Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio] • Hacker News Board

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#121

Post by stcredzero » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 5:20 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #116

stcredzero wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a situation where large swathes of the general public desperately want alternatives, but despair of ever seeing a viable one, then something there stinks like a monopoly.

Likely, although "everyone is dissatisfied, but not enough to leave" can also be a result of compromise. If there's value to be had by everyone using the same thing, while everyone wants that one thing to be a little different than what others want, a lot of people will "want alternatives" that they can't really have regardless of how the provider behaves.

Likely, although "everyone is dissatisfied, but not enough to leave" can also be a result of compromise.

That's a distortion. It's more like, lots of people are dissatisfied, but all of the alternatives are economic/network-effect suicide. It's more like people living and working in the crappy mining town, because the only alternatives are like living as a hobo in the woods.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#122

Post by SilasX » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #120

SilasX wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People cant want a lot of things that aren't economically feasible. Toy example: if everyone demands at least $30/pound for some risky kind of coal mining, because it's such a pain to do and they'd rather a) rest or b) do easier work at any lower price ... that doesn't mean coal miners are colluding or that coal mining is a monopoly. In that case, if you want a $29/pound alternative, your desire is economically unrea…

The situation is far more like not being able to choose another broadband provider, with network effects taking the place of local cable regulations. I can picture a scenario where some sites have an insurmountable advantage because of compromised network neutrality. I'm very sure that in that case, the winners would be crowing about how, "the market has spoken," when the reality is that the market is broken.

And yes, a broadband (often) would be an example of a monopoly provider. My point was that, "gosh, we want a better alternative" is not necessarily a reasonable desire or evidence of monopoly power.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#123

Post by SilasX » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #119

SilasX wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Pricing power explains that. Pricing power occurs when price increases from one market player do not result in losing business to a competitor; the fact that other players could in principle choose to enter the market and unbermine that pricing power is not an argument against the existence of pricing power. The counterfactual possibility, of entrants eating excess profits, is exactly what keeps businesses from char…

> The counterfactual possibility, of entrants eating excess profits, is exactly what keeps businesses from charging those excess profits! Too the extent that's true, yes, there is no pricing power; it was not true in the case you cited, where the dynamics of price competition in local markets showed that, in fact, the speculative possibility you claim existed did not prevent Wild Oats or Whole Foods from charging mon…

Yes, the monopoly argument depends on believing that somehow, even though there were these absurdly high profit margins from simply carrying a different good, no grocer other than WF or WO will ever recognize that for eternity, because, over the short time intervals that one study looked at, they never switched to carrying the goods, despite it being trivial for them to add or remove product lines for their stores, and there definitely not being monopoly power responsive for this choice further upstream.

It's just not a good argument, nor does it refute that this "counterfactual competition" does, normally, in practice, keep vendors from charging excess profit margins; nor does it contradict the long history of sellers entering abandoned markets thinking they'll be the only one, only to face competition shortly thereafter.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#124

Post by fokov » Fri, Nov 16, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

Grazester wrote: post #42

fokov wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace YouTube with network TV vs cable in the early days. There is a way past YouTube but people must be willing to adapt and/or take the hit building the next thing. Most of the best TV shows have been from network and especially the premium ones like HBO, Showtime, and now Netflix. However, it took many years to get here and most people probably can't afford to compete without net neutrality.

Nothing you mentioned is a replacement for Youtube, where on demand I can get a video on replacing the clutch on my car or a quick tutorial on promises in node.js

I didn't mean to replace YouTube as a product specifically. I meant that this happened over 30 years ago between the networks and cable. Network TV dominated and cable had the same problem with attracting both views and content producers. The point of the matter was to not complain that it is impossible; it is just hard. However, others have already solved a similar issue so the lessons learned can be applied here too.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#125

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Nov 17, 2018, 12:29 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #122

stcredzero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation is far more like not being able to choose another broadband provider, with network effects taking the place of local cable regulations. I can picture a scenario where some sites have an insurmountable advantage because of compromised network neutrality. I'm very sure that in that case, the winners would be crowing about how, "the market has spoken," when the reality is that the market is broken.

And yes, a broadband (often) would be an example of a monopoly provider. My point was that, "gosh, we want a better alternative" is not necessarily a reasonable desire or evidence of monopoly power.

"Gosh, we want a better alternative, but alternatives keep on getting squashed," is a pretty strong indicator. Doesn't every monopoly claim that the situation is due to market forces and that they're not a monopoly?

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#126

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Nov 17, 2018, 1:40 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #123

dragonwriter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The counterfactual possibility, of entrants eating excess profits, is exactly what keeps businesses from charging those excess profits! Too the extent that's true, yes, there is no pricing power; it was not true in the case you cited, where the dynamics of price competition in local markets showed that, in fact, the speculative possibility you claim existed did not prevent Wild Oats or Whole Foods from charging mon…

Yes, the monopoly argument depends on believing that somehow, even though there were these absurdly high profit margins from simply carrying a different good, no grocer other than WF or WO will ever recognize that for eternity, because, over the short time intervals that one study looked at, they never switched to carrying the goods, despite it being trivial for them to add or remove product lines for their stores, a…

> Yes, the monopoly argument depends on believing that somehow, even though there were these absurdly high profit margins from simply carrying a different good, no grocer other than WF or WO will ever recognize that for eternity,

No, it doesn't, because antitrust monopolies aren't defined exclusively over an infinite future time horizon; while simple economic models often only consider that, all useful economic models and regulations consider shorter-term effects, as well, or exclusively (“In the long run, we’re all dead”, after all.)

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#127

Post by dllthomas » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 2:28 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #121

dllthomas wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely, although "everyone is dissatisfied, but not enough to leave" can also be a result of compromise. If there's value to be had by everyone using the same thing, while everyone wants that one thing to be a little different than what others want, a lot of people will "want alternatives" that they can't really have regardless of how the provider behaves.

Likely, although "everyone is dissatisfied, but not enough to leave" can also be a result of compromise. That's a distortion. It's more like, lots of people are dissatisfied, but all of the alternatives are economic/network-effect suicide. It's more like people living and working in the crappy mining town, because the only alternatives are like living as a hobo in the woods.

I'm not sure if you're saying that what I'm saying is a distortion of the situation, or that the compromise represents monopolistic distortion of the market. I think the former? If so, that's a much stronger reading than I intended; I wasn't saying "this is what's happening" but rather "this is a thing that happens in general, it may be part of the explanation here, I don't know how to really pick it apart."

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#128

Post by sailfast » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #68

sailfast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Datapoly" For me, the reason they have such power in the marketplace is because they have the historical data on all these users. "Lock-in" can be overcome. Technical capabilities can be bettered by other companies, but when it comes to training sets, it's hard to start late...

IT's also the interactions. Think "likes" and website visits. All of which is packaged up and sold to advertisers.

Agreed - that fits squarely under my definition of "data". If you have ten years worth of behaviors before anyone realizes it's valuable, that's quite a lead.