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Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

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Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think that the law should make this happen" without any thought for whether what you're proposing is possible or consistent with the laws of the universe is lazy. This is similar to people who think we should just legislate secure encryption that has law enforcement backdoors. It's not possible, and people demanding it without an understanding of the area they're trying to regulate is lazy and insulting.

I think you should reread my post. My post is making a very specific point that your reaction tells me you get, but aren't applying. Read it more like a poem and less like a proposed bill.

It's not really useful to write poems when proposing norms.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this, and we need to have this progressive tax be over the company's total assets, including subsidiaries.

Why assets and not existing antitrust metrics like market share? Assuming market share is reasonably defined

Because bad behavior tends to scale with company size, not because smaller companies are more virtuous, but because they just have less power to do harm than bigger companies.

Imagine that there were only two companies, and they each had 50% market share in every market that exists. Would you expect either to be well behaved?

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#333
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To all the people pissed about the "Lake America" stuff: why in the actual fuck do you want Google of all organizations to be arbiter of geographical info, instead of federal institutions that are (at least nominally) operated under democratic principles? Don't you understand the horror of what you're suggesting: "I want Google to impose it's own personal value judgments over the government's." Yes, I think it's incr…

Democracy works best as a diffuse institution and is more than just voting. People are supposed to have rights and power themselves and I want them to try to make things better (whether I agree with them or not) and "corporations" are just groups of people. Needing to just go with the government, especially on something so clearly within their rights, is counter to the ideals of the system. I can understand Google so…

Corporatism works best when people as citizens and civic agents are preoccupied and sort of diffuse, not organized for anything substantial, just busy with their work, hobbies, and local councils. Then the workers go to work every day, some of the lobbying the government, to undermine democracy.

Just a group of people. And some of them are paid to influence the government. But the citizens? They are just diffuse. Sometimes they vote...

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, I'd go much further than the OP here and say the barrier for merger should be MUCH higher than the barrier for spin-out or split. There's no shortage of obvious problems that can arise from concentration of influence and control over a market. So just try to prevent it. Trade some max efficiency for redundancy + anti-corruption/pro-competition/pro-consumer market forces.

A progressive tax on the size of the company can do this.

And to what end does discouraging scaling in an industrial economy serve? Corporations don't grow huge for the fun of it.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#335
post #258

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Crazy to think that, despite trump existing, the Democrats still lost two elections to him.

Well they had their chance for "change" with Obama, just like the french PS had their chance for "changement" with Hollande. And both betrayed their electoral base and honest people by empowering multinational corporations against consumers and small businesses. Who could have predicted that noone would want to elect them again?

Please. If you’re an adult and you still believe anything any politician ever says, then you may still have some growing up to do.

Left. Right. Up. Down. Doesn’t matter. A politicians job description nowadays boils down to doing everything in their power benefit themselves and their partners and to hell with you unimportant people if it bothers you any.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#336

While I lament another monopolistic tech giant yet again dodging the most meaningful regulatory consequences of their actions, the more useful meta-question is how these behomoths are now so reliably skirting major enforcement like break-ups. It's not that judges have gone soft or just that the current admin is nerfing enforcement (though they are), this trend goes back much further. The biggest factor is that tech g…

Thank you for your thoughtful and eloquently crafted comment.

Yep. Almost sounded like a human being. Very close to reaching a state of readability and ease of comprehension that humans tend to go for. I myself like to speak normally and actually say things, but I guess going round in circles and ultimately saying nothing is also a valid strategy…

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct, but it's largely our first-past-the-post voting system that forces only TWO political parties on us. Voting reform is necessary to help make other parties/candidates electable.

You can change the details of the numbers game that is played every 4 years, but that won't solve the structural issues. I live in France, in any given election we have between 10 and 15 candidates from as many parties. Yet, we're still ruled by corporate interests. The media makes sure to qualify any candidate threatening the interests of capital as a "dangerous extremist", while "pro-business" candidates receive th…

All true, but at least in France those in power who commit serious corruption might go to actual jail; there's no way a US current or former president would face what Sarkozy did

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What we are seeing with some of these big tech companies is that they are transitioning from an exciting growth story into an extractive dividend story in a way that's becoming harmful to consumers. Alphabet is rolling out autonomous driving vehicles in many cities around the USA, potentially getting rid of the need to drive a car in 90% of today's use cases. How is this not still an exciting growth story? My kids m…

what i personally find most insightful about this website is how the techbro culture will do anything except consider the needs of the many. why bother with good transit when we can automate cars? why bother with copyright when we can just steal content at a scale that few can comprehend.

The “needs”, or rather revealed preferences of many, is to live in detached single family homes on minimum 3,000 sq ft lots, with space for personal car storage.

There is no way public transit works in that kind of non dense living arrangement.

Do you have data to show Americans want to live in Manhattan/Tokyo style or even European style 4 story apartment/shared wall buildings?

Population trends in the US show me the suburbs are far more popular, at least among those who end up having children.

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#339

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> It seems unlikely that someone who has served that long in her position would rule based on making the child in the White House happy. The US is a corporatocracy. It's apparently a lot easier for Americans to convince themselves that the current administration is corrupt and end there than it is to acknowledge that the entire system has been corrupted and it won't change once the administration changes.

At the turn of the century (yikes!) Clinton reconfigured the DNC to serve the corporations rather than labor. I left the party after that but am compelled to vote blue as the least worst option. Partisan politics allows capture of the government by creating a duopoly of power. Washington warned us of this threat.

yeah, it's just that the current administration has a level of "banana republic" style corruption and corporate-dealing/bribing that makes Clinton look like Mother Teresa

Re: Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What we are seeing with some of these big tech companies is that they are transitioning from an exciting growth story into an extractive dividend story in a way that's becoming harmful to consumers. Alphabet is rolling out autonomous driving vehicles in many cities around the USA, potentially getting rid of the need to drive a car in 90% of today's use cases. How is this not still an exciting growth story? My kids m…

I am not excited about my transportation becoming a subscription service, likely through regulatory capture. It will almost certainly mean less freedom of choice for me.

I am a fan of kids being able to roam freely because we don’t have to worry about people in their huge pickup trucks and SUVs looking down at their phone mowing down people and not even noticing.

It will certainly mean more freedom for those who don’t want or can’t use a giant vehicle to move around.

I trust automated vehicles with cameras and LIDAR to do a much better job of avoiding collisions.

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