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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

#181

Post by cwkoss »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #148
dalbasal wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB is somewhat of an odd man out... I certainly think reversing acquisitions would be a positive, but... With Bell, standard oil and past monopolies... the goal was to decentralise while keeping oil and telecom viable. We wanted what they made, and didn't want disruptions. Do we want what FB makes? Is it scarce? I feel like we would have a sufficient supply of likes, shares, messages and posts regardless. There doesn…

Facebook the website and Facebook the advertising giant are kinda different things though. By which I mean that Facebook does not make $trn by supplying likes shares messages and posts.

I find it very curious how facebook's advertisements (especially on instagram) seem to have a lot more products that are cheap commodity Chinese products, whitelabeled by a glitzy 'startup' brand, and add a 500%+ margin. Very often a quick search can find identical items (maybe without a brand label) on Aliexpress for a fraction of the price.

Google search and on-site ads can be annoying and of questionable relevance, but I rarely see items that are so egregiously ripping off consumers. I dont see this much on twitter promoted tweets either.

What is it about facebook's ad business that encourages such a high proportion of overpriced garbage? Is it the mediums focus on pictures and video that makes these sales work? Is the audience just dumber/less savvy and so these platforms are the only places with enough suckers to do this successfully?

TikTok's sponsored videos seem to be falling into a similar trap to a lesser extent - the markup is less extreme for the few I've looked at out of curiosity.

Do Google and Twitter have some process for quality control to keep the garbage out that Facebook does not? Or is the medium the primary reason for this perceived difference?

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

#182

Post by Supermancho »

dantheman wrote: post #177
raverbashing wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> 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.

It happens often enough. So often, you can find stories about it all over...if you looked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/business/amazon-dc-lawsui...

https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/11/21431962/public-citizen-a...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-secret-project-bernanke...

etc. It's a matter of them getting caught and when, because nothing lasts forever, even for the tech robber barons.

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

#184

Post by graeme »

crazygringo wrote: post #155
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…

It's the monopoly aspect. Amazon is a quasi-monopoly for sellers in the sense that many sellers can only be profitable selling on Amazon, they have no choice. If Amazon has data on their entire customer base, clones their product and puts them out of business, you can view that as monopoly abuse of power. On the other hand, Ruffles sells their potato chips to hundreds if not thousands of national grocery store chains…

There are basically three large grocery chains in the US, plus Target and Walmart.

The e commerce market isn’t so different. Amazon has a 40% share. Walmart is a big player, then Shopify et al enable lots of DTC companies.

Amazon is only a monopoly if you redefine the relevant market to be “Amazon”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supermarket_chains_i...

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

#185

Post by mtVessel »

nerdponx wrote: post #117

Somewhat OT, but I love how this "kitchen sink" idiom has become so warped over the last several years. As far as I know (native AmE), the original expression was "everything but the kitchen sink", which evokes the idea of taking everything in the kitchen and using it all in a recipe, only stopping short of dismantling the kitchen itself. Whether through mishearing or laziness, the "everything but the" part has been…

I agree. One does not "throw the kitchen sink". I think the author is conflating it with the "throw the book" idiom.

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

#186

Post by cwkoss »

king07828 wrote: post #175

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…

The 'market size' part seems squishy and game-able.

I've always liked the idea of revenue-neutral progressive taxes on corporate revenue. Tax economy of scale.

Ex. Zero corporate taxes on the first 100k of revenue. For every order of magnitude above this revenue is taxed at ~1% more.

$1M in revunue -> 1%

$1B in revenue -> 4%

$100B in revenue -> 6%

Then reduce other corporate taxes to make it revenue neutral. In the most extreme case, the 1% figure or the curve could be tuned so that this is the only tax corporations pay.

This encourages companies to split: if your economy of scale isn't yielding enough to justify the tax, you could spin off multiple smaller companies that would each be more profitable. The capacity for corporations to do evil is directly proportional to concentration of power. Smaller companies won't be able to afford as many lobbyists, their threats to move their businesses will be less existential for municipalities and they'll get less-sweet sweetheart deals. Being "Too Big to Fail" is unsustainable and wasteful.

This would be a massive boon for competition. Small businesses would be easier to start. Businesses may choose to stop growing: if you're making a healthy profit, don't jeopardize your margin in a perpetual struggle to amass the most power, leaving room in the market for competitors to coexist and meaningfully compete on quality.

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

#187

Post by 8note »

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...

How much big box retail sales does Walmart control?

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

#188

Post by minsc__and__boo »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #81
paulpauper wrote: post #53

>The bills may change before they’re introduced, and they’ll inevitably go through a political process that will water them down. But even if only a portion of what’s written gets passed, the tech giants will lose several advantages they’ve exploited in recent years. Yeah that is the rub. It's like in 1998 "we're gonna break up Microsoft!" 2002: "ok Microsoft will agree to make some some changes to their business but…

The federal government will destabilize the economy the nanosecond it sees big tech as a bigger threat to its power than economic instability. The question is can tech boil the frog so they never notice.

>The federal government will destabilize the economy the nanosecond it sees big tech as a bigger threat to its power than economic instability.

Given that tech companies obey court orders, subpoenas, and the letter of the law, I don't think that slippery slope is currently a problem.

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

#189

Post by 8note »

frumper wrote: post #100
spullara wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they wouldn't. Target had nothing to do with it.

It's odd to say that the only company you had a direct business relationship with had nothing to do with it. Product liability does apply to the seller of that product, in addition to the manufacturer and distributor. That doesn't mean retailers won't fight it, or that it is easy to prove. It's just how the laws are in the US.

If I drink a coca-cola and it turns out it had rat poison in it, I'd likely blame coke, and not the grocery store, even though I have no direct business relationship with coke.

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

#190

Post by nerdponx »

crazygringo wrote: post #159
nerdponx wrote: post #117

Somewhat OT, but I love how this "kitchen sink" idiom has become so warped over the last several years. As far as I know (native AmE), the original expression was "everything but the kitchen sink", which evokes the idea of taking everything in the kitchen and using it all in a recipe, only stopping short of dismantling the kitchen itself. Whether through mishearing or laziness, the "everything but the" part has been…

I think you're confusing it a bit... One expression still is "everything but the kitchen sink", which means all reasonable effort. But that means the kitchen sink is now the metaphorical "last thing", i.e. the full extent of our effort, the theoretical maximum. So to "throw the kitchen sink" at something is to put in all your effort, literally everything you've got. (And there's no need for junk in the sink...) It's…

I've never heard that one before, but it would be pretty clever. I think most people just use it wrong.
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