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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#161

Post by mikkergp »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #132
sanderjd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

The obvious problem with considering social network platforms as interchangeable competitors is that they... aren't interchangeable at all. A user can't pack up and go to a different platform because their actual social network (i.e., relationships between humans) is only accessible on one platform. For example, my colleagues are on Twitter but not Mastodon. I can't leave Twitter without leaving my social network. Wh…

The 'my colleagues are on twitter by not mastodon' example doesn't feel salient to me. The best example would probably be MMORPG's. Should people who play WoW have access to people who play FFIV? I guess the question would be is social networking more a communications utility like a cell phone or e-mail, or is it more of a recreational activity. Personally I've never felt like not being on facebook took access away from my friends the way not having a phone would. Oddly no one talks about LinkedIn being a monopoly which feels like a more substantive example, since not being on LinkedIn may impact job opportunities. But not being on facebook, instagram, or twitter feels more like I won't be able to recreate with my friends/family and less like I won't be able to communicate with them.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#162

Post by dont__panic »

nitrogen wrote: post #156
mywittyname wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right on the technicals, but the GP is right in spirit. It seems like society needs a term for the concept of a company accumulating far too much power, and that we need laws similar to anti-trust laws, that apply to these companies. This is an incredibly difficult problem to address specifically because FB is not a classic monopoly. I'm not even sure what it would mean to "break them up". Amazon, MS, Apple, a…

In Facebook's case they own some of their biggest potential competitors for attention and deliberately preserve their niches. So splitting them up might make a difference. But if not, requiring an open network akin to the telephone system with standardized protocols might make a difference. AT&T was split on geographical lines, so maybe FB could be as well, and the regionals would all have to interoperate with open p…

Open protocols and interop seem like a very good goal to aim for. I'm curious how geographical lines would work for Facebook -- would you end up with one Facebook per country? And would we still end up in a situation where you need to have a Facebook account to participate in things like Marketplace or community groups?

Personally I would want to be able to host my own tiny Facebook instance that I control. Ideally I could even invite friends and family to share my ad-free self-hosted instance with a chronological newsfeed setup.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#163

Post by monetus »

sanderjd wrote: post #137
SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their monopoly was so powerful because there was often no other way to get from point A to point B, so they had complete leverage. I still believe the analogy holds, just substitute geographical points A and B with person A and person B (or business A to potential client B), and the similarities are obviously clear. There is often no other way to get from person A t…

There is absolutely other ways to get between those people in all those cases. That's exactly why it doesn't hold.

Speaking in absolutes, you absolutely could go door to door and hope to find me, but for say, my class in highschool, FB would be their only reasonable way.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#164

Post by laurent92 »

mywittyname wrote: post #63
sanderjd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

You're right on the technicals, but the GP is right in spirit. It seems like society needs a term for the concept of a company accumulating far too much power, and that we need laws similar to anti-trust laws, that apply to these companies. This is an incredibly difficult problem to address specifically because FB is not a classic monopoly. I'm not even sure what it would mean to "break them up". Amazon, MS, Apple, a…

Inheritance. That’s the term you are looking for.

In many countries, we still tax it 65%, to ensure a one-time success doesn’t become a “monopoly” of some families over generations.

Likewise for companies. we can’t tax them per generation, but the monopoly laws are here to dismantle them if they keep hold on a market without ongoing “coup de maître” on innovation.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#165

Post by NoGravitas »

allturtles wrote: post #106
ho_schi wrote: post #15

As Wu and others have rightly pointed out, the straightforward Chicago School standard overlooks, among other things, the stifling effect monopolies can have on innovation. As a case in point: when AT&T was broken up in 1984, a torrent of new products came on the market, everything from the first answering machines to early ISPs. This is a oversimplification and wrