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Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

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Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any evidence that your suggestions will actually improve the consumer experience or are you just suggesting killing businesses because of a gut feeling and some anti corporate sentiment? >If we let monopolies take over, then the economy of the world will start to mirror the economies within these large corporations. None of these companies can be said to be monopolies. > We will gradually lose freedom of…

If Google doesn't have an effective monopoly then I don't think I understand the word. The only search engine relavant to my search results is Google and I don't here to many people talking about optimizing their SEO for bing.

Google is not a search company they are an advertising company. Their search product is a value add, it is the reason people go to google but it is also not what they sell. A business with a monopoly can raise the cost of their product to the price the market can bear. Google cannot raise the cost of their ads because advertisers will simply go to other ad platforms.

TLDR: Google is selling space on its website for advertisements. They do not have a monopoly on that. If they put their search behind a paywall Bing, Duckduckgo, etc will replace them.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#132
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is up with all this egalitarian nonsense? Just the wish to have a society that is able to evolve, to have all of us go forward as a species instead of concentrating the power in the hands of few. >There is an obsession with equality that I just don't get. That's called being a bit of a sociopath, but it gets better. >This is an affront on capitalism which has served to lift so many out of poverty. Good! Capital…

Well at least we can get that out of the way; it is an affront then. These 4 companies (and more) have done more good than all the goodness of your heart will ever do. We have to be pragmatic and not just be bleeding hearts because it is endearing and it will make us popular. >to have all of us go forward as a species instead of concentrating the power in the hands of few. This is the problem you and others that thin…

>it is an affront then.

You'll live.

>These 4 companies (and more) have done more good than all the goodness of your heart will ever do

Oh, certainly. Can we start listing all the bad they've done now? Because I can't, not even in a hundred lifetimes, do as much evil as those four.

>That for some to win others must lose. No. This is just flawed.

Indeed. If you're living in a dream.

However, in most of the cases, many people are losing, and few are winning.

>These companies should be left to be as big as they can get.

It went so well in the past! Employees working at the company, paid in company scrips, eating at the company store, sleeping in the company bed. Corruption at the highest levels. Look at Samsung's level of involvement in South Korea's government, certainly something you want, right?

>You can also start your own conglomerate!

Absolutely! Unless you are poor, not living in a first world country, not living in a place where you have any chance of getting your company to a sizable level, ... Also, hopefully said conglomerates you are challenging will not do anything to crush you, because they have the ability to do so, a thousand times over.

>people who wake up earlier than you, push harder than you and take more personal responsibility than you.

I know people who make up earlier than me, who push harder than me and take on more personal responsibility than me. They're bricklayers. They're artisans. They're cashiers. They're working two jobs. They're working infinitely harder than you, I or Larry Page have ever worked. And yet, here we all are, in better health, with more money, with more free time and a more satifying job than them. Go tell them they aren't at this level because they aren't working hard. I fucking dare you.

>This is wrong. Plain wrong and I'm unashamed to say it. Why do we want to repeat failed experiments with egalitarianism. Every where it has been tried, it has failed miserably. Empirically, anti-capitalism has been a disaster.

Two things:

* You seem to be assuming I want communism. You're wrong. Unless we're getting fully automated luxury gay space communism, in which case, yes.

* I am not advocating anti-capitalism. I am recognising the merits of this system. I am also recognizing its flaws, and the need for it to evolve.

You're putting more value on the accumulation of wealth to a few people than to the well-being of society. I have those swapped around, and think your ideas are utterly fucked up, that's all. You're more than welcome to think the same of my ideas. You are being beaten with a whip, but somehow feel the need to defend your masters bnecause after all, you're not beaten that much. Not only is it stupid, you're forgetting the other people getting beaten, much more than you.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work at Google > The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. [citation needed] A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, y…

> Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from? This needs a citation, as well. This is assuming Google hasn't starved out potential competitors who would have provided the same service, or better service, had…

Congrats on your degree in econ. You would think that someone with a degree in econ would believe it wise to first establish what the negative externalities are and what externalities regulating away the existence of large business would produce before defending the idea of doing so.

We already know that with the existence of Google we get free products like search, mail, video, etc. Do you have evidence that when we destroy google that we will still retain all of these benefits?

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Alexa extracting a 5-10% (or even 30%) fee on all pizza places through that access definitely hurts all pizza businesses, anywhere. And those that opt out will miss that business.

