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U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#111

Post by xxs »

capableweb wrote: post #5

> potentially barring companies like Amazon.com from operating the markets in which they also compete Absolutely bananas that this haven't been fixed yet! How can Google own the entire ads market and still be allowed to compete in it? Obviously for-profit companies will abuse their positions if it'll earn them more money, and fines ends up being the cost of doing business instead of deterrents. How is Apple allowed t…

>Try searching for "Earth" on Google and see what the top hit is. Is that really a fair ranking?

As shocking as it is Microsoft's "bing" does the same... Some more: duckduckgo.com does the same as well. (ok it uses microsoft's stuff underneath)

To be fair I am surprised with the results.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#112

Post by slibhb »

izacus wrote: post #52
roenxi wrote: post #15

I support anything that makes life harder for the FAANG style companies - I'm just never going to believe that the US house will do what this article signals they do. Facebook and Twitter are profound influences on politics. I look on the politically aligned mainstream news, practices like gerrymandering, the general state of political discourse, do some quick joining of dots and ... well. Political involvement isn't…

I'm not an american so can you explain if Facebook and Twitter actually have bigger sway than obviously partisan news media like Fox News? (At least in our part of the world that media seriously outstrips any kind of influence FB and Twitter yelling has.)

Since Trump was banned from Twitter have you heard anything that he has said?

Whether or not you use Twitter and Facebook, that's what journalists spend their time doing, so one way or another it's affecting the news.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#113

Post by lotsofpulp »

quickthrowman wrote: post #97
lotsofpulp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But their major monopoly has already been tested and their power is waning according to market share ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste ...). I don’t see their power waning. Their control of Office and Windows lets them bundle things like Teams and OneDrive, which puts pressure on smaller companies like Slack (sold to Salesforce) and Dropbox, who have a harder time selling when MS is thr…

Let’s all shed a tear for the billionaire founders of slack and dropbox, if it wasn’t for Microsoft they’d have 10 billion each instead of 1-2 billion. Poor Drew, poor Stewart, the world has been cruel and unforgiving to them. Have you considered that perhaps file storage and chat rooms aren’t innovative ideas that deserve massive multi-billion dollar rewards?

> Have you considered that perhaps file storage and chat rooms aren’t innovative ideas that deserve massive multi-billion dollar rewards?

I made no claim regarding what ideas deserve what. Simply that Microsoft is not losing power, by showing the kind of effects it can have on other businesses.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#114

Post by IgorPartola »

skystarman wrote: post #74
capableweb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just whatever marketplace, anti-monopoly legislation focuses on markets where the players own a significant share of the full market. In the case of Amazon, it seems like they have above 52% of the e-commerce market in the US in 2019 ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c... ) so probably it's even higher now. When one player now has over half the market, you need to carefully watch w…

The standard for antitrust enforcement for decades has been when the action of a company harms consumers. How does Amazon harm consumers? I mean precisely, how? Amazon is one of the most highly rated companies in the US by its customers. Its NPS score is 69 and 70 is considered "world class". I can get almost anything online shipped to my house the SAME DAY. If Amazon sends you the wrong item they'll let you keep the…

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-pressures-small-busine...

Amazon Reportedly Pressures Small Businesses with Retaliation if They Don't Hand Over User Data

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#115

Post by xxs »

lallysingh wrote: post #19
jiofih wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How different is that from Microsoft and IE?

iOS isn't 90%+ of the phone market.

The percentage of usage is actually unimportant (at least in the EU, I know it's not an EU news piece)

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#116

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

risyachka wrote: post #82
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't bury your flag on this argument. Many users don't care about that stuff, and Apple is winning the privacy war through decisions like these.

Where do you draw a line between abusing and feature? If Apple didn't position itself as privacy-focused, then not allowing other browsers would be clearly violation, but if this is basically part of the product description - and many people buy iPhones in the first place because they don't want or case about other browsers - they want safety - why should Apple be forced to do it?

>Where do you draw a line between abusing and feature?

When there's articulable harm.

Microsoft forcing the junk that was IE, and all their other thuggish tactics, is articulable.

The differences between chrome and safari are insignificant enough that you'll bore most people when trying to superficially explain how pretty much the only people negatively effected are advertisers, who have been avoiding their public reckoning over the straight up horrific things they do in closed rooms.

Maybe I'm wrong and there are consumers that harmed by the lack of chrome or Firefox on ios, but that'd be news to me.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#117

Post by spacemanmatt »

eecc wrote: post #61
pjc50 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're pitching the prevention of certain competitive products as a good thing, which it may have been for Apple, but it is absolutely not for the consumer.

You think so? So please elaborate on how having your platform marginalized to a mere window decoration around the ubiquitous, 100% dominant UI toolkit (Crome) is better for the consumer. Besides, there’s plenty of choice on the market, unless you want to complain about a car manufacturer selling only their own models...

> unless you want to complain about a car manufacturer selling only their own models

It does seem like you get it wrong on purpose.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#118

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

izacus wrote: post #55
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't bury your flag on this argument. Many users don't care about that stuff, and Apple is winning the privacy war through decisions like these.

Users also "didn't care" about using Internet Explorer in the Microsoft days and the browser market was STILL severely handicapped with their monopolistic abuse. Same goes for Apple - with no ability to build an alternative browser engine the market IS handicapped, especially since Apple is abusing this restriction to prevent web applications from competing with applications from which they charge tax on every single…

Call me stupid, but what exists on android that users on iOS are begging for that only exists on android because of the "freedom" of the platform. I'd like to take a moment to say that android is just handicapped because I can't run a different OS, or screw around in the OS and change things to my whims. But no ones talking about that, why not?

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#119

Post by Black101 »

verdverm wrote: post #94
Black101 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem with Google is their popups... I.E.: If you are not using Chrome, and visit Google.com, they will let you know. That is how they got so many people to switch to it.

fwiw, I just started using MS products again and they do the same thing. I'm not switching because I tried them and Google still has superior products

It never made me switch to Chrome (still use Firefox), but I think that it made a lot of people switch... by having a daily popup telling them that they are using the wrong browser.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#120

Post by shockeychap »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #107
shockeychap wrote: post #102

Given the volume and profitably of tech trading by members of Congress (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26821601 ) I have ZERO confidence that any useful legislation will come of it. It will just be a bunch of earnest and disingenuous theatre by the very people profiting from a bunch of companies who make Microsoft circa 1995 look like a kitten. For my part, I think the fundamental business model of profitin…

They could just as easily profit from shorting tech etc. True whales make money on the up and down.

Fair point, but there’s less predictability (both in timing and valuations) on the way down. It’s also harder to disguise the insider nature of shorts based on upcoming legislation.

On top of that, these companies spend millions on lobbying and have SO MUCH INFLUENCE among DC insiders that reform doesn’t have a chance. It’s more corrupt than anything Hollywood ever made about Big Oil.

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