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Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech

bigtechnology.substack.com

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

#201

Post by ethbr0 »

bogwog wrote: post #144
dreamcompiler wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to be careful about breakups to prevent re-agglomeration. Although AT&T was broken up, the Baby Bells eventually merged back together again while nobody was looking. The winner was Southwestern Bell, which later renamed itself to AT&T. The AT&T we know today is really just Southwestern Bell with a new name. Fortunately they have competitors but not very many.

I wonder why the DOD/FTC/whatever can't/won't impose specific restrictions on companies in order to correct anti-trust issues? That seems a lot less drastic and risky than a break-up. For example, if Apple is forcing developers to use their payments SDK to collect 30%, why can't a government agency just force them to stop? Maybe there was a long official investigation by antitrust regulators, and that kicked off a lo…

> why can't a government agency just force [a specific business] to stop [doing a specific thing]?

(I am not a corporate lawyer) Hopefully didn't take editorial liberties with your quote, but wanted it to stand on its own.

My understanding is that the US, in contrast to many other advanced economies unofficially or officially, takes a dim legal view of singling out a company for any purpose.

Either a company is acting within the law, or they are breaking the law. What company doesn't (shouldn't) matter.

Which I think is wise as a standing order, as detailed specific-company intervention renders it more subject to politics, etc. Better to stick to the laws, and then allow the courts to apply them evenly.

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

#202

Post by [deleted] »

jimmaswell wrote: post #196
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…

> Do we want what FB makes? Is it scarce?.. doesn't need to be a $trn company People want a social network that everyone else is on, that works on all their devices, and isn't full of spam bots or bugs. It takes a big company to do this at scale and the network effect makes useful social networks scarce.

[deleted]

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

#204

Post by crazygringo »

nerdponx wrote: post #190
crazygringo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean using it wrong? The article is using it in exactly the way I described. "Throw the kitchen sink at something" is a widely used, valid expression these days. People are using it to mean expending every effort, so people seem to be using it right.

And the wonderful thing about language is that however most people are using it is by definition what it means:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_description

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

#205

Post by andreilys »

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…

IMHO, everyone will be better off if Facebook, Google, and Amazon are shattered into small enough independent pieces that (1) "get bought" is no longer the startup win condition & (2) they have peer level competitors in all markets in which they participate.

I’m sure Chinese Tech co’s would absolutely love to have their Western competition knee-capped by their own governments. Will make it a lot easier for them to dominate the globe for decades to come.

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

#206

Post by smolder »

majormajor wrote: post #162
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?

> Haven't we learned that the "break 'em up" fix for monopolies doesn't achieve the desired results? What do you think are failed examples of this? Even though you had eventual re-consolidation, the post-breakup phone industry seemed like a much more interesting and competitive place than the one before it. The fix for re-consolidation, of course, could be pretty simple... Very few people want to do the harder, more…

I can think of some incentives that would prevent hyperconsolidation. Sliding scale taxation based on some formula including a ratio of revenue to people employed. Maybe take away big company's litigation advantage by making them pay an amount somewhat proportional to their size into a pool that covers the total costs of litigation. Let them recover money on wins. I think such incentives/disincentives would be met with the usual: "but if we're hostile to big business and restrict growth, they'll leave the US for greener pastures!". Is that really so bad? Let companies that are hostile to the US public leave the US. Penalize their advantage away in tariffs or something for fleeing to weaker regulatory environments.

ISPs can't leave and yet we don't seriously regulate them into doing public good or having a competitive market, which is mysteriously somehow contentious politically. Many others can't leave because their talent pools aren't willing to go with them, and that would be even more true if the workers had a government that worked for us.

There is a problem with government being full of people who would rather stay on the receiving end of a money hose than pinch it off for anyone's benefit. All the other apparent problems seem to me to be excuses to protect that. Check greed or we all suffer. You can check greed without stifling ambition. It's a valid choice.

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

#207

Post by andreilys »

danShumway wrote: post #165
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?

> Haven't we learned that the "break 'em up" fix for monopolies doesn't achieve the desired results? Breaking up has achieved excellent results before, as far as I can tell. It's not a permanent solution to the problem, but neither is brushing my teeth. It might be OK to have a process that needs to be periodically repeated when companies get out of control. It might even be preferable to large legislative efforts th…

Breaking up has achieved excellent results before, as far as I can tell.

Source?

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

#208

Post by cwkoss »

cwkoss wrote: post #181
bluefirebrand wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In conclusion, I think facebook's advertising arm is likely much more societally damaging than other platforms, and - so long as it continues at current quality level - I would celebrate its demise.

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

#209

Post by InvertedRhodium »

andreilys wrote: post #205
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…

IMHO, everyone will be better off if Facebook, Google, and Amazon are shattered into small enough independent pieces that (1) "get bought" is no longer the startup win condition & (2) they have peer level competitors in all markets in which they participate. I’m sure Chinese Tech co’s would absolutely love to have their Western competition knee-capped by their own governments. Will make it a lot easier for them to do…

Their services will just be banned and access made difficult enough to dissuade the average person. By that point I'm sure China will have perfected the technology enough that we can just copy them.

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

#210

Post by akiselev »

dantheman wrote: post #140
akiselev wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep they do that too but it's not risk free for physical stores because they take up shelf space. Anything that isn't moving off storefront shelves isn't making them any revenue - unlike Amazon they can't present every product through a paginated digital catalog while charging for warehouse storage.

You don't think page space matters? How many people go page 30 of results?

Page space doesn't matter, at all. Anyone can produce more Amazon searches in 5 minutes than there are shelves in a retail store. Amazon makes money no matter which page you buy it from AND they charge all the merchants on page 30 for storing their goods in the Amazon warehouses on top of any commission. That's the exact opposite of inventory risk, that's an inventory gold mine. Retail stores can only sell stuff that is physical within arms reach of a customer.

We're talking about retail vs Amazon, not retail vs Alibaba reseller #39146527.

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