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Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

proton.me

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Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#121

Post by kortilla »

hef19898 wrote: post #86
ethbr1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of bikeshedding, you might suggest an alternative time-vs-income-based measurement that you think is better? It's obviously not profit, which it would be crazy to "require" to pay fines when looking at companies. So what would you suggest using as a meter stick?

Revenue. Hard to manipulate (and doing so is illegal in itself), easy to measure and the top line is where it hurts. And no, I don't think fines should be high enough to destroy businesses the same way a speeding or parking ticket shouldn't bankrupt people.

Revenue for a company makes no sense as a basis. It should be revenue tied to the crime.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#122

Post by hef19898 »

hermannj314 wrote: post #117
louthy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit can be made to be 0 very easily though (a big capital investment, for example). So, it's hard to use that as a barometer of size.

In what situations does a Capex hit the income statement? I thought only depreciation or amortization would hit profitability.

A merger, all cash, could work. Or a stock buy-back. Or all kinds of shennenigans. Within limits so, at a certain point it becomes fraud.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#123

Post by hef19898 »

kortilla wrote: post #121
hef19898 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue. Hard to manipulate (and doing so is illegal in itself), easy to measure and the top line is where it hurts. And no, I don't think fines should be high enough to destroy businesses the same way a speeding or parking ticket shouldn't bankrupt people.

Revenue for a company makes no sense as a basis. It should be revenue tied to the crime.

Quantifying the revenue increase of said illegal behavior is close to impossible. Also, you want to discourage this behavior, so take the easier to quanitify and higher number.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#124

Post by ethbr1 »

hef19898 wrote: post #93
ethbr1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The moment people fail to differentiate between revenue and profit, one can safely ignore the rest of the article. I assumed from your earlier comment you had a problem with the article using revenue.

Base the fine on revenue, measure the time needed to pay the fine in profits or cash flow. That would show some basic financial and accounting literacy, the bare minimum I ask for if you want me ro take an article about financials seriously.

Revenue + payment deadline based on cash flow makes sense to me too.

If we're really serious about materially-impactful fines, they need to impact more than one quarter. And conversely, companies need to be free to amortize payment in ways that hurt but don't cripple them.

F.ex. if Alphabet and Meta's entire 2024 would be down because of fines, the market would presumably apply more pressure on their leadership.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#125

Post by jmyeet »

kmlx wrote: post #38

from the article: > As of seven days and three hours into 2024, they had already earned enough revenue to pay it all off. revenue is not the same as profit. this is basic stuff. from the same article: > Still, revenue is a more accurate depiction of a company’s size and profitability. it seems like this is rookie hour. then we look at the author's previous posts: https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-ipef With new trade de…

Revenue can't really be hidden. Profit is an accounting decision. Like how companies sell their IP to an Irish subsidiary and then "license" it and pay "royalties".

Profit margins for Big Tech are pretty healthy too so even if it's 7 days of revenue, it's likely not many more days of "profit". Also, those fines are a taxable deduction so let's not forget that.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#126

Post by bitshiftfaced »

bmulyadi wrote: post #60

If we convert the metric to net income | Alphabet | 4 days 20 hrs 6 mins | | Amazon | 1 day 12 hrs 58 mins | | Apple | 0 day 18 hrs 14 mnins | | Meta | 18 days 17 hrs 19 mins | | Microsoft | 0 day 9 hrs 4 mins | Total: 26 days 5 hrs 40 mins

Thank you. There was really no reason for the author to use revenue instead of net income other than to make the problem they were reporting seem just a little bit worse.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#127

Post by janice1999 »

BirAdam wrote: post #55
bko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, alternative explanation, the fines aren't meant to deter behavior but serve as a way of rent seeking, signaling by politicians and bureaucrats and capturing ever more regulatory authority by various groups

It also serves as deterrent for smaller companies, and as regulatory capture occurs pulls the ladder up behind the big tech companies.

It's really the opposite. The EU in particular is seeking to curb the power of monopolistic big tech. The fines are in responsive to anti-competitive behaviour. Smaller companies should be happy.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#128

Post by cscurmudgeon »

louthy wrote: post #104
kmlx wrote: post #38

from the article: > As of seven days and three hours into 2024, they had already earned enough revenue to pay it all off. revenue is not the same as profit. this is basic stuff. from the same article: > Still, revenue is a more accurate depiction of a company’s size and profitability. it seems like this is rookie hour. then we look at the author's previous posts: https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-ipef With new trade de…

Profit can be made to be 0 very easily though (a big capital investment, for example). So, it's hard to use that as a barometer of size.

OTOH, revenue can be made as large as possible to a limit.

IRS rules for capital expenditure can be followed and split over many years.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#129

Post by Snow_Falls »

nickysielicki wrote: post #54

It's so easy to tell when Europe is voting on a post versus the US. Fines against these companies are predominantly rent seeking. You should be extra suspicious when the fines are coming from countries where they don't have offices. FTA: > Big Tech companies can further water down the potential sting of these fines by delaying payment for years(new window). They’ve done this by filing appeals, counter-suing, or simpl…

The miniscule amounts of money fined from companies are not going to affect the EU budget. It is interesting that, whenever a post about the EU comes up, (a small minority of) Americans will act like they are tyrants trodding over the poor billion dollar corporations as if they shouldn't have to follow European laws despite doing business there. If a tourist commits a crime, they're deported. The EU is being incredibly lenient with their fines.

In addition, why give them the benefit of the doubt? Seriously, they have violated multiple laws every damn year, sometimes the same laws repeatedly. Why give them any doubt? They obviously do not act in good faith.

Re: Big Tech has already made enough money in 2024 to pay all its 2023 fines

#130

Post by Chris2048 »

anticorporate wrote: post #61
Chris2048 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not higher fines? % of profit that increases each time?

Once you reach a certain level of wealth, fines are no longer consequential. When you can restructure both your corporate and personal assets to span multiple countries with different regulations and poor cooperation, you've effective avoided them.

> fines are no longer consequential

I don't see how this can possibly be true. Any corp has finite money, and operating costs; If the fines are high enough, they will be consequential.

> to span multiple countries

you can't really evade US fines/sanction and continue to operate in the west.

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