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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#71

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

mywittyname wrote: post #63
sanderjd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

You're right on the technicals, but the GP is right in spirit. It seems like society needs a term for the concept of a company accumulating far too much power, and that we need laws similar to anti-trust laws, that apply to these companies. This is an incredibly difficult problem to address specifically because FB is not a classic monopoly. I'm not even sure what it would mean to "break them up". Amazon, MS, Apple, a…

Isn't the term just "too powerful"? It seems to me that the reason we don't have laws against companies being too powerful is that most people don't think it's a big deal for companies to be too powerful, as long as they're not monopolies.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#72

Post by throw63738 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #31
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

The problem I have with "The Free Market" is that it is a platonic ideal. Going a step further, the whole concept of a Free Market was developed before the advent of the Network Effect and the kind of economy we have today. As such, I think defenders of the Free Market do not have adequate tools to address the kind of "monopoly" that Facebook/Apple/Google enjoy today because of their business models. Free Market comp…

18th century England had strict anti monopoly laws. For example canal owners could not operate their own boats. This type of centralization and monopoly acceptance came with railroads.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#73

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

maxwell wrote: post #35
BbzzbB wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They literally didn't invest in their Android app because they wanted to be exclusive Mind blown, I had no idea Snapchat was iOS exclusive. I was thinking just yesterday about how Clubhouse's strategy may (who knows really) have backfired, it seems to me by betting on FOMO-manufacturing they just gave time for others (like Twitter Spaces) to catch up before they filled a niche.

Snapchat launched their Android app in 2012. Maybe stories landed in iOS before Android?

> I was thinking just yesterday about how Clubhouse's strategy may (who knows really) have backfired, it seems to me by betting on FOMO-manufacturing they just gave time for others (like Twitter Spaces) to catch up before they filled a niche.

Yeah, it was essentially that kind of mistake. Like, it appears that nobody learned from Fb's mistakes (letting Orkut get a toehold in brazil before they moved there).

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#74

Post by dantheman »

I'd really prefer lawyers and congress to focus on breaking up monopolies in the health care system, where the government requires certificate of need and through licensing allows cartels to control the supply of labor to ensure high salaries. You know, actually abusing their monopoly position.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#75

Post by tqi »

bperson wrote: post #41
tqi wrote: post #4

How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc?

What if we just want to break up Facebook for our enjoyment? It's legal to do so and we can do it. I can't remember where I heard that argument. I think it was some tech CEO (or maybe all of them). > How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc?

I think that attitude is the root of our current political morass. The primary motivation is the desire to hurt those that we dislike/view as The Other, and we'll happily bend any logic or principles it takes to justify it.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#76

Post by spaced-out »

hardtke wrote: post #65
sanderjd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

The monopoly is not on the consumer side, it is on the advertising side. Google and Facebook are the only companies that have access to data on basically every sale on the internet (almost every site that uses their ad tools reports back their sales). This data gives them a defensible duopoly on digital advertising.

> Google and Facebook are the only companies that have access to data on basically every sale on the internet

Amazon? eBay? WeChat?

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#77

Post by fallingknife »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12
tqi wrote: post #4

How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc?

> How does breaking up Facebook help fight misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content, etc? It reduces the influence that a monolithic Facebook can bring to bear against its critics in Congress. It also puts existential risk on the table. Fining Facebook out of existence is, presently, political suicide. Not only does it hit a massive slice of the electorate, it leaves them with no altern…

Yes good point. If FB were less politically powerful, then they wouldn't be able to stop the good people in congress from regulating what people say on the internet. That would clearly solve the problem! The government has never been involved in spreading misinformation, so I don't see how this could go wrong.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#78

Post by padobson »

fallingknife wrote: post #51

Stopped reading after the first 3 paragraphs which were made up entirely of bitching about the arrogance of selected silicon valley billionaires, none of whom have anything to do with any companies that could ever be called a monopoly. I suspected that this was the author's real motive, as is usually the case with journalists coming after big tech. If they really cared about monopolies, then they would have been writ…

Sounds like you stopped after the hook. I don't blame you, if the hook is off-putting, the ultimate values of the piece may not align with yours anyhow.

But there is something to be learned from continuing to read after off-putting hooks, including that the author might have something genuine to say beyond just looping in people that agree with them with inflammatory hooks.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#79

Post by francoi8 »

mywittyname wrote: post #63
sanderjd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

You're right on the technicals, but the GP is right in spirit. It seems like society needs a term for the concept of a company accumulating far too much power, and that we need laws similar to anti-trust laws, that apply to these companies. This is an incredibly difficult problem to address specifically because FB is not a classic monopoly. I'm not even sure what it would mean to "break them up". Amazon, MS, Apple, a…

The larger a company becomes, the more it should be regulated.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#80

Post by maxwell »

dontblink wrote: post #22
smoldesu wrote: post #18

How are Google and Facebook considered trusts in this context but not Apple? I really must be missing something here.

Apple should be broken up. But how? Maybe the AppStore needs to be independent?

Yeah, as Warren proposed.

https://www.ilounge.com/news/elizabeth-warren-break-apple

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