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U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#161

Post by kube-system »

skystarman wrote: post #152
ohazi wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible for a monopolist to have a great product that allows people to do amazing things that were never previously possible and still be harming the consumer. Microsoft had the leading desktop operating system in the 90s that allowed millions of ordinary people to start using computers for the first time, yet their browser bundling was considered problematic. Bell telephone allowed you to talk to people across…

Microsoft and Bell were successfully sued using existing antitrust law because they WERE harming consumers. So again, how is Amazon hurting consumers?

They are using their power to force competitors out of the market. That's what antitrust is about anyway -- it's not really about how happy customers are. "We're the best!" is easy to say when you've decimated any potential rivals.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#162

Post by thejohnconway »

shockeychap wrote: post #146
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll agree with your second point. How can we begin fixing it?

I’m not sure, but I think we have to start with Congressional reform. I don’t generally subscribe to the notion that legislating should be a lucrative, lifelong profession. I think term limits, pay reduction, and abolishment of the Congressional pension would be an excellent start. It would eliminate some of the career aspects of legislating while forcing lobbyists to regularly deal with new people, somewhat limiting…

If you make getting into politic an even less certain career, you’re going to limit it more and more to the independently wealthy.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#163

Post by capableweb »

ohashi wrote: post #68
the-dude wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happened?

What sector does Microsoft dominate these days? They actually are pretty good at competing. Major units at Microsoft: OS. This one is old, gone through anti trust stuff already. There's Mac / Linux. Cloud. Azure is competing against AWS, GCP, everyone else. Gaming. Xbox has Sony and Nintendo. The strongest monopoly argument is still operating system/office, but even that Google is eroding away at office. The server m…

You're forgetting a entire ecosystem: developers. Microsoft owns NPM Inc, GitHub and Linkedin, all but Linkedin focused on developers and both GitHub and NPM owns their respective markets (GitHub for source code management and NPM Inc for JavaScript distribution)

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#164

Post by magicalist »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #157
nmfisher wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call me stupid, but what exists on android that users on iOS are begging for that only exists on android because of the "freedom" of the platform. Right now, Fortnite.

Epic is trying to strong arm their way into a position of power against steam and apple so they increase their take off the casino they've filled with children. Like under 10 years old children, asking parents to buy them skins. Skins and loot boxes are the worst thing to happen to gaming and should be regulated. I, and many others are firmly on Apple's side on this issue. If Epic made revolutionary or just great gam…

> Epic is trying to strong arm their way into a position of power against steam and apple so they increase their take off the casino they've filled with children.

And Apple has the moral high ground wanting a cut of proceeds because they make it easy for children to get to the casino? Not a great analogy.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#165

Post by mupuff1234 »

asah wrote: post #24
the-dude wrote: post #3

And Microsoft is not in this list. Who would have predicted that?

IBM and Microsoft already had their anti-trust run-ins in the 80s and 90s.

I don't think having one in the past should be a "get out of jail" free pass for future offenses.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#166

Post by katbyte »

simion314 wrote: post #137
ericmay wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t view the link without paying unless you are simply showing that Amazon has 13% of the global e-commerce market and 50%~ of the U.S. market. To answer your question - it doesn’t matter. We don’t determine monopolies simply because of market share. If we did, why aren’t we filing another anti-trust investigation against Microsoft and Windows? The point anyway is that people have no switching cost. Amazon faces…

>Apple I’m not sure how they’ve even been in the discussion Remember that Apple and Google pulled a legal app from their stores, regular Apple users (like 50% of US) can't install stuff on their device without Apple parental approval and the "make it a website argument also fails because Apple is does not let you install a better browser". 50% still affects a lot of people, though Apple fanboys will attempt to say is…

What app?

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#167

Post by dontblink »

kube-system wrote: post #161
skystarman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft and Bell were successfully sued using existing antitrust law because they WERE harming consumers. So again, how is Amazon hurting consumers?

They are using their power to force competitors out of the market. That's what antitrust is about anyway -- it's not really about how happy customers are. "We're the best!" is easy to say when you've decimated any potential rivals.

It is in the US though?

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#168

Post by [deleted] »

SuchAnonMuchWow wrote: post #140
Black101 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never made me switch to Chrome (still use Firefox), but I think that it made a lot of people switch... by having a daily popup telling them that they are using the wrong browser.

no, what made people switch was that chrome is the default browser on android

[deleted]

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#169

Post by mr_toad »

pjc50 wrote: post #109
eecc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think so? So please elaborate on how having your platform marginalized to a mere window decoration around the ubiquitous, 100% dominant UI toolkit (Crome) is better for the consumer. Besides, there’s plenty of choice on the market, unless you want to complain about a car manufacturer selling only their own models...

Platforms should disappear into the background. The great benefit of the web is that it presents roughly the same UI everywhere across all manner of devices and browsers. (The big downside of course is that it's not exactly the same). > car manufacturer selling only their own models... My car doesn't tell me who or what it's willing to transport. Yet.

Agreed, but many people are arguing that browsers should be able to alter the system outside the browser (e.g desktop shortcuts and notifications).

I think that these things should remain under the control of the operating system.

Re: U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crackdown

#170

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

shockeychap wrote: post #146
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll agree with your second point. How can we begin fixing it?

I’m not sure, but I think we have to start with Congressional reform. I don’t generally subscribe to the notion that legislating should be a lucrative, lifelong profession. I think term limits, pay reduction, and abolishment of the Congressional pension would be an excellent start. It would eliminate some of the career aspects of legislating while forcing lobbyists to regularly deal with new people, somewhat limiting…

I think Congressional term limits would be one of the easiest fixes for the current state of affairs. Overturning Citizens United and repealing the 17th would be great steps too. However, I think we should pay Congress people at least $1M/yr. Pay them like Fortune 100 CEO's. Make it so they don't even CARE about playing games with insider trading. If we want to run this capitalist country like the capitalists we think we are, then scrap the notion that Representatives were supposed to be farmers that went and represented their districts for a couple of sessions, and then went back to work. Pay them in a way that attracts truly talented people, instead of the usual suspects who have just enough intelligence to recognize that they have just enough EMOTIONAL intellect to handle the campaigning and the backroom dealings. Of course, then we get into the argument about whether the average Fortune CEO is really any more talented than the average representative, but you get the idea.
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