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

Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

791–800 of 844 posts

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#791

Post by ajmurmann »

dhimes wrote: post #239
andy_ppp wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think DRM should be banned and paying for content should be super cheap - say per movie $1 for HD file download and $2 for a 4k version. For me I'd literally spend hundreds of dollars per year on content that I can own going forward. The funniest thing of course is I bet the studios would make more money than trying to charge me $4.99 to rent movies and absurd sums to "buy" them...

My wife and I are no strangers to "buying" on-demand movies we enjoy. But our experience with Verizon FIOS is that every couple of months those titles "aren't available." Our "Purchased" area is empty. Last night was one of those nights. We settled in a bit early for TV (minor celebration) and decided we had time to re-watch a movie, and our kid-still-at-home would join us. But we couldn't get it and ended up watchin…

Have you tried Movies Anywhere? It syncs your purchased Movies between most major providers. I wonder if this would allow you to watch the movie elsewhere when this issue occurs at one vendor. With this I now have many of my Apple purchases on Google Play and Amazon and vice versa

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#792

Post by edgyquant »

markus_zhang wrote: post #298

Just curious as I'm an idiot regarding laws. Does this trigger any anti-trust/monopoly or whatever similar clauses?

In the US corps don’t usually get brought up on charges unless they are being anti-competitive. I don’t see how anyone can make the case that Amazon buying MGM gives them a monopoly in any sector either.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#794

Post by aerosmile »

rileymat2 wrote: post #722
tmp231 wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a cowardly view. > If anything, breaking up these monopolies will lead to more innovation Yes, let’s violate a company’s right to exist and conduct business just because we don’t like ads, or have preferences for how the run things. If you’re so concerned that they are not doing the right thing, then you go out and do it.

I am not sure the right for a company to exist, is a real thing. These are artificial entities created by the government that give groups of people liability protection and the ability to act as one entity legally. It is not really a right, so much as a practical privilege we have set up. As such they should be open to whatever democratic will of the people. If the people arbitrarily decide they can only have so much…

I am all up for first principles thinking, which is what you demonstrated above. The problem with this approach, however, is that you have to think deeply enough to get to the very bottom of each topic. Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth. It's a well-known fact that destabilization of that growth nips away at democratic principles and ultimately leads to totalitarian governance. Just look a the role of economic instability in the Nazi rise to power [1].

So, yes, people may decide that we no longer want a certain type of companies. Heck, let's take it a step further - people may also decide that we want everyone to get a million dollars, no questions asked. But people are smarter than that, which is why we still have democracies.

[1] https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power...

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#795

Post by aerosmile »

nightski wrote: post #619
aerosmile wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how the term "break up big tech" includes "break" in it. Kind of makes you realize what's really at stake here. Sure, you don't want monopolies, but is breaking US companies going to actually prevent monopolies, or are you just shifting the balance of power from US companies to Chinese companies? Because you sure as hell are not going to break those up - and Tik Tok has demonstrated what should be obvious: we…

If you truly believe multinational conglomerates are the pinnacle of innovation then you may be right. But from my perspective they acquire because they can't innovate internally.

I don't think I implied that multinational conglomerates are the pinnacle of innovation. I implied that they are important to our economy, and by extension (see my other comment), they are important to our way of life, our way of thinking, and our ability to live in a free and democratic society. That doesn't mean that companies get to operate without any regulatory oversight, but I would be careful to constrain domestic companies in ways that we cannot constrain their international competitors.

Somehow this concept might be easier to explain by looking at the analogies from the military world. Of course the world would be a better place if we all destroyed all of our nuclear weapons. Does that mean that the US should lead by example and destroy all of our weapons first with no assurances that others will do the same? Of course not. We do this step by step, and only as much as we can trust and enforce through bilateral agreements. Well, military power is intrinsically linked to economic power, so it should be clear that we wouldn't want to cap our economic power by implementing rules that others don't have to follow. Of course, two notable exceptions are environmental concerns, and in the future likely also mental health concerns. But you can't just go crazy with imposing unreasonable limitations in those two areas (eg: requesting that every factory is only powered by renewable energy, while allowing Chinese companies to use whatever energy they want). The same thinking should apply to any limitations we want to invoke on protecting our mental health - we have to approach this step by step, rather than killing our domestic companies and handing over the market share to the foreign ones.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#796

