151–160 of 735 posts
I used to work at Amazon and the idea of spinning out Marketplace just seems unworkable. It's like saying that Microsoft should spin out Xbox... they are 100% dependent on each other.
The easiest target would be for Amazon to spin out AWS.
This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 > Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would also give other companies in the US a better shot at the same goal. The focus on China seems unwarranted.
I don't think its fair to underestimate China. Breaking up Amazon or Google would benefit China more than the west. Sure Amazon and Google are possibly too large, but their Chinese counter parts are equally as large and direct competitors. The idea behind breaking these companies up is to encourage market competition but that competition already exists and will not be broken up in China. Somehow Warren always has the…
China doesn't seem to be having any problems competing, and winning, against Google and Amazon. Baidu and Alibaba are huge.
This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 > Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. A…
> If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. And Larry, please don't start Google." Otherwise Larry's going to mess up your numbers big time. That's fucking idiocy. Or more accurately, propaganda from a billionaire with extreme vested interest in this topic. It's pretty straightforward to say "Go ahead and start Google, and if it succeeds we're going to have some basic…
There is a stark difference between socialism rooted in the above idea and socialism rooted in jealousy and vindictiveness toward the wealthy just because they're wealthy. We're not trying to punish the wealthy and we can still allow them to be very wealthy. But as the US currently stands, the wealthy could contribute much more while still having far greater quality of life than almost everyone else.
Once we've broken up the federal government, we can start worrying about these much smaller and less powerful entities!
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Not at all. It's to split Amazon retail and AWS. Not that I'm opposed to that or not, but it is the most obvious. If you look at templates of prior antitrust action, you'd probably see roadmaps of splitting ad presentation/platform from ad brokering/targeting in all of the companies mentioning.
I might have a different perspective since I live in Norway. Amazon is not as dominating here as in the US.
I wont speak for social media and search, but Amazon has a complete stranglehold on retail in the United States. People keep saying 'retail is dead', thats bullshit, Amazon has a monopolistic stranglehold on the selling of all goods. If that weren't the case, small shop brick and mortar shopping would still be a thing.
To what end? "illegally undermine competition?" She is inferring that Google/Amazon/Facebook are committing anti-trust crimes? What proof does she have? >Companies would be barred from transferring or sharing users’ data with third parties. That can be done without breaking them up. I don't think she realizes that splitting up amazon and amazon basics will do little to nothing. There are other things that can be done…
>I don't think she realizes that splitting up amazon and amazon basics will do little to nothing. I think amazon : amazon basics is a great example of antitrust/unfair monopoly the same as google search : almost all consumer facing google products. Both amazon and google search are the dominate online market leaders in their respective categories. In amazons case they unfairly use their market position to begin offer…
1) How is that different than a department store? If you go into housewares at Macy's you'll see their own branded stuff along with other brands. So at issue is not the practice itself, but rather that the digital marketplace makes it easier and more efficient.
2) The consumer (along with Amazon) is a beneficiary here. The losers are brands trying to sell commodity items at a markup. The play is not to undercut all the power strip sellers (to take an example) and once they are out of business, jack up the price. The play is to take the margin due to marketing and brand equity from the sellers and split it between the consumer and Jeff Bezos, so rather than being harmed, the consumer benefits from this.
This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 > Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. A…
So if a very capable, a hard working, effective person is able to increase their wealth by 20x, and in so doing increases my wealth by 2x without my doing anything, you'd be in favor of using the power of the state to prevent this from happening because it would increase inequality?
I'm good at what I do and I work for a hedge fund because they'll compensate me well for it. I increase the productivity of other people at my company, without them doing anything, by giving them better platforms for their work. Chasing salary is the obvious locally rational action for me, but it's inefficient for the world. I could be making life better for the world if I could be funded to work on, say, Debian instead of our in-house build system. And I probably could be funded at about 1/20 of my current salary to do it, and provide 2x productivity benefits for you personally, but the incentives of a capitalist society mean that isn't the right decision for me.
However - you say "using the power of the state to prevent." I am not in favor of that. I am in favor of ceasing using the power of the state to enable. The government could stop recognizing the right of corporations to property and to the labor of individuals at any time.