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Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

pluralistic.net

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Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#101

Post by Juliate »

tlb wrote: post #98
Juliate wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What verifiable existing/attempting monopoly today is ethical?

They are about as ethical as non-monopoly businesses. Which is to say that some are bad and most are OK. I guess some people think all business is unethical, but for those people monopolies don't change the sign.

> They are about as ethical as non-monopoly businesses.

No, my point/thesis is that, whatever non-monopolies can be, a monopoly is de-facto unethical.

If there is a legitimate reason that there's a monopolistic control over something, it then _has to_ become a public service, in the general interest.

And there is no actual existing monopoly today that could serve as a counter-example to that thesis.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#102

Post by Juliate »

Rzor wrote: post #59
Juliate wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But rapid growth is not necessarily _good_. Cancer is rapid growth.

That's exactly the point of his follow-up.

My point is that capitalism, as a system, has to adapt to survive, either its own demise through rapid/unlimited growth (like cancer), either through its replacement by something else (public service or some other structure).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#103

Post by AndrewKemendo »

mattbuilds wrote: post #81
shoeb00m wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the fiduciary duty of the CEO to do what’s in the best interest of shareholders. In a working system it should be the governments responsibility to limit what a company can do

According to your logic, a CEO should attempt to destabilize and influence the government's responsibility so they can maximize shareholder value. And guess what, that is exactly what happens in reality. You can't just simplify reality into rules like this because it leads to people using those rules as an excuse to skirt responsibility and make actual difficult decisions.

Correct and this is why regulatory capture is the phase after market capture, to transition into legal monopoly.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#104

Post by alex1138 »

EchoVivaldi45 wrote: post #35

This article is trying way too hard to dunk on Zuckerberg for… doing normal CEO things. The whole premise seems to be that writing down your thoughts, asking questions, or being transparent in internal emails is somehow a huge self-own. But that’s just how people work—especially when you’re running a massive company and making fast, complex decisions. You write things down, explore ideas, get feedback. Acting like th…

Look - he hasn't made any of his acquisitions any better and Whatsapp especially is a clear slam dunk antitrust case

I'm less interested in some of the political hatchet jobs people do against his company (namely Facebook) but his product sucks and it's been unusable for years

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#105

Post by dimal »

Juliate wrote: post #53
dimal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes deeper than that. All publicly traded corporations are morally obligated by the Friedman Doctrine [0] to do stuff like this. If something returns value for shareholders (and monopolies do) then a CEO must do it. This is how the whole system is supposed to work. Of course, there's no reason that capitalism must to work this way, but this is the toxic form of capitalism that we've unwittingly chosen. Thiel just…

> If something returns value for shareholders (and monopolies do) then a CEO must do it. This is how the whole system is supposed to work. Disagree. Shareholders are not the all and everything of a company. Neither they, neither the company exist in a void. > Of course, there's no reason that capitalism must to work this way, but How is that not a contradiction with the above?

> Shareholders are not the all and everything of a company.

I agree with you. But what you or I think doesn't matter.

> This is how the whole system is supposed to work.

My point is that our current form of capitalism is designed to work this way, but there's no requirement that capitalism must work this way. This is just the toxic form of market economy that we ended up with.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg personally lost the Facebook antitrust case

#106

Post by Juliate »

dimal wrote: post #105
Juliate wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If something returns value for shareholders (and monopolies do) then a CEO must do it. This is how the whole system is supposed to work. Disagree. Shareholders are not the all and everything of a company. Neither they, neither the company exist in a void. > Of course, there's no reason that capitalism must to work this way, but How is that not a contradiction with the above?

> Shareholders are not the all and everything of a company. I agree with you. But what you or I think doesn't matter. > This is how the whole system is supposed to work. My point is that our current form of capitalism is designed to work this way, but there's no requirement that capitalism must work this way. This is just the toxic form of market economy that we ended up with.

> But what you or I think doesn't matter.

1/ It does (because, it's false to say that "a CEO must do this or that" - or that's not a chief, a CEO, just an algorithm).

2/ it's less a matter of opinion than a matter of observing facts: shareholders are not the all and everything of a company. But my perspective may be that, being French, we have a history of having demonstrated the reality of this in actual actions, that USAmericans haven't yet.

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