U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by briandear » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 12:57 PM UTC

Mindwipe wrote: post #40

eecc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Nope, total Apple and Oranges. Forbidding other HTML rendering engines on iOS, prevented other massive players (Google) from forcing their browser platform onto Apple’s user base and Electron-ized Apple’s ecosystem making iOS a marginal runtime. Or wor…

> It’s not competitive advantage, it’s strategy It's 100% competitive advantage. The main driver of Apple's lack of support for Flash was to damage the web's ability to distribute DRMed video and force it into apps on iOS, where Apple could rent seek a 30% commission from subscription fees.

Nonsense. There is extensive writing on the subject including internal memos from Steve Jobs on Flash — and you are 100% incorrect.

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

#122

Post by vlovich123 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 12:57 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #100

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…

> It's not just whatever marketplace, anti-monopoly legislation focuses on markets where the players own a significant share of the full market. It depends on what you call the marketplace. Look at the broader "retail" sector > The eCommerce giant [Amazon] accounted for 3.2 percent of total consumer spending in Q2 (spanning all categories, including retail) and 9 percent of total retail spending... When it comes to c…

If you define the marketplace as the US economy, Amazon looks like a tiny blip. If you define it as in-person retail Amazon is non-existent.

The analogy I would use is that e-commerce retail is smart phones in 2008 (maybe a bit later) and the broader retail market includes landlines and feature phones. Even today landlines exist and feature phones are sold. The growth trajectory for e-commerce won’t change and big box retail won’t encounter a meaningful resurgence. Amazon is the second biggest retailer alone as compared with Walmart which primarily makes money on big box store and has a retail presence in name only (if you take just their online sales it’s not meaningful competition). The concern is that the reason Amazon holds such dominance in e-commerce is because it’s really leveraging cross-market dominance. AWS subsidizes their marketplace to be extra competitive, their data on retail has them introducing first-party products that compete with suppliers selling through their platform by focusing on high-margin items.

The better question is whether or not this kind of behavior needs regulation, or needs regulation yet. I’d argue yes having read the story from the diaper.com founder and Bezos’ laughable diversion.

As for ease of switching, I think e-commerce can’t be directly compared as the driving user behaviors are different. I could argue it’s easier with a big box store because I could just drive to a different one, use my CC and move on whereas in e-commerce I have yet another account to manage, I have to make sure I’m not getting scammed, etc.

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

#123

Post by osrec » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #108

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…

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is not. Microsoft compelled their hardware partners to not do business with competitors, Apple is vertical regards to hardware. While I like protocols and interoperability, it’s hard to achieve that through antitrust laws…

The mobile phone market is an oligopoly, with each participant pushing their own (sometimes terrible) agendas.

Given that Apple is very deliberately resisting the adoption of PWAs in order to protect their app store, I think it's fair to say they're playing dirty. I mean, why are they restricting other browsers from using their own web views?! So that they can't implement annoying web push notifications (which users can turn off anyway)?! That's a terrible excuse to hold the web back, and it annoys the heck out of me. Especially given the number of apps in the app store with a bunch of security issues and equally annoying push notifications.

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

#124

Post by mupuff1234 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:00 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #108

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…

> How is Apple allowed to disallow any other web browsers on their mobile devices? We already went through this with Microsoft in the past but suddenly it's different? Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple is not. Microsoft compelled their hardware partners to not do business with competitors, Apple is vertical regards to hardware. While I like protocols and interoperability, it’s hard to achieve that through antitrust laws…

Apple has about 60% share of mobile phones in the US. I'd say it definitely should be considered a monopoly.

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

#125

Post by airstrike » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

eecc wrote: post #98

capableweb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does preventing competition in a specific application category lead to Apple preventing Google from "forcing" iOS users to use Chrome? Not sure I follow your argument here or how allowing browsers would somehow make it possible for Google to automatically install Chrome for iOS users. Imagine if Google suddenly made their Chrome browser behave differently on Google websites compared to others, like 0.5 the perfor…

They are intentionally protecting their ecosystem from the thread of an incumbent strangling their growth and marginalizing their strategy. From a market dominant position it would be Antitrust material. Not in this case: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272698/global-market-sha...

Now find the same chart for the US only

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

#126

Post by yepthatsreality » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #59

capableweb wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does preventing competition in a specific application category lead to Apple preventing Google from "forcing" iOS users to use Chrome? Not sure I follow your argument here or how allowing browsers would somehow make it possible for Google to automatically install Chrome for iOS users. Imagine if Google suddenly made their Chrome browser behave differently on Google websites compared to others, like 0.5 the perfor…

> Imagine if Google suddenly made their Chrome browser behave differently on Google websites compared to others, like 0.5 the performance for no reason. I don't have to imagine. https://tech.co/news/google-slowed-youtube-firefox-edge-2019...

Not to mention the 2010’s where Google only allowed products (such as hangouts) to run on Chrome.

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

#127

Post by shockeychap » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

indigochill wrote: post #95

lotsofpulp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By controlling the infrastructure of the digital age, they have surveilled other businesses to identify potential rivals, and have ultimately bought out, copied, or cut off their competitive threats. Is this accurate? I would think control of the infrastructure is with companies like Comcast/ATT/Verizon/Verisign/ and others who you can’t bypass by typing in different characters into the URL bar. Would it be more ac…

Comcast and friends are essentially utility companies. If the internet is "a bunch of tubes", they keep the tubes clear. They don't get involved at the content layer. Comcast may be a crappy provider in many ways, but they've never made the news for politically-motivated network traffic filtering. FAANG on the other hand all get their hands dirty in deciding what content people get to see and what not, which would la…

Agree. Big Brother is just as corrupt and just adds another element to the smoke and mirrors presentation.

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

#128

Post by ObserverNeutral » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

They will break them up. Mark my words.

People are tired, their products and services are becoming more and more pushing on a string with regards to quality of life.

The iPhone is more than 10 years old and nothing new came after that.

At the same time people see these mega organizations which are more powerful than nation states, with people like Bezos worth 200B.

When companies are worth 2T with founders worth 200B, the whole "what have you done for me recently" thing becomes pretty extreme, very quickly.

If they want to avoid being broken up they have to at least bring about nuclear fusion or landing on Mars (maybe that's why Bezos is doing Blue Origin).

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

#129

Post by throwaways885 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #99

lallysingh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

In some markets it’s pretty close (US teenagers for example).

As a teenager I felt pushed out of conversations because I was an Android user, and got written off as a green bubble.

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

#130

Post by briandear » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

swebs wrote: post #27

LatteLazy wrote: post #10

A lot of this just looks like punishing success to me. Or rather success combined with a lack of political involvement aka donation. If it cares about monopolies go look at comcast or Disney or big chunks of agriculture or Boeing etc. If the house really cares about privacy, it should look at the patriot act. If it cares about workers, go look at Walmart.

What market is Disney a monopoly in?

They own the Disney Theme Park Market. Vendors have to get approved to sell in Disney parks, a commissions gets paid to Disney for each sale, and Disney doesn’t allow Universal Studios products in any of the Disney park stores.