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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

#301

Post by [deleted] »

ojbyrne wrote: post #149
joejerryronnie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At least 1 company has beaten you to that idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_HQ2

[deleted]

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

#302

Post by bartimus »

heavyset_go wrote: post #280
andreilys wrote: post #205

Earlier 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…

China just fined Alibaba $3 billion for breaking anti-monopoly laws[1]. China also issued new anti-monopoly rules targeting its tech companies[2] in February. Besides, everyone in the US benefits from increased competition between our domestic companies. [1] https://www.npr.org/2021/04/10/986112628/china-fines-alibaba... [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-internet-anti-monop...

I'm speculating:

I think China is okay with big monopolies. Just as long as they control them. This particular anti monopoly fine was part of a larger power struggle with Jack Ma:

https://www.reuters.com/business/chinas-ant-group-become-fin...

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

#303

Post by [deleted] »

klaudius wrote: post #174
joejerryronnie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by fighterpilot »

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…

"Kitchen sink regression" has been around as a term for many years

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

#305

Post by fighterpilot »

sbacic wrote: post #11

I remember reading once that tech companies, on average, lobby less that traditional industries, such as fossil fuels and finance. I wonder if the lesson they will take from this is that, rather than reform, they should invest more in lobbying. Considering how much money and influence on the public opinion they have, that's a rather scary thought.

They're the only industry that is on the bad side of the extremes of both political parties.

The left because of anti-trust and anti-ultra-rich sentiment, and the right because of perceptions of social media censorship.

If they were acting properly in their own cronyistic self-interest, they would've cozied up to the right. But the demographics of their employees precluded that.

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

#306

Post by vagrantJin »

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…

So China shouldn't dominate?

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

#307

Post by dalbasal »

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.

It takes a big company to do this at scale and the network effect makes useful social networks scarce.

Counterexample: email

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

#308

Post by fauigerzigerk »

andreilys wrote: post #244
not_exactly__ wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a somewhat false dichotomy that splitting up US big tech makes China big tech win. The reason being that splitting up US big tech allow for more competitive US mid tech to arise that can outcompete China big tech in areas where it matters. I suppose you also want to prevent China Big Tech to throw its money around at Mid Tech the way US big tech did in the last 10-15 years.

Why wouldn't an international tech co just be able to acquire domestic companies and/or launch products at a significant loss to gain market share in the US? For example, break up Amazon and you now create an opening for Alibaba to expand into the US. Spending billions in order to get customers to shift to Alibaba instead of Amazon.

>Why wouldn't an international tech co just be able to acquire domestic companies and/or launch products at a significant loss to gain market share in the US?

Because international companies wouldn't be exempt from US regulation if they operate in the US.

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

#309

Post by Growling_owl »

parafactual wrote: post #284
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…

> If a guy like Bezos or Zuck were to tweet back at Sanders something to the tune "I've started a company in a garage and now it has the same credit rating of the US Government, what have you done with your life?" Aside from whether or not this is good to do, do you remember the Amazon News incident? Amazon tried to "fight back" on Twitter and it just made them look bad. (Maybe incident is too strong a term, but I do…

It has to be Bezos not a small time account.

It has to be him and has to be unapologetic, like Trump was.

People like to make fun of Trump but he delivered a masterpiece. He got to be POTUS for 4 years and the 73M people he convinced to be part of his movement grant him total immunity against past and future actions (including crimes).

His only mistake was to be banned from social media, otherwise he could be a shadow "monday morning" President right now, undermining everything Biden says.

You don't get to choose which type of ship you run, society does that for you. If you are being attacked it's the signal that you are running a ship which is too tight , you gotta loosen up

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

#310

Post by Terretta »

crazygringo wrote: post #204
nerdponx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_des…

Wonderful to academics? Yes, academics study what is, but at any given moment there are prescriptive rules and norms for what should be, Elements of Style if you will:

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

Or even if you won’t:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/50-years-of-stupid-grammar...

Such take downs are often lamenting a lack of rule following in the style guides!

“What’s wrong is that the grammatical advice proffered in Elements is so misplaced and inaccurate that counterexamples often show up in the authors’ own prose on the very same page.”

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