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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

pluralistic.net

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#31

Post by fny »

djoldman wrote: post #16

It appears that the crux of the article is that a lot of price fixing is going on through the use of programs that suggest or encourage pricing among a few players, to the advantage of all the players and the disadvantage of the customer. Crackdowns do take time in the US but there is hope. See e.g.: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-realp...

The current administration, however, plans to let M&A run wild. Oligopolies don’t need an app for uncoordinated price fixing. The fact that there’s a cartel that controls 97% of the frozen potato market is wild. This will only get worse without breakups.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#32

Post by hermannj314 »

This is the way our world works.

If you steal a potato, you will be arrested immediately and the case will be resolved in a few weeks or months.

If you illegally fix the price of potatoes and steal billions from the market, you will be allowed to operate for years in the open while a lengthy civil procedure eventually may ask you to give 1 or 2% of what you stole back in fines.

Don't blame the potato theives or potato cartels, blame the politicians that built the system to work this way.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#33

Post by cluckindan »

What proportion of the ultimate financial beneficiaries of these apps are old money white supremacists?

Airbnb leaves more people homeless while enabling the rich more convenience.

Uber (as in ”übermensch”) makes the most desperate people compete for pittances, use their income at the gas station and the auto parts store while enabling the rich more convenience.

Doordash does the same.

Robinhood et al take from the poor and give to the rich.

Potatotrac at least screws everyone over somewhat equally. Where are the riots over this?

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#34

Post by andrepd »

wongarsu wrote: post #12
andrewfromx wrote: post #2

but would Airbnb or Uber exist if they tried to get permission first? Netflix streaming was illegal at first. Youtube for sure. Napster. Tesla (no dealerships it was direct sales to consumers.) Even craigslist or ebay or the very first Ford Model T. They break rules because that's the only way to test the waters and see if the public wants the rule broken?

What rules did Craigslist, eBay or the Ford Model T break? Craigslist seems like a straightforward digital version of what newspapers and community boards were doing for a long time. eBay is just a digital version of an auction house. And the Model T was just a cheaper more widely available car compared to the cars that came before. None of them seem comparable to AirBnB (subverting hotel regulations by pretending to…

Don't forget that Uber burned through VC money at a peak rate of something like 500 million$ a month to subsidise their low prices until they drove competitors out of business and/or established themselves as ubiquitous. In the olden days it was called dumping, now it's disruption.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#35

Post by Cheer2171 »

chippiewill wrote: post #6
tripplyons wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was illegal about Neflix, YouTube, and Tesla at first?

Youtube had a lot of illegal content early on and didn't make much effort to respect rightsholders etc. for a while until the service had taken off.

Youtube did not advertise itself as a site for illegal content. The advertised and most popular way to use youtube was to upload content you made yourself. Hence the name YOUtube.

With Airbnb, there is no way to use the service as a host without violating the law in lots of jurisdictions. The service literally exists to glean some profit off facilitating illegal hotels.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#36

Post by method_capital »

Eextra953 wrote: post #23

Does anybody know whats stopping ethical and slightly less greedy companies from outcompeting these conglomerates? Its a question I keep coming back to because if the market were efficient then competitors should be able to use that same data to undercut big potato (or big whatever). This never seems to happen.

The answer is: nothing. The whole argument is predicated on a political conviction, not an economic reality.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#38

Post by marcosdumay »

tripplyons wrote: post #3
andrewfromx wrote: post #2

but would Airbnb or Uber exist if they tried to get permission first? Netflix streaming was illegal at first. Youtube for sure. Napster. Tesla (no dealerships it was direct sales to consumers.) Even craigslist or ebay or the very first Ford Model T. They break rules because that's the only way to test the waters and see if the public wants the rule broken?

What was illegal about Neflix, YouTube, and Tesla at first?

Youtube got a lot of users by not fighting piracy. And Tesla had that thing where direct sales were illegal in the US.

I don't know about Netflix.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#39

Post by Cheer2171 »

closewith wrote: post #19
diggan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but that was more an unintended consequence of hosting user uploaded material. They still did delete stuff when companies (or their lawyers) wrote in to them requesting a take down. Compare that to Airbnb or Uber whose business model was "Ignore the law" in the very beginning, which is why they got banned in a bunch of places. YouTube's business model was never "Ignore the law" nor was it banned on as a wide s…

A growth strategy, not an unintended consequence. Early YouTube without copyright infringement would have died in obscurity.

Were you even on YouTube back then? It went viral for all kinds of viral home videos.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#40

Post by istultus »

It really does suck that US companies have belatedly figured out that demand is elastic and jacked up the prices. Where I live that happened long ago.

The thing is that he doesn't present any alternative. I know he's some variant of a communist, so does he suggest government control for everything? As if that solved anything? I guess what you find on empty market shelves is cheaper.

Truly a question - what's your solution? What's a solution? People have been arguing that everything is getting worse since forever. I've yet to see people organize and stop buying Pepsi or Coke. Should the government do it for them? Do you propose AI will solve the Socialist Calculation Problem? You're probably against AI as well...

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