America has a monopoly problem • Hacker News Board

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#141

Post by marinman » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:46 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #117

From the article Firms like Microsoft led in the innovation in creating new barriers to entry. How could one compete with a browser provided at a zero price. I think what happened to Microsoft is the perfect example of how to overcome a monopoly. 20 years ago, everyone thought that Microsoft’s monopoly was unassailable. Google barely existed, Facebook didn’t exist, Amazon was a bookseller and Apple was basically bank…

But importantly, the government went after Microsoft for anti-trust and actually won even if they didn't break them up. It's impossible to really know the counter-factual of what would have happened if it wasn't sued for anti-trust. But, you can safely say it wouldn't have thrown a lifeline to Apple with the investment and it may have been much more aggressive in these emerging spaces. I still think it was still not fundamentally "ready" for the Internet and mobile but I do think that lawsuit made it much, much friendlier to newcomers.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#142

Post by nikolay » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

Monopolies are a natural phenomenon in capitalism. I'm not sure why people glorify capitalism as much, given the fact that competition is impossibly hard in many areas, and that to reduce costs, and remove competitive pressure, companies tends to consolidate, i.e. reduce competition. Neither socialism nor capitalism makes sense today. We need a totally new system, but it's really hard to make a dent into the status quo, which is well-entrenched, and would resist any change!

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#143

Post by thecombjelly » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #133

thecombjelly wrote: post #121

America has a capitalism problem. What the article fails to address is that the root cause is really capitalism. Under capitalism wealth and power always concentrates, which in the case of businesses, that eventually means bad monopolies. Under a representative democracy that also means politics will always be corrupted because those with money and power will always be benefited by controlling politics, and they have…

I can think of at least one way to diminish companies power over legislatures. Pay representatives enough that they’re indifferent to corrupt forces. It’s not like there an expectation for representives to be broke.

At that point it seems you would have just promoted politicians in to the capital class without the middle-person, but again they now represent the capital class and all their non-politician capital class buddies at the cocktail parties, instead of representing those without much capital.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#144

Post by nikolay » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

whistlerbrk wrote: post #14

America has a corruption problem. The ability for companies to vertically integrate and essentially make smaller businesses non-competitive can only occur when you don't have to pay the taxes your smaller competitors have to pay and don't have to obey the same laws your competitors have to obey. We have a systemic corruption problem (manifested in lobbying) coupled with greed on scales we've never seen before. Everyt…

I see more competition possible in some much more corrupt countries, so, maybe that's not exactly the root cause.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#145

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #134

alasdair_ wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the Iron Law of Oligarchy page: "no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy" I'm not sure this is proven yet. Certainly in the past, I'd have agreed, but with communication via the Internet making realtime decision-making between all members of a democracy possible, I think direct democracy is theoretically possible at least. If not absolutely direct, then at least h…

> in the past, I'd have agreed, but with communication via the Internet making realtime decision-making between all members of a democracy possible, I think direct democracy is theoretically possible at least. Our current issues have nothing to do with latency, they have to do with manipulation and propaganda. The internet has so far made that worse , not better. If every single Facebook trend, or 30 second clip from…

Any online poll serves as an example of this. On the funny side, sometimes you get a whale named "Mr. Splashy Pants" or a boat named "Boaty Mc. Boat Face". Other times, you suggest "Hitler Did Nothing Wrong" as a new flavor of Mountain Dew.

For a legislative vote where some actors have a lot to gain or lose from the outcome, I'd expect the manipulation to get even more egregious than people trolling polls for amusement.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#146

Post by mancerayder » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #136

irrational wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you said, except for the "greed on scales we've never seen before". I think it's pretty clear, if you look back at the last 5,000 years of history that we've clearly seen greed on the same scale (or greater) than what we are seeing right now. It seems to be endemic to the human condition.

The last time income concentration in the US looked like this was around 1900. That generated the union movement and interest in socialism and communism. (This time we got Trump. Oops.)

A lot of people forget that fascism had an overtly anti-capitalist attitude, espoused in propaganda and racial imagery (take a look at what a factory boss looked like in Nazi propaganda and you'll understand what I'm trying to say). And a program, too, that of subservience to the State. However, I'm not saying it wasn't capitalistic in effect, or anything like that.

