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

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 452 posts

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

#131

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

shockeychap wrote: post #120
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ll agree with your second point. How can we begin fixing it?

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

#132

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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…

You can profit when a stock tanks too.

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

#133

Post by nmfisher »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #118
izacus wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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.

Right now, Fortnite.

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

#135

Post by etripe »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #110
odiroot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One is unlike the others. You're probably looking at Facebook, Oracle. Netflix is a small fish.

I'm open to discussion. My inclusion of Netflix is based upon their ownership of content and distribution, last mile excluded. Which reminds me to mention: Comcast, and co, as well as the mobile carrier companies for inclusion. I'd definitely agree that Oracle should face more scrutiny but don't know enough about their business to say much besides the fact that they're starting to look like Yahoo and IBM. Facebook is…

How do you define "last mile"? I worked at ISPs that housed Netflix storage boxes in their access layer, i.e. the last site before the cable/fibre/copper pairs went to customers' houses or mobile towers.

So do you specifically mean "except the access layer" (not accurate) or "except the last mile pairs" (accurate)? I think the distinction matters when considering monopolistic behaviour, because it determines service quality (access speed, loading times, maximum throughput...)

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

#136

Post by input_sh »

the-dude wrote: post #28
asah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM and Microsoft already had their anti-trust run-ins in the 80s and 90s.

So what happened?

For Microsoft, absolutely nothing. The majority of the case was related to Windows coming with IE pre-installed, which it still does.

They've reached a settlement which was not even a slap on the wrist. They've agreed to share some APIs and have a couple of people in charge of ensuring compliance for some years. Nine states + DC objected the settlement claiming that it didn't go far enough, but the appeals court dismissed their objections.

In my view Microsoft antitrust is blown way out of proportions and didn't achieve absolutely anything concrete. One can claim that it discouraged similar behaviour in the next decade or so, but that's about it. As to why Microsoft is no longer considered a monopoly, I'm more of an opinion that it's Microsoft's internal decisions that did that, not anything antitrust-related.

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

#137

Post by simion314 »

ericmay wrote: post #64
capableweb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can use plugins in a web browser to effectively visit 100 stores to shop for the best price on an item. Amazon is just another vendor. Sure you could, but is that how most users use the web? According to Statista (2019 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/955796/global-amazon-e-c... ) [same link I put before], over 50% of the market is just Amazon, even though it's soooo easy to chose another one. Since they now…

I can’t view the link without paying unless you are simply showing that Amazon has 13% of the global e-commerce market and 50%~ of the U.S. market. To answer your question - it doesn’t matter. We don’t determine monopolies simply because of market share. If we did, why aren’t we filing another anti-trust investigation against Microsoft and Windows? The point anyway is that people have no switching cost. Amazon faces…

>Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion

Remember that Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores, regular Apple users (like 50% of US) can't install stuff on their device without Apple parental approval and the "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser".

50% still affects a lot of people, though Apple fanboys will attempt to say is not a big enough number (remember you could install other browsers and whatever application you wanted on Windows without a Microsoft approval or tax).

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

#138

Post by zikzak »

baq wrote: post #92
skystarman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One example: Amazon doesn’t seem to care about fraudulent sellers and fake paid-for reviews on its platform.

They seem to have a lot of sellers (relatively speaking) that do "triangle fraud". So they sell the part, order it from another site using stolen card, ship to original customer. They could be doing a lot to combat this but basically say "call the police" if they don't just ignore well sourced reports. Moving to more "fulfilled by Amazon" helps but that's never going to cover of all the inventory so fraudsters will always have a home there.

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

#139

Post by leppr »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #131
shockeychap wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ll agree with your second point. How can we begin fixing it?

Have citizens participate in writing legislation instead of deferring to a small entrenched elite?

I believe our elders called it Democracy. Nowadays they call it decentralization.

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

#140

Post by SuchAnonMuchWow »

Black101 wrote: post #119
verdverm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

no, what made people switch was that chrome is the default browser on android
Post reply on HN