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House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

cicilline.house.gov

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Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#151

Post by ethbr0 »

dean177 wrote: post #136
elzbardico wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram was a probable competitor for Facebook. Facebook bought it. Facebook was feeling threatened by the success of WhatsApp on instant messaging? bought. if it doesn't look to you like a monopoly, or at least something seriously and credibly moving to become a monopoly, by the time they meet your criteria, it would be too late to do anything about it.

When Instagram was purchased by Facebook it was not viewed as a competitor at all, it was widely viewed as a terrible decision with FB massively overpaying.

I'm not sure how this cuts against the claim. In this case, wide views at the time were wrong, and Facebook knew lighting money on fire was worth it... if it kept the spigot flowing.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#152

Post by ethbr0 »

bawolff wrote: post #143
cortesoft wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to have a full monopoly to be considered a monopoly under the law in the United States. You can be considered a legal monopoly if you have significant market power and can charge overly high prices for things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

Hard to charge overly high price for something that is free.

Free service -> non-free infrastructure / development -> corporate revenue -> who's really paying

In this case, it's advertisers.

Which is why all the antitrust suits are brought "for" the ad industry.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#153

Post by TchoBeer »

_-david-_ wrote: post #138
zer00eyz wrote: post #121

We are talking about the big tech companies... Name one that is an ACTUAL monopoly? Facebook? Apple? Google? Amazon? Vertical integration is NOT monopoly, and thats what many of them are doing. I see a lot of arguments about these companies that are tantamount to "I didn't know how the world worked till I saw them do it and now I'm unhappy". After starting to dig a bit further than this article into what some of thes…

Google has some where around 80% of the search market in the US which is possibly enough to qualify as a monopoly.

Is this because they're a monopoly or because they're better than the competition?

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#154

Post by mkolodny »

The "Platform Competition and Opportunity Act" looks like it would ban big tech companies from buying almost any other companies:

"It shall be unlawful for a covered platform operator to acquire directly or indirectly... the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital of another person engaged in commerce or in any activity or affecting commerce." [0]

[0] https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#155

Post by robomartin »

gfodor wrote: post #2

I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) which will make it hard to not presume there are perverse incentives in these bills, but I’m open to it. My sense is that antitrust is as wrong a model for correcting this as the prior regime was that led to the creation of antitrust laws.

> I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides)

I always try to understand which votes they are trying to buy.

Seriously.

If we model politicians as individuals evolving through an evolutionary algorithm it becomes very clear that their fitness function has very few variables. Money and votes. Not sure what else.

Once they learned that votes can be had with promises, rather than execution, all was lost. Politicians are now experts at manipulating the audience for votes through promises (which are nearly always false).

They also manipulate the audience through incredibly creative naming of bills and programs. Every single one of them sounds amazing. And yet, nearly every time you actually study one there's plenty to be horrified about.

I have no clue how we fix this. If the fitness function that drives this species does not include an evaluation of actual results (valuable, useful, positive, consistent long-term results) they will never have the evolutionary pressure required to mutate in a direction that benefits the people and the nation. They are so deep into self-serving and party-serving territory at this point that we would have to make massive changes to the way things run if there is to be any hope of correcting the type of person who goes into politics and their behavior once at their respective throne.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#156

Post by faitswulff »

mkolodny wrote: post #154

The "Platform Competition and Opportunity Act" looks like it would ban big tech companies from buying almost any other companies: "It shall be unlawful for a covered platform operator to acquire directly or indirectly... the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital of another person engaged in commerce or in any activity or affecting commerce." [0] [0] https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.go…

That would certainly make the internet a lot more interesting.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#157

Post by pitaj »

ergot_vacation wrote: post #137
zer00eyz wrote: post #121

We are talking about the big tech companies... Name one that is an ACTUAL monopoly? Facebook? Apple? Google? Amazon? Vertical integration is NOT monopoly, and thats what many of them are doing. I see a lot of arguments about these companies that are tantamount to "I didn't know how the world worked till I saw them do it and now I'm unhappy". After starting to dig a bit further than this article into what some of thes…

Ah yes, Amazon isn't a monopoly. That's why I often use the alternative online shopping site that has nearly every mass-produced item imaginable at low prices and low or free shipping. Same with Facebook: it's good thing there's that competitor of theirs that nearly everyone is on, catching up, organizing local events, buying and selling stuff. And man, I don't know where I would be without that other Internet search…

> That's why I often use the alternative online shopping site that has nearly every mass-produced item imaginable at low prices and low or free shipping.

If you put enough qualifiers on something you can make anything one-of-a-kind.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#158

Post by TMWNN »

Harry Truman said in 1945 about the atomic bomb, "We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies". I feel the same way about FAANG and Silicon Valley as a whole (and Wall Street, and Hollywood, and SpaceX/Tesla, and the Ivy League), that they are in the United States.

That doesn't mean I approve of everything they do. That doesn't mean I can't or won't decry their putting thumbs on scales toward a certain type of bien-pensant ideology. That does mean that, overall, I am very, very glad that they are American instead of Russian, Chinese, or even British, French, or German.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#159

Post by ocdtrekkie »

judge2020 wrote: post #103
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither is Google's, their marketing to the contrary. Installing another app store on their phone OS (which has no competition) requires several steps involving disabling so-called security protections and then side-loading the store. Search is largely protected by the fact that every business must do business with Google if they're to have any customers at all, etc. Obviously, physical infrastructure is a bit harder…

It’s safe to say that the main revenue driver, Google Search, has easy-to-switch-to competitors like ddg or bing. Android is an indirect revenue driver since it defaults to Google search but it’s far from the majority way people get to Search.

This is untrue, if you understand who the customer is, and who the product is. As long as Google holds 70-90% of Search, businesses have no choice but to pay Google to run Google Ads. Because most products being sold are using Google, and Google sells the top search result as an ad. Businesses can't meaningfully switch their ad revenue over to Bing or DDG, and the network effects of that ensure Google can't be deposed.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#160

Post by DubiousPusher »

robomartin wrote: post #155
gfodor wrote: post #2

I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) which will make it hard to not presume there are perverse incentives in these bills, but I’m open to it. My sense is that antitrust is as wrong a model for correcting this as the prior regime was that led to the creation of antitrust laws.

> I fundamentally distrust these people (on both sides) I always try to understand which votes they are trying to buy. Seriously. If we model politicians as individuals evolving through an evolutionary algorithm it becomes very clear that their fitness function has very few variables. Money and votes. Not sure what else. Once they learned that votes can be had with promises, rather than execution, all was lost. Polit…

I've thought and read about this a ton and the best I've come up with so far radical democracy (in certain key areas), randomness and a pluralist party system.
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