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Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

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Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#171

Post by Growling_owl »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #101
Growling_owl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns. Absolutely not. You do the opposite of that. You go at layer zero. At the population level and enter the culture wars arena with the goal of winning. Some of these companies are structured in a way that the founders are poised to retain control of their companies till they retire (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Berks…

You’ve also got to read the room. The mood in the US is not in favor of hard charging mavericks of industry. This approach today would likely backfire spectacularly. Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are l…

This strategy would have worked before MMT took over, now politicians don't need to bring about jobs, they can just print money and pass deficits of epic proportions and substitute the private sector with the state.

Especially Democrats they have no regards for fiscal responsibility , they'd have no qualms in breaking up Amazon, knowing full well that the next step would be to install a dependency scheme in the form of UBI financed via fiscal deficits.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#172

Post by [deleted] »

Hongwei wrote: post #150
Paedor wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great episode by planet money on the difference between Amazon and physical stores, the transcript is here: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/697060225 . They mention two key differences. The first is just that Amazon is arguably more dominant than any physical distributor, and has more power over offerings. The second is that if you make a new product for a retailer, the retailer usually has to invest in you…

I buy the first, not the second. Retailers often charge consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) for preferential placement in aisle and carry no risk on inventory. The bigger the retailer (eg. bestbuy, walmart), the more likely they can assume no risk on inventory with a full return policy to the CPG. Best Buy just rents out space on their store floor to individual brands.

[deleted]

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#173

Post by wintermutestwin »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #147
ethbr0 wrote: post #54

I've come around and landed more on the opinion that we're now enabling our jailors. Light tech regulation was exactly the correct approach in the 1990s (and arguably the 2000s). It enabled mind-boggling rapid and stunning innovation. ... However, the massive corporate fortunes built by the winners of those times are now primarily enabling rent seeking. Google and Facebook's other work is interesting in the same way…

Haven't we learned that the "break 'em up" fix for monopolies doesn't achieve the desired results? Why not simply get our government to do their jobs and REGULATE away practices that are not in the public's interest?

Maybe I should go back and read up on it more, but I thought Bell was the poster child for the breakup of a monopoly creating a multi-headed hydra problem.

Also, wasn't Microsoft a huge waste of taxpayer time and money? AFAIK, Gates got away with his monopolistic practices and has since been recasting himself as a societal boon.

Despite any possible gains society could gain by breaking them up, it seems like a herculean task compared to simply having our elected representatives legislate away business practices that are a public harm. (and yes, this would require our representatives to actually represent the people, but so does monopoly breakup)

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#174

Post by klaudius »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #101
Growling_owl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you're big enough to be a target, you have to spend money on lobbying, and contribute to campaigns. Absolutely not. You do the opposite of that. You go at layer zero. At the population level and enter the culture wars arena with the goal of winning. Some of these companies are structured in a way that the founders are poised to retain control of their companies till they retire (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Berks…

You’ve also got to read the room. The mood in the US is not in favor of hard charging mavericks of industry. This approach today would likely backfire spectacularly. Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are l…

    Big Tech should be locating large employment centers in strategic locations around the country. And by strategic I don’t mean where the talent, resources, or customers are located but rather where influential Congresspeople, Senators, and Governors are located.
I thought this was one of the problems of a Soviet style command economy. They would locate production not where it was more efficient and made economic sense, but where it was politically more beneficial.

If these companies start doing this they could lose to more efficient competition. Hope they aren't that stupid.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#175

Post by king07828 »

Create a monopoly tax that incentivises large companies to "right size". E.g., if the company is larger than X and has captured a market (like google with search) then tax all revenue above a threshold percentage of the market. For example, the market is $100B and the company makes $90B revenue, then tax away everything above $40B in revenue. This may take away the incentive of a large company to take too much market share and may encourage them to enable competitors. The parameters (company_size, marketshare_percentage, tax rate, etc.) may be adjusted to maximize performance

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#176

Post by jjcm »

fhrow4484 wrote: post #4

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

Safeway, Kroger, and Costco's market caps are all under the 600b limit. Even Walmart is under this.

What makes Amazon different is Amazon controls 38% of all online retail sales in the United States[1]. No company comes close to their dominance in the market.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-13/emarketer...

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#177

Post by dantheman »

raverbashing wrote: post #124
dantheman wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aren't anti-competitive, they increase competition. The help the consumer get better prices.

Until they become the monopoly and are free to hike prices

Unless the monopoly is granted/enforced by the government this has literally never happened.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#178

Post by missedthecue »

jjcm wrote: post #176
fhrow4484 wrote: post #4

> Jeff Bezos, this one’s for you. This provision aims at Amazon’s practice of using data it collects from third-party merchants to enhance its own private label offerings. If it passes, the practice would be blatantly illegal. Would it equally apply to physical stores like Safeway, Kroger, Costco's private labels like "Private Selection", "Simple Truth", "Kirkland", ... What makes Amazon different in this regard? Is…

Safeway, Kroger, and Costco's market caps are all under the 600b limit. Even Walmart is under this. What makes Amazon different is Amazon controls 38% of all online retail sales in the United States[1]. No company comes close to their dominance in the market. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-13/emarketer...

And because they trade at a frothy multiple.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#179

Post by wyldfire »

elliekelly wrote: post #66
rootusrootus wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't understand how supermarkets work. Agreed ;-). That's why I hang out on HN, hoping to gain some insight and knowledge. The customer->FBA->merchant relationship is much clearer than in any supermarket I've been in. Maybe I'm really buying from a third party and the supermarket is just acting as the fulfillment center and payment processor, but it is well hidden. I'd love to know more about how the business…

Grocery stores are retailers in the traditional sense rather than a consignment shop or marketplace like Amazon. I think the person you’re replying to is alluding to “slotting fees” for new products and perhaps the more controversial “pay to stay” fees which are far more secretive and, from my understanding, are more of a grey area. Technically I believe the “fee” is considered a type of advertising expense: https://…

Those fees might be an interesting factor but who bears the inventory carrying cost is what I suspect GP means. For FBA, it's not Amazon. It wouldn't surprise me if big vendors like coke/Pepsi who stock the shelves also own the inventory.

Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

#180

Post by majormajor »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #173
wintermutestwin wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't we learned that the "break 'em up" fix for monopolies doesn't achieve the desired results? Why not simply get our government to do their jobs and REGULATE away practices that are not in the public's interest?

Maybe I should go back and read up on it more, but I thought Bell was the poster child for the breakup of a monopoly creating a multi-headed hydra problem. Also, wasn't Microsoft a huge waste of taxpayer time and money? AFAIK, Gates got away with his monopolistic practices and has since been recasting himself as a societal boon. Despite any possible gains society could gain by breaking them up, it seems like a hercul…

Microsoft never got broken up so it certainly didn't teach us anything about breaking companies up not being useful. We'll never know what would've happened had they been. It might tell us that our laws are too weak, though.

Even if we reduce the story of Bell to "they got split up, then Southwestern Bell/Cingular/AT&T and Verizon gobbled up the rest of the others slowly" then we can see a big win: the n broken-up companies had varying levels of success because they tried different things and executed in different ways. That's a massive A/B test of the usefulness and efficiency of business practices that never would've happened if they'd never been broken up in the first place! And we'd have even less competition than our current wireless market if that breakup had never happened...

One interesting side-note I happened across recently was that Rockefeller's peak wealth was after Standard Oil was broken up. So what's the arguments against breaking up megacorps? We all know the value of competition, and we don't trust public companies to look much past the next quarter if left to their own devices, so why wouldn't we want more competition and less giant monoliths?

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