251–260 of 343 posts
And leading from that, which much less visible behemoths and industries having a kitchen sink or two launched in their direction would generate societal improvement.
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…
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…
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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.
The real solution is just to not allow them to merge in the first place. Anti trust regulations need teeth first.
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> 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?
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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…
They've butted heads with their vendors over the years, and drive pricing decisions nationwide.
Earlier 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…
1. Whole Foods
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Acme (subsidiary of Albertsons)
4. Wegmans (on GP’s linked list)
5. Fairway / Morton Williams (depends on how you define “regional chain”, but both are Shoprite affiliates and Shoprite is on GP’s linked list)
About the only truly “local” chain grocery stores I can think of in NYC are Gristedes and Westside Market, but I’m not an expert on the subject.
It's time for the world to get a BIG reset.
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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.