Only that a system breakdown leads people to seek out extremes. In the late 19th and early 20th century there were ideologies in Europe and the U.S. that were available to cling on to, whether you were a union member, a soldier returned from a devastating war, or a deeply religious person, something was there to explain the order.

Today we have Facebook news (60%, is it, of Americans get their news primarily from there?). We have programmatic advertising, a feedback loop of information being sent to our attention and our behaviors being tracked and sending back datapoints for further optimized tracking... I'm not sure what this says about the state of ideology and the tremendous disunity in western society compared to 100 years ago, in the sense of people coming together under the banner of coherent ideas... But it'd make an interesting thesis paper.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#147

Post by beart » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 5:57 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #133

thecombjelly wrote: post #121

America has a capitalism problem. What the article fails to address is that the root cause is really capitalism. Under capitalism wealth and power always concentrates, which in the case of businesses, that eventually means bad monopolies. Under a representative democracy that also means politics will always be corrupted because those with money and power will always be benefited by controlling politics, and they have…

I can think of at least one way to diminish companies power over legislatures. Pay representatives enough that they’re indifferent to corrupt forces. It’s not like there an expectation for representives to be broke.

Define "enough".

I don't think this solution really works. For some folks, nothing is ever enough. Then you also need to consider that it is less about money for some and more about friends and power. Maybe I don't do what corporations ask because they are going to pay my campaign. Maybe I do it because it makes me feel like a big man being the person they all come to for favors. Maybe I do it to gain acceptance into an aristocracy. I don't know how you can compete against that on a government salary, no matter how big.

Donald Trump is supposedly worth $3.5 billion. Do you think paying him more money would change the way he governs? I only use him as an example because he is the richest US politician, but there aren't too many poor ones at the federal level.

I guess I just don't see how you could ever pay a politician enough to be "indifferent to corrupt forces".

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#148

Post by yannyu » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #87

savanaly wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what rent seeking means in this context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

Eh, it still applies. There's plenty of articles that have been posted here talking about how the real way to make money is SaaS, not on-prem. In that context, the provider is making more profit with no further innovation, in fact the only thing they've added is a limitation. To quote from your link: Rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent (i.e., the portion of income paid to a factor of production in exce…

To universally label the move from on-prem, perpetual licensing to SaaS as pure rent-seeking is to misunderstand how different kinds of software products are purchased and used by different users.

As far as enterprise/business customers go, SaaS has been huge in reducing vendor lock-in and enabling customers to choose the best fit for their use case. SaaS has removed the huge costs of PoCs and initial adoption, meaning it's easier to evaluate vendors and switch when you're ready. You no longer have to buy the hardware to get the service up and running, or allocate as many employees to maintain the hardware and software. The explosion of vendors and competition in the SaaS space has forced more interoperability and customer-focused feature development than ever before.

SaaS has been great for pretty much all business customers. At this point, I don't think any but the largest companies, most specialized companies would rather build their own services at this point than try to purchase off the shelf when possible.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#149

Post by deusum » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

trophycase wrote: post #139

deusum wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

feudalism n. A political and economic system of Europe from the 9th to about the 15th century, based on the holding of all land in fief or fee and the resulting relation of lord to vassal and characterized by homage, legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.

Parent clearly means feudalism in the abstract sense.

Honestly, I searched for the definition expecting to disagree. I posted it when I realized parent was right, and figured I'm not the only person who hasn't studied feudalism in a while.

Re: America has a monopoly problem

#150

Post by irrational » Tue, Oct 24, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #136

irrational wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you said, except for the "greed on scales we've never seen before". I think it's pretty clear, if you look back at the last 5,000 years of history that we've clearly seen greed on the same scale (or greater) than what we are seeing right now. It seems to be endemic to the human condition.

The last time income concentration in the US looked like this was around 1900. That generated the union movement and interest in socialism and communism. (This time we got Trump. Oops.)

That's nothing compared to the income concentration in Old Kingdom Egypt.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.