of your sales against you. Look at all the Amazon Basics products out there and tell me this is not concerning to retailers making use of their platform!
Post reply on HN