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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

#321

Post by spacemanmatt »

consumer451 wrote: post #273
NoGravitas wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get goosebumps: https://pics.onsizzle.com/Imgur-1fbc96.png

Holy crap.. how is this even close to related? Interpretation 1: Any regulation = communism Interpretation 2: Communism is a good thing, even given all evidence to the contrary. Interpretation 3: ... ? Can you help me out here please?

My take on this is, we can't be surprised if the entire spectrum of anti-capitalists show up to cheer-lead for stronger anti-trust enforcement. I don't think the GP was trying to conflate enforcement with communism, rather trying to notch a hypothetical victory benefiting their cause.

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

#322

Post by spacemanmatt »

consumer451 wrote: post #273
NoGravitas wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get goosebumps: https://pics.onsizzle.com/Imgur-1fbc96.png

Holy crap.. how is this even close to related? Interpretation 1: Any regulation = communism Interpretation 2: Communism is a good thing, even given all evidence to the contrary. Interpretation 3: ... ? Can you help me out here please?

But, also, I love the memes of mid-20th century Americans longing for communism. It's just refreshing to me.

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

#323

Post by bumby »

sanderjd wrote: post #313
bumby wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think is a better way to frame the policy discussion? I assume they use the monopoly angle (perhaps in a misguided fashion) because it is a tried-and-true template for regulating corporations with too much power.

Yes, that is why, but they are wrong. A better framing would be to focus on specific problems: "Facebook owning both facebook.com and Instagram and both Messenger and WhatsApp give them too much market power in social sharing and messaging, so Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun back out", "Amazon should not be able to use sales metrics of other platform sellers to inform their own product development", etc. Identi…

I agree with you, and I'm just following up for a finer point.

It's my understanding the whole intent of anti-trust is consumer welfare. The connection between Amazon and pricing/competition seems to be a straight-forward connection between hurting consumer welfare and its market power in terms of Amazon's market power. But where does the connection come in between consumer welfare and the social media apps? I.e., how does FB hurt me by having the most/best information regarding my social network?

Or is your stance it shouldn't be framed in terms of consumer welfare at all?

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

#324

Post by dane-pgp »

sanderjd wrote: post #314
dane-pgp wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever seen the movie There Will Be Blood? Nope. Have you ever read the article "Facebook is censoring links to competitor social network Tsu and deleting old mentions"?[0] > There are lots of competing products, which is often less convenient than if everyone were using a single monopoly product! If I drive a Ford then it doesn't inconvenience me if someone else drives a Honda. This is equivalent to a marke…

You are seriously overemphasizing the import of very minor inconveniences. The world doesn't owe you a maximally convenient well integrated instant messaging ecosystem! I think it's very lame that Facebook would censor links to a competing site (if that is indeed what they're doing, which I'm happy to stipulate), but Facebook is not in any way the only way for people to see links to that site. Contemporary society pr…

> The world doesn't owe you a maximally convenient well integrated instant messaging ecosystem!

The world also doesn't owe Facebook monopoly power over people's social graphs either, and yet Facebook is able to wield that to some extent. In case you think that this is something that Facebook achieved on its own merits, rather than being granted by society/government, it's worth considering the extent to which copyright and hacking laws are used to prevent interoperability.[0]

More generally, though, I believe that profit-seeking corporations should only exist to serve society, and therefore corporations do owe us minimally inconvenient products, however we decide to define "inconvenient" (and taking into account society's other goals, such as employment).

> it has never been easier to get the word out about something.

I think that is a reasonable assumption, but I think it's also true that it's never been easier to travel anywhere in the world, and yet local monopolies of railroads are still bad for society and should be regulated against.

[0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...

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

#325

Post by tehjoker »

quotemstr wrote: post #270
tehjoker wrote: post #212

Google and Facebook have natural monopolies. The answer isn't to break them up (which will just restart the cycle) but to place them under public ownership. This would also enforce first amendment rights on both platforms and disallow the legal side-step the government has been using to pressure them into censoring people.

Public ownership isn't really necessary and comes with its own downsides. All that's needed is to apply the first amendment to these companies, which can be done either through legislation or through the courts applying Marsh-like reasoning about freedom of speech in privately owned public accomodations.

It could still happen, but I am doubtful. The public option appeals to me because it also erases all the advertising and spying incentives these guys have.

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

#326

Post by mhink »

jimmaswell wrote: post #62
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…

A social network is a natural monopoly due to the network effect. It wouldn't make any sense to split it up. Regulating it like any other natural monopoly could make sense. Amazon is certainly not an online shopping monopoly. It's just a superior service. I can get a similar online shopping experience from Wal Mart and many others. If Amazon can offer us such good service through having its own big network of warehou…

> A social network is a natural monopoly due to the network effect. It wouldn't make any sense to split it up.

This isn’t entirely accurate. Federated social networking is entirely feasible, and arguably the only reason it isn’t more widespread is because large non-federated social networks have an active interest in not federating.

Breaking up Facebook would make it possible for social-network “hub operators” to compete on the basis of moderation quality, administrative practices, and site quality.

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

#327

Post by wishawa »

dragonwriter wrote: post #305
wishawa wrote: post #302

Traditional anti-trust methods would only go so far with big techs because while monopolies in the past are driven by economies of scale (and lobbying and other illegal stuffs, of course), big techs’ monopolies are mainly driven by strong positive feedback loops (search results quality for Google and network effect for Facebook). If Google and Facebook were to play it 100% fair, I doubt they would be smaller than 75%…

Breaking Google/Facebook up geographically for antitrust violations would be ineffective, but breaking them up by line-of-business would not and is well within traditional anti-trust remedies. The expansion of monopolies into adjacent and related markets is driven by leveraging the existing monopoly to monopolize new markets , which is already within the scope of acts addressed by traditional anti-trust (whether or n…

I agree with your argument in the case of Google. It would be good if Android, Google Earth, etc., are broken off from the main Google.

But for Facebook I don’t see how it can be broken down. Instagram, Whatsapp, and Messenger, Facebook’s three big children, are not really separate lines of business from Facebook itself. This isn’t due to defects in anti-trust laws or their enforcements. Capitalism itself just isn’t made for the wide-reaching and feedback-loop-y industry that is social media.

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

#328

Post by sanderjd »

bumby wrote: post #323
sanderjd wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is why, but they are wrong. A better framing would be to focus on specific problems: "Facebook owning both facebook.com and Instagram and both Messenger and WhatsApp give them too much market power in social sharing and messaging, so Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun back out", "Amazon should not be able to use sales metrics of other platform sellers to inform their own product development", etc. Identi…

I agree with you, and I'm just following up for a finer point. It's my understanding the whole intent of anti-trust is consumer welfare. The connection between Amazon and pricing/competition seems to be a straight-forward connection between hurting consumer welfare and its market power in terms of Amazon's market power. But where does the connection come in between consumer welfare and the social media apps? I.e., ho…

Yeah I don't really buy the consumer welfare framing. Or maybe I do buy it for existing anti trust regulation. But I don't buy that it is the only thing we (as a society) should be looking at when considering regulation of companies. This isn't novel, we regulate other externalities even when the regulations themselves harm consumers in the direct sense. For instance, more environmental regulations result in higher prices. But they are often good for other reasons, like not poisoning drinking water. We just don't use anti trust regulation to do this.

Basically I just don't see anti trust regulation as being the best way to target the diverse set of issues society sees with the big tech companies of the moment.

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

#329

Post by sanderjd »

nitrogen wrote: post #320
sanderjd wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I think splitting up Facebook makes very little sense, but that requiring open protocols would be an excellent direction. A big reason I have a problem with the "monopoly" framing is that it limits the options for how to fix it to pretty much just this "break it up" idea, which isn't the right tool for the job.

Splitting Oculus, Instagram, and WhatsApp kind of makes sense.

I agree, but that's not actually what people are mostly thinking about when they say to split up facebook. They mean facebook itself. But it's not clear what that even means to most people.

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

#330

Post by HWR_14 »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #230
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…

> 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. This is exactly what antitrust law should not punish. Google has a large market share of search because it offers a good product . Antitrust law should preserve competition without punishing success. People are free to use alternatives, including Bing. If they don…

The point is that Google used their search dominance to push YouTube. Then their YouTube dominance to say "this site works better in Chrome" to push Chrome. Then their Chrome and Search Dominance to push AMP.

It's not that Google should be punished. It's that they should be stopped from using one product line to prop up another.

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