in the past it was antivirus and window promoting there own. later they have the best antivirus and other ones are ads and targeted as cloned adware. then it was the browser war. obviously firefox is the answer but it is the same as chrome. minus a few algorithms but in the end they are neck and neck with features. They will end up making a superior product. minus the distributors ie slack, discord, and whatever next gen tech companies.... (Ycombinator)......politicians want kickbacks and favors.and the giant 5 will continue to put out superior products that the general masses will end up consuming. or services and data will be stored on their infastructure. this bill does nothing. besides pander to a red base and make polititions some kickback bucks, and free advertisement for the big 5.
Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
221–230 of 343 posts
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
I believe Amazon is more like 50%+ now, and to compared to brick & mortar... Wal-Mart is considered huge and still only ~10% of the market. There are more than 3 grocery chains in your link, I think you may have overlooked the regional chains listed below.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
But as you can see from the gigantic list on that page, most grocery stores don't belong to those top 3. I live in NYC, for example, and I don't know a single grocery store here that belongs to a national chain or even a regional one -- they're all local. (With the sole exception of Target, but that surely doesn't make up even 1% of grocery sales here.) So the ecommerce market is entirely different. There's no grocer…
For statistical purposes NYC basically isn’t America. It’s basically the only true city in the US, and is not representative of anything. Most other US cities become suburbs rather quickly, whereas NYC has an extensive urban built environment.
Walmart is the top grocer in the US and has a 27% market share. The top five grocery chains are about 45%. Top five ecommerce are about 53%. It’s not massively different.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
> People want a social network Do they, though?
Of course they do. Social networks bridge the gap between publishing and communication for the public in a way that has been absolutely transformative in many people's lives, and many people do want that and find that useful. People want to chat with and share media with their friends and affinity groups. They want to follow trending or interesting subjects. They want to post cat pictures and memes.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#225> D) Force businesses to buy ads to survive > Text: The bill would make it unlawful to do anything that "conditions access to the covered platform or preferred status on the platform on the purchase or use of other products or services offered by the covered platform operator." > Analysis: This is very clearly aimed at advertising on Amazon, potentially Google as well, where merchants often must pay to gain visibilit…
My take is to compare how ads are displayed today, vs maybe 10 years ago. Ads today are almost indistinguishable from organic content, and are typically at the top of any results. I would think that ads could still exist if organic results were still prioritised, and probably that the ads are clearly marked.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's a valid point. Less so specifically to China, and more so generally to all countries with national champions (e.g. South Korea). In some sense, it's a zero sum game, where if your country don't scale or allow companies to scale, they find the next most favorable country. Or another country's companies succeed because of the additional support provided. But subsidies and government support have always been the bi…
Sort of, protonmail or fastmail could get 20 million customers and gmail would be juuust fine.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about Trader Joe's specifically, but a lot of "Store Brands" are made in the same place as the name brand. It's just a giant game of price discrimination.
This is very true. I worked at Traders many years ago and at least back then the store brands were often made by the same name brand company.
Agreed. I never worked there but have shopped there for many years, along with the other usual places like Whole Foods and Safeway. A game I used to play was "spot the TJ's store brand item under its own name at another store."
One example is TJ's French Village plain nonfat yogurt, which is very obviously Nancy's yogurt from Springfield Creamery in Oregon. Same exact taste and texture in the same packaging. (Nancy's used to come in clear plastic tubs like TJ's. A few years ago they switched to opaque white for their name brand, but it's still the same product.)
Another is some of the frozen Indian foods, which Whole Foods carries under the manufacturer's brand name.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#228> D) Force businesses to buy ads to survive > Text: The bill would make it unlawful to do anything that "conditions access to the covered platform or preferred status on the platform on the purchase or use of other products or services offered by the covered platform operator." > Analysis: This is very clearly aimed at advertising on Amazon, potentially Google as well, where merchants often must pay to gain visibilit…
My take is to compare how ads are displayed today, vs maybe 10 years ago. Ads today are almost indistinguishable from organic content, and are typically at the top of any results. I would think that ads could still exist if organic results were still prioritised, and probably that the ads are clearly marked.
> Ads today are almost indistinguishable from organic content
If that's the problem then there should be specific rules addressing that.
> and are typically at the top of any results.
I don't think ads were ever not at the top of the results.
> I would think that ads could still exist if organic results were still prioritised
What does that mean concretely? How many organic results would have to be above the ads?
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#229Excellent.
Hopefully they'll also be able to do something about the massive profit-shifting by these companies where they extract massive profits from countries and contribute virtually nothing back in tax.
Its also laughable how they loudly advocate for E2E encryption to "protect people's privacy" whilst they themselves, monetize and invade people's privacy on a scale never before seen in human history.
Big tech truly are the robber-barons of the 21st century.
Re: Congress is going to throw the kitchen sink at big tech
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I've read, TJ's doesn't infringe. They simply pay the original manufacturer to make a run of the product with TJ's label on it.
Part of the agreement seems to be that the manufacturer goes out of their way to make a worse version for TJ's. Honestly they should be taken to task for flooding the market with fake competition, but that applies to the majority of brands in these days of megaconsolidation.
I don't think that is the case. As I noted in a sibling comment, many of TJ's store brands are identical to the name brand.
Buy a tub of the French Village yogurt I mentioned, and also buy the same Nancy's yogurt at Whole Foods, and you won't find any difference between the two.