How is it definitely ? It may hurt or may not. Credit card systems also charge a commission and yet every pizza place prefers to pay it rather than accept only cash, because of the benefits credit cards provide.

Justeat is an online pizza ordering service from Denmark which also requires pizza shops to sign up for it and pay a fairly large fee. This started out very well, but when it gained massive traction they ramped up the fees and pizza joints started complaining that it was killing them. Of course it was too late to opt out since all the consumers had gotten used to going to the website.

The fee started out at 10% and went up in steps up to 20%. At several points pizza shops tried banding together and staging mass "walkouts", but it never worked.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have any evidence that your suggestions will actually improve the consumer experience or are you just suggesting killing businesses because of a gut feeling and some anti corporate sentiment? >If we let monopolies take over, then the economy of the world will start to mirror the economies within these large corporations. None of these companies can be said to be monopolies. > We will gradually lose freedom of…

If Google doesn't have an effective monopoly then I don't think I understand the word. The only search engine relavant to my search results is Google and I don't here to many people talking about optimizing their SEO for bing.

It's not necessarily illegal to be a monopoly, it's illegal to behave in certain anti-competitive ways. For example:

- Rockefeller made deals with the railroads that shipped Standard Oil to charge higher prices to other prospective oil shippers.

- Rockefeller bought any competitor that was undercutting him and raised its prices so it stopped being a threat.

- "Competing" firms met and drew up an agreement that neither would undercut the other on price.

- "Competing" firms met and drew up an agreement that certain regions belonged to Firm A, while other regions belonged to Firm B, and they would not enter each other's territory.

- Microsoft sabotaged its user experience for users who removed Internet Explorer to dissuade them from using Netscape.

- Microsoft sabotaged its APIs with the deliberate intention of breaking Netscape, Java, etc.

It's illegal to use your market power to beat competitors in ways that aren't: produce a better/cheaper product that people choose because it's better/cheaper.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#136

It does concern me when people say that the internet should be unregulated, especially given the recent vote in the US and the likely upcoming votes in the UK. Monopolies are very easy to form on the internet, and in the interest of improving everyone's use, we need to try to avoid them. Walled gardens currently trap people into one service and limit the ability to swap between them, similar to "forcing" you to use j…

There is a difference between regulating to protect the consumer and give them more options versus regulating to restrict their options and protections. Usually talk of "regulating the inter" falls into the latter category.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work at Google > The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. [citation needed] A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, y…

>gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze I think there are alternatives for all of those, many open source.

> many open source

please. Name the open source alternatives that don't require my grandma to set up her own VPS.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#138
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, only very large companies are able to make a certain class of investments in infrastructure and services — that push technology and society forward as a whole — that small to mid companies due to lack of capacity never could, and governments due to lack of vision and political will never would.

They push society forward along THEIR agenda. That agenda can be the most open, inclusive and diverse agenda ever, but it's gonna be the agenda of a corporation nonetheless. In my ideal world, you know who should be in charge of such a push? American friends, please, breathe deeply: The State should.

> The State should.

I'm looking forward to living in Trumpland. When do we start gilding everything?

Breathe deeply, provide evidence that the state dictating what should and shouldn't be produced has ever resulted in a better overall outcome for society than using the market.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work at Google > The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. [citation needed] A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, y…

>gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze I think there are alternatives for all of those, many open source.

But none work together so seamlessly.

I'm with that guy: the ease of life is amazing with Google. I'll buy movie tickets online then get an alert about driving conditions and when I need to leave to arrive on time. That's something your open source maps program can't do because it doesn't have access to my email.

And if it did I wouldn't use it because it'd be sitting there combing my email constantly which isn't efficient to do on my phone.

Google's ability to personalize data is without compare honestly. It comes from being huge... And I'm OK with it.

Re: Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big?

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I work at Google > The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies. [citation needed] A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad-making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, y…

Suppose there was an organization, "Creation", that did mass surveillance on everyone on the planet. They don't disclose what they do with this data. Let's say as a result of Creation's sharing of this data with local governments, crime is nonexistent. Based on only what we've said is that a good or bad deal? Also, all of your examples were either purchased or have alternatives, so, yeah.

How do you know that Creation has the right definition of "crime" or that such a definition even exists.
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