Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Amazon. And Microsoft. And Apple. And Netflix. And every other conglomerate...
Disney and Proctor & Gamble dare you to try.
Can I borrow 20 billion usd in unmarked cash loaded on 737s for this?
U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
171–180 of 452 posts
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#172> 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 can Amazon be allowed to sell competing products in their own marketplace, when they own the actual marketplace? They should have been forced to divide their busin Depends on how you define “marketplace”. Costco/Walmart/Best Buy/Target/Home Depot/Lowe’s/grocery stores all sell their own brands next to competing brands in their stores. Is their one store the marketplace? It takes considerably more effort to go t…
> It takes considerably more effort to go to a different store than going to a different website.
That seems like it must be true - Going to Lowe's instead of Home Depot takes getting to know a different store layout, and likely at least an extra half hour if you still have to go to HD.
But evidently, by the way people talk about ordering everything from Amazon (despite its numerous problems) and look at you like you have three heads if you talk about going to even say just Target.com, there seems to be some counterintuitive hurdle for switching websites that's actually worse than for physical stores. Perhaps because web widgets are so un-affordanced that figuring out a new one can actually be hard, or that the majority of orders are reorders, or the smaller stakes dopamine feedback from getting what you need while sitting down, or the dark forest feeling makes people extremely conservative. Whatever it is, it exists.
Of course there are also plenty of people who have no problem switching between online stores at the drop of a hat. I'd posit that these people have a model of buying based on manufacturers, viewing the web stores as mere means to some ends, and understand credit card chargeback policies. For example I buy a decent amount of stuff from Zoro (whose descriptions can be lacking), and so I often end up referencing manufacturers' catalogs directly. Which are fantastically informative and easy to read (single PDF, well-specified comparison tables, no middle clicking dozens of search results, no page load lag, no flipping between tabs to spot a minute difference hidden by web chaff, no surveillance, etc), but I'm certainly paying a fixed effort overhead to get to that point.
Whatever the case for such stickiness is, I think one of the best tech reforms possible would be to mandate open APIs. As Amazon (et al) are stores, then their business is selling specific products for specific prices. This data should be openly available such that it can be retrievable by every user agent (no CAPTCHA harassment), and ideally, orders placed through the same system. This would enable price competition as well as UI competition, rather than the two being bundled as they are now.
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#173"A year after initiating the investigation, we received testimony from the Chief Executive Officers of the investigated companies: Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai. For nearly six hours, we pressed for answers about their business practices, including about evidence concerning the extent to which they have exploited, entrenched, and expanded their power over digital markets in anticompetitive…
PG tried to say that "tech" was focused on building better mousetraps, but that's hogwash. THIS is precisely the play that all VC's are after now: find a channel, throw billions at it, run everyone else out of the space, and monopolize it. When people talk glowingly about "unicorns," this is what they're really saying: monopolies.
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#174Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Epic is trying to strong arm their way into a position of power against steam and apple so they increase their take off the casino they've filled with children. Like under 10 years old children, asking parents to buy them skins. Skins and loot boxes are the worst thing to happen to gaming and should be regulated. I, and many others are firmly on Apple's side on this issue. If Epic made revolutionary or just great gam…
> Epic is trying to strong arm their way into a position of power against steam and apple so they increase their take off the casino they've filled with children. And Apple has the moral high ground wanting a cut of proceeds because they make it easy for children to get to the casino? Not a great analogy.
Apple has a better record on this than every other company I can think of. So it is actually a good analogy. Perhaps Epic didn't want to abide by these rules and used the fees as a cover?
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#176Earlier 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…
It's possible for a monopolist to have a great product that allows people to do amazing things that were never previously possible and still be harming the consumer. Microsoft had the leading desktop operating system in the 90s that allowed millions of ordinary people to start using computers for the first time, yet their browser bundling was considered problematic. Bell telephone allowed you to talk to people across…
Let's be clear about something misunderstood about Microsoft: Microsoft won that litigation in America, which is the jurisdiction we're talking about. Framing Microsoft's browser bundling as being "considered" problematic is the same as framing someone who was acquitted as being "considered" a criminal. The Microsoft approach remains an acceptable practice in law and is one of the principle points of the Apple v. Epic fight.
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#177I 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.)
What I've noticed over the past couple of years is that almost every article or news segment of importance is talking about, and quoting, Tweets. Whether Twitter has more influence than cable news now, I don't know, but it has embedded itself like a tick into the news rubric.
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-pressures-small-busine... Amazon Reportedly Pressures Small Businesses with Retaliation if They Don't Hand Over User Data
Again, how does this harm consumers?
As one example, I used to sell textbooks on Amazon. Our account would be suspended at ANY report of potential issues with a book, despite a 98%+ positive feedback rating. It was a constant battle against the platform, despite doing everything under the sun to ensure our customers had a perfect experience.
Meanwhile, Amazon Warehouse was slinging hot garbage and getting constant negative feedbacks (80% positive range) and they never got suspended. Amazon Warehouse even cancelled a massive number of their own negative feedbacks by blaming Amazon Prime for things that had nothing to do with shipping.
We were undercutting Amazon on price for a long time, but in the end we threw in the towel because it was just an impossible marketplace to participate in. Interestingly there was another textbook seller that had a similar experience that got their testimony read to Bezos by Congress.
https://www.theverge.com/21349440/amazon-marketplace-third-p...
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#179Earlier 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.
That’s an example of poor service. Not them harming consumers. Do you know whether Walmart.com or Aliexpress are any better?
Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown
#180Earlier 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…
“The standard for decades”... the article is about a new laws being proposed because the current laws don’t properly account for the harms monopoly actors cause.
What harms?