Post by tmp231 »

aerosmile wrote: post #794
rileymat2 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure the right for a company to exist, is a real thing. These are artificial entities created by the government that give groups of people liability protection and the ability to act as one entity legally. It is not really a right, so much as a practical privilege we have set up. As such they should be open to whatever democratic will of the people. If the people arbitrarily decide they can only have so much…

I am all up for first principles thinking, which is what you demonstrated above. The problem with this approach, however, is that you have to think deeply enough to get to the very bottom of each topic. Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth. It's a well-known fact that destabilization of that growth nips away at democratic principles and ultimat…

> Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth

The need of the society is to defend property rights and sustain the rule of law. Economic growth is good, but you can’t make it the top of your list. Besides, we are already awash in too much regulation as it is, we should be heading the other direction towards more liberty. I’m not saying there’s never a time for regulation, just that we are waaaay past the point of reason in many areas.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#797

Post by aerosmile »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #625
aerosmile wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how the term "break up big tech" includes "break" in it. Kind of makes you realize what's really at stake here. Sure, you don't want monopolies, but is breaking US companies going to actually prevent monopolies, or are you just shifting the balance of power from US companies to Chinese companies? Because you sure as hell are not going to break those up - and Tik Tok has demonstrated what should be obvious: we…

That's a very scary thought. What you're saying is, these big companies already are, or about to become, effectively untouchable, because they're now important strategic assets for United States in its struggle to maintain global economic dominance.

I agree it's a scary thought. Really, it's not much different than what happened with the military industrial complex. We'd be better off without it assuming every other country got rid of theirs, but since that's not happening, it has become effectively untouchable. I am not happy about it, but you won't see me advocating for destroying all of our weapons without other countries following suit. The same applies to my thinking around the tech companies, which are increasingly becoming important drivers of our economic growth.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#798

Post by aerosmile »

tmp231 wrote: post #796
aerosmile wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all up for first principles thinking, which is what you demonstrated above. The problem with this approach, however, is that you have to think deeply enough to get to the very bottom of each topic. Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth. It's a well-known fact that destabilization of that growth nips away at democratic principles and ultimat…

> Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth The need of the society is to defend property rights and sustain the rule of law. Economic growth is good, but you can’t make it the top of your list. Besides, we are already awash in too much regulation as it is, we should be heading the other direction towards more liberty. I’m not saying there’s never a…

It feels like we're agreeing on some subjects (eg: too much regulation can kill economic growth), but disagreeing on the importance of economic growth for the defense of property rights and rule of law. My point is that those two items can only be guaranteed in a democratic society (you won't find them in places like Russia, Middle East, most of Africa, etc). In an earlier comment, I referenced a piece that discusses the impact of economic stability on Nazi's rise to power. You will find many other examples of democratic societies turning into totalitarian regimes at the time when people lost faith in elections (which is something they do when they can no longer pay for their food and rent).

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#799

Post by rileymat2 »

aerosmile wrote: post #794
rileymat2 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure the right for a company to exist, is a real thing. These are artificial entities created by the government that give groups of people liability protection and the ability to act as one entity legally. It is not really a right, so much as a practical privilege we have set up. As such they should be open to whatever democratic will of the people. If the people arbitrarily decide they can only have so much…

I am all up for first principles thinking, which is what you demonstrated above. The problem with this approach, however, is that you have to think deeply enough to get to the very bottom of each topic. Your analysis didn't touch on the fundamental need of any democratic society to sustain strong economic growth. It's a well-known fact that destabilization of that growth nips away at democratic principles and ultimat…

I thought most of that was implied by the word “practical.”

As a practical matter it may be bad policy. But, right it is not.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#800

Post by rileymat2 »

tmp231 wrote: post #748
rileymat2 wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure the right for a company to exist, is a real thing. These are artificial entities created by the government that give groups of people liability protection and the ability to act as one entity legally. It is not really a right, so much as a practical privilege we have set up. As such they should be open to whatever democratic will of the people. If the people arbitrarily decide they can only have so much…

> created by the government The entity sure, but beyond the entity you have a group of people who have created something and want to sell it to you. If the Democratic will of the people said that we should jail them for creating shows we don’t like, I’m sure you’d object. Just because the people will it doesn’t mean it is correct. People have a right to get together and create things and sell them to you under a cont…

It is more than that, they have gotten together, that may be a natural right, but they also have gotten limited liability.

An almost definitional characteristic of company v. group as you describe.

Post reply on HN