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Calling for Antitrust Reform

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#151

Post by oefrha »

doitLP wrote: post #127
leotravis10 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Mike Masnick's response over on Techdirt on that. A big swing and a miss which is rare on Oliver's part: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/06/14/john-olivers-big-whiff-j...

I disagree. He has covered three big topics in his jokey rants which I happened to know intimately and he’s gotten them horribly wrong all three times. Like embarrassingly wrong. To pretend all the rest are hard-hitting and well-researched would be some hardcore Gell-Mann amnesia.

Same. Used to enjoy it until it touched some topics I’m very familiar with — gosh they are as bad as any other one-sided crap out there, only more entertaining and hence more persuasive to outsiders. Like, all important facts counter to their narrative are withheld, it was painful to watch. I decided it’s just a comedy show after all, and gradually stopped watching. I’d rather shape my world view with a range of not-so-effective propagandists than a single very effective propagandist.

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#152

Post by [deleted] »

cokeandpepsi wrote: post #146

I'm going to be honest, the only real way the government is going to be able to fight these 'monopolies' is slowly and surely funding alternatives, and implementing a few general regulations here and there that impede them these giant overly scoped anti-trust pushes will probably go no where and are to easy to fight

[deleted]

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#153

Post by joecool1029 »

kajaktum wrote: post #139
joecool1029 wrote: post #4

>A fair playing field is vital to ensure that Mozilla and other independent companies can continue to act as a counterweight to big tech You literally exist on Google revenue provided in order to prevent antitrust litigation, hardly independent.

(Corrupt execs aside) What other forms of revenue can Mozilla use? Everyone thinks Pocket is a meme, no one really cares about Mozilla VPN, any attempts at making money will be seen as Mozilla turning for-profit. Donations? Lmao. Good engineers are extremely expensive to buy.

Realistically their business would not be able to function without tech giants funding it. The only reason those tech giants fund it is to both continue to promote their own products and to reap the benefit of arguing that it is to foster competition. This is a longterm no-win situation for Mozilla.

I guess I could see government drafting bids for developing browser technology (make a national security argument like this stupid bill does) that Mozilla would be able to win. Of course then we'd have articles written by people freaking out about government influence.

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#154

Post by joecool1029 »

stale2002 wrote: post #123
joecool1029 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can rationalize it that way, I get it. However, last I checked Mozilla has a lawyer as their CEO. Why do you think they haven't tested this idea in court if the message is so good?

Did you read the blog post at all? It answers this question. The answer is that they are trying to change the law.

>Did you read the blog post at all?

Did you read the bill at all? That's more important than the Google-funded PR piece.

This bill they are promoting contains nationalistic or sinophobic text. I could see a targeted party like Apple moving their argument from 'It would negatively impact user experience' to 'China could hack our users if we allow other browser engines' and it'd be totally cool under this bill.

It's a shit bill with a very narrow scope that's easily evaded.

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#155

Post by dado3212 »

throwaway_1928 wrote: post #28

John Oliver also covered tech monopolies recently. Tech Monopolies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXf04bhcjbg

I think he's mostly right here in identifying the problem. I'd agree with the linked comments on this post that the solution (and AICOA as discussed by the link for the post) is likely bad/inadequate.

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#156

Post by dado3212 »

AICOA feels wildly vague to me. It would make it unlawful to

> materially restrict, impede, or unreasonably delay the capacity of a business user to access or interoperate with the same platform, operating system, or hardware or software features that are available to the products, services, or lines of business of the covered platform operator that compete or would compete with products or services offered by business users on the covered platform;

TikTok and Snapchat compete with each other as "social networks". Size restraints aside, given that this law pretty much only affects like 4 companies, would this mean that Snapchat not building a cross-platform API for allowing an ad to be posted to TikTok would be illegal? It would seem like Snapchat is "materially restrict[ing]...the capacity of a business user to...interoperate with the same...software features that are available to the products...of the covered platform operator [TikTok] that compete...with products...offered by business users on the covered platform [Snapchat]".

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#157

Post by dado3212 »

dado3212 wrote: post #156

AICOA feels wildly vague to me. It would make it unlawful to > materially restrict, impede, or unreasonably delay the capacity of a business user to access or interoperate with the same platform, operating system, or hardware or software features that are available to the products, services, or lines of business of the covered platform operator that compete or would compete with products or services offered by busine…

Also, you're not allowed to

> preference the products, services, or lines of business of the covered platform operator over those of another business user on the covered platform in a manner that would materially harm competition

I really like this when you think about the problem that it's trying to solve (Amazon ranking Amazon products at the top, or Google showing Google Flights above all other services). But in practice, how in the world is this enforceable/provable? Let's say you Google "flights from tucson to denver". If it shows Google Flights in the search results at all, whether it's above Expedia, or Yakak, or United, or something no one would use for that flight like Emirates, couldn't you argue in court that it's "preferencing the product of the covered platform"? How do you explain the output of a blackbox ML model? Even if you can exactly prove why a result was ordered the way it was, how do you prove that it's preferencing it? Doesn't any ordering according to the likelihood that a user will engage with the service have a chance of "harming competition"?

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#158

Post by roenxi »

mc32 wrote: post #27
wudangmonk wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only skimmed the bill but wheneven I see both parties working together I know I need to be extra careful and look for hidden dangers because I am cynical like that.

Isn't it even worse when only one party sponsors or works on something? It could signal that they are completely willing to ignore the sentiments of the other half the congress represents.

If only one party wants something, the other party will loudly and thoroughly catalogue everything wrong with the idea and throw extra at it to see if the smear sticks. There'll generally be loud warnings of a problem.

If they are cooperating, that means it might be something really nasty that, eg, lobby money from the military-industrialists supports.

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#159

Post by ocdtrekkie »

judge2020 wrote: post #132
stale2002 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not "antitrust reform". It's so narrowly drawn Almost by definition, anti-trust law is only going to narrowly effect a few companies. If a company isn't huge already, then the whole motivation for applying anti-trust law goes away. The whole point of anti-trust law is to narrowly target only a few of the very worst offenders in a market.

Why does size matter in this context? For example, Apple will likely be forbidden from making a device where the selling point is that it only runs code from their own app store, but if some random Android company does the same thing by vastly modifying AOSP/their hardware to the point where it can't be rooted and can only install apps via their own store, why are they not punished? as a consumer I'm equally harmed i…

So the key difference of size is the ability to find alternatives. If a monopoly is abusive, you rarely have any options. If a smaller player makes an abusive play, consumers will abandon it and it will fail. Google and Apple are a duopoly but since they've both decided on the same abusive practices, consumers have no exit without government intervention.

Basically, antitrust works in a world that expects the market to correct things, but patches a design flaw (monopolization) which prevents the market from doing so.

Re: Calling for Antitrust Reform

#160

Post by Teever »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #150
Teever wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always? All anti-monopoly laws, ever?

That’s a hypothesis explored by some authors, like here: https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/big-busin...

Libertarian is a word for people who are too bashful to describe themselves as Feudalists.
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