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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

#151

Post by tablespoon »

oconnor663 wrote: post #122
HWR_14 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question posed by the monopolies is not "are these the only options". But do these wield too much market power to be controlled by the market. That is, sure, Bing and DDG make up 5% of the global search, but is that enough. Yes, people use Twitter and TikTok, but does that replace the social graph of FB? Yes, I can buy directly online from many places, but if people are going to Amazon instead of Google to search…

I don't know what the formal definitions of any of these things are, but I assume (hope?) that it's important not to equate being successful with being a monopoly by definition. If Ford came out with an amazing new car tomorrow, and suddenly 95% of new cars purchased were Fords, we probably shouldn't initiate trust-busting action against Ford on that basis alone. We want car companies to try to capture market share b…

> I don't know what the formal definitions of any of these things are, but I assume (hope?) that it's important not to equate being successful with being a monopoly by definition. If Ford came out with an amazing new car tomorrow, and suddenly 95% of new cars purchased were Fords, we probably shouldn't initiate trust-busting action against Ford on that basis alone. We want car companies to try to capture market share by making better cars.

There's an important difference between "capturing market share" and "capturing too much the market share." If Ford's going to put its competitors out of business, turn them into niche players, or even just get into a position where it can rest on its laurels for a few decades, our primary concern is no longer making sure Ford can be rewarded. Honestly, I don't see the downside of regularly breaking up a #1 player with too much market share into successors that are the #2 and #3 payers (and forcing major shareholders to divest one or the other). I want companies to be competing to get to the top, but once they get there, give them a prize for their effort and send them back down.

From my experience as a customer, Amazon's e-commerce operation hasn't improved much (e.g. their search is still as shitty as ever) and has arguably regressed in many ways (e.g. more shady products and fake reviews) in the last decade. That's pretty strong signal to me that they're not under enough competitive pressure.

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

#152

Post by NoGravitas »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136
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 railroads weren't total monopolies, they were just local monopolies. If you didn't like them you could just move somewhere else, to another place with a local monopoly. Which is not the same as competition.

Sounds like the current situation with broadband ISPs.

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

#153

Post by throwdecro »

tqi wrote: post #145
throwdecro wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are the problems then? As stated in the review, and presumably in the book: that "the very bigness of present-day companies — especially those in the tech sector — does not just harm consumers, but that it also threatens innovation and undermines the power of government." The problem that trust-busting is meant to solve is the bigness, and its impact on the government, innovation, and consumer markets.

That seems tautological. How does bigness harm consumers in this case?

> How does bigness harm consumers in this case?

It's up to the book to make that case. My point is that the issues you describe (misinformation, polarization, engagement baiting, objectionable content) are not mentioned among the problems that trust-busting is meant to solve. Other problems are mentioned.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

sanderjd wrote: post #130
ncallaway wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. I think it depends on what you consider "the market" to be. If I want to compare Amazon to the "Global Retail Market" (Amazon's preferred framing), then maybe they aren't in a monopolistic position. But I—as ab individual—don't participate in the Global Retail Market. I participate in the "online US retail" and "Pacific Northwest retail" marke…

> I think it depends on what you consider "the market" to be. It honestly doesn't. None of these are monopolies by any market definition. Amazon has so many competitors: brick and mortar stores like Walmart and Target and Best Buy remain successful, online competitors again like Walmart and Target and Best Buy but also Ebay and in a different way Shopify and others, are also successful. Your argument is slightly stro…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by gshubert17 »

adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: post #26
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…

Well, duh. "Free market" does not mean "unregulated market". It requires that the market be free from monopolies and that all agents have complete information. Regulation and trust-busting are, in practice, required to bring about a free market. Co-opting the term "free market" was a fantastically successful bit of propaganda.

"Uncoerced market" or something, is closer to the meaning I seek.

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

#156

Post by nitrogen »

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…

In Facebook's case they own some of their biggest potential competitors for attention and deliberately preserve their niches. So splitting them up might make a difference. But if not, requiring an open network akin to the telephone system with standardized protocols might make a difference.

AT&T was split on geographical lines, so maybe FB could be as well, and the regionals would all have to interoperate with open protocols that would allow for regional competitors.

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

#157

Post by monetus »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #128
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their monopoly was so powerful because there was often no other way to get from point A to point B, so they had complete leverage. I still believe the analogy holds, just substitute geographical points A and B with person A and person B (or business A to potential client B), and the similarities are obviously clear. There is often no other way to get from person A t…

> There is often no other way to get from person A to person B than to use Facebook, or from person C to D without Twitter, ... . Yes, there are various social networks, but there was also various railway barons Is that really accurate, though? How many people use a single social network? And regarding market power, very few companies do their online marketing on a single social network; they usually have a general s…

Anecdote: facebook is the only social network where I am listed under my actual name. Until some highly adopted internet address book exists, the only option for many old friends to contact me is FB at this point.

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

#158

Post by nitrogen »

PoignardAzur wrote: post #128
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their monopoly was so powerful because there was often no other way to get from point A to point B, so they had complete leverage. I still believe the analogy holds, just substitute geographical points A and B with person A and person B (or business A to potential client B), and the similarities are obviously clear. There is often no other way to get from person A t…

> There is often no other way to get from person A to person B than to use Facebook, or from person C to D without Twitter, ... . Yes, there are various social networks, but there was also various railway barons Is that really accurate, though? How many people use a single social network? And regarding market power, very few companies do their online marketing on a single social network; they usually have a general s…

My neighborhood's official presence is only on Facebook, apparently. I don't actively use Facebook, so I have no access to my group of neighbors.

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

#159

Post by dont__panic »

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…

Devil's advocate question: I don't really remember my railroad history in the US, but I do know that railroads are so mediocre as to be barely usable these days.

Does that have anything to do with weakening the railroad industry at a critical moment just before the automobile industry popped up and ate their lunch?

Could we be risking a similar problem here with the successors to Facebook's social media, Google's internet search algos, and Amazon's shopping experience?

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

#160

Post by Imnimo »

allturtles wrote: post #106
ho_schi wrote: post #15

As Wu and others have rightly pointed out, the straightforward Chicago School standard overlooks, among other things, the stifling effect monopolies can have on innovation. As a case in point: when AT&T was broken up in 1984, a torrent of new products came on the market, everything from the first answering machines to early ISPs. This is a oversimplification and wrong. AT&T was controlled by the government until 1984…

I think it's even more wrong than that, and suffers badly from post hoc ergo propter hoc. How could the growth of answering machines be connected to the break-up of AT&T, which was about separating local from long-distance service? According to https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma... , there were commercial answering machines being sold in the U.S. in 1960. The increase in the use of answering…

>How could the growth of answering machines be connected to the break-up of AT&T

AT&T enforced a rule that you could not connect "foreign attachments" to the phone network, which included answering machines not made by them.

https://dcchs.org/the-era-of-ma-bell/

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