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Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

cnbc.com

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Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#131

Post by kyuudou »

chroma wrote: post #119
durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

OK, now judge governments by those same standards. I don't see Facebook invading Iraq on false pretenses, or imprisoning people for the crime of smoking marijuana, or shooting an unarmed guy for failing to follow conflicting commands.[1] Hopefully now you understand where the libertarians and ancaps are coming from. It's not that corporations are good. It's that governments are so much worse. 1. https://en.wikipedia.…

Not sure why you're getting downvoted (well, I do, but...) but governments are what enable corporations to be the bad actors they are. They would not get so large, powerful and unwieldy in a free market where corporations have as much or more rights as human beings, i.e. corporate personhood.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#132

Post by Mc_Big_G »

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

No one?! HN is full of Facebook supporters and deniers.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#134

Post by bena »

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

I've been through Google's process 2.5 times. I made it to the on-site twice, hiring committee once but ultimately was rejected; one time I was setting up for a phone screen when the whole COVID thing thinged and I think I got dropped when they froze hiring.

My current job was acquired by essentially my current employer buying me out of a contract with my former employer. I was doing contract work and they wanted me full-time. My former employer, the consultancy my current employer contracted with, acquired me when they knew I was unhappy with the place I was at, another place they contracted with, prior to them. The place I was with prior, I was hired via a standard "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" type of interview. No assessment of my skills was made. I made claims, they took them at face value.

So I've been through several processes for getting jobs.

> Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes.

And this one is eh. Yes, their process is certainly rigorous and probably overkill. But the old style interview wasn't much better. The place where I work has gone through a couple of developers. Both were hired through more conventional means as we're not a software shop, we're a company that happens to need bespoke software.

Both were able to produce something in terms of software. None of it was excellent and the internals were just bad. I don't know another way to cut it. Neither were fired. Both quit for other jobs. We obviously need some sort of standard here.

We do need to assess whether or not someone can solve problems. We do need to assess whether or not someone can code sufficiently. Variable naming, indentation proclivities, clarity, etc. However, we cannot get caught up in testing whether they know the OTBS or the difference between systems and apps Hungarian or if they can solve trick questions.

I'm going to be responsible for essentially building a team for my department of the building. And I'll tell you now, I'm going to be making a process closer to Google's rather than the one I went through to get where I am. Not to lock the door behind me, but to make sure we don't repeat the same mistakes. It's essentially 1 for 3 (maybe, I could be garbage as well to be honest).

What's wrong with a skills assessment with regards to hiring? Or what's wrong with the way Google performs skills assessment with regards to hiring?

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#135

Post by gfodor »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #93
durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Personally, I think we should rephrase this. Facebook is not evil in and of itself. Facebook's management is evil. Amazon's management is predatory. Microsoft is good (at the moment), because they have leaders at the helm that are taking notice of how to do things in a more ethical manner. We need to start assigning blame to people to start correcting the problem. It's too easy to just pass of blame and say "Well, th…

I’d go further - there is one simple idea that is evil, that drives Facebook:

Social networks won’t work unless they are given away for free, and the only way to make a sustainable one you give away for free is to monetize via behavior modification products.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#136

Post by kyuudou »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48
jkw wrote: post #25

Facebook has been unable to stop new entrants: Pinterest, Snap, Tiktok, Twitter - All global and multi billion dollar companies, and still growing. More to come are: Telegram, Discord, Houseparty, Clubhouse Plus global competition from: Wechat, Weibo, Line Social networks come and go. The space is a lot more whimsical than people think. Remember Friendster, MySpace, AIM. A new challenger will emerge every 3-5 years.

> Remember Friendster, MySpace, AIM. A new challenger will emerge every 3-5 years. I honestly laugh whenever I hear people still bring up those early social media companies as evidence that social media heavyweights somehow come and go. None of those companies ever came near the global reach of FB. A quick Google search gives a peak user count of MySpace of between 75 and 100 million, for FB it's 2.7 billion. Those c…

Sure, but already FB is tainted with an "only old people use that" meme for several years now. Once the boomers start really dying off, I think this is when FB will fade.

Plus, I think society as a whole is beginning to see the toxic ills of social media in general and will push back in a "retro" "back to the basics" kind of movement, embracing old traditions like community, family and friends in meatspace.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#137

Post by monadic2 »

fwn wrote: post #47
monadic2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this kind of juvenile behavior accepted on this forum?

The parent criticized the commonly used FAANG acronym for excluding Microsoft. That is not juvenile in my book. There's apparently "FANGAM" to account for that omission. According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG

Am I missing something? FAANG obviously omits a bunch of relevant large tech companies and it's rather disingenuous to be confused at its omission when the acronym obviously doesn't have an M in it. Feigning stupidity to make a point against a straw man is both juvenile behavior and evidently derailed the thread from civil or productive conversation. That's a successful troll, my friend, not any kind of behavior that aligns with the community guidelines.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#138

Post by bhupy »

x87678r wrote: post #95
durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Actually FB pays a lot of tax, last year $6B on $24B profits. Amazon never makes money so doesn't pay tax. Google is good at not paying.

It's also misleading to look purely at the taxes paid on corporate profits. That's not the only way that corporations are taxed.

In 2019 Amazon paid $2.4b in federal payroll taxes and customs duties and $1.6b in state and local taxes. So they actually handed to federal and state tax authorities over $4b of their $13.9b reported pre tax revenue, while also collecting $9b in sales taxes on their behalf.

Also, Amazon as a corporation is largely just comprised of its executives and employees and shareholders, and they all pay taxes on their income and realized capital gains (if any).

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#139

Post by dhimes »

kyuudou wrote: post #136
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember Friendster, MySpace, AIM. A new challenger will emerge every 3-5 years. I honestly laugh whenever I hear people still bring up those early social media companies as evidence that social media heavyweights somehow come and go. None of those companies ever came near the global reach of FB. A quick Google search gives a peak user count of MySpace of between 75 and 100 million, for FB it's 2.7 billion. Those c…

Sure, but already FB is tainted with an "only old people use that" meme for several years now. Once the boomers start really dying off, I think this is when FB will fade. Plus, I think society as a whole is beginning to see the toxic ills of social media in general and will push back in a "retro" "back to the basics" kind of movement, embracing old traditions like community, family and friends in meatspace.

They might fade when we boomers do, but they also could stay in that sweet spot of people who have disposable income and are apt to spend it— a sweet spot advertisers love. They could end up targeting 40-65 year olds perpetually.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#140

Post by CameronNemo »

jasonv wrote: post #109
leetcrew wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon? edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?

Reno is in the same spot. The number of Tesla, Walmart and Amazon trucks clogging I-80 at all hours of the day is astonishing. It also clogs the highway and impedes traffic. I wish they could put a toll or ban trucks from 7am to 7pm so people can get over the hill without tracking trains of trucks. Not sure how this could be solved without an effort of some kind, but as far as o can tell, there are zero policies guid…

Wow I had no idea this was happening. I wonder if taxing the hell out of these trucks would tip the scales toward moving the logistics closer to the destination market, which I presume is the bay area and peripherals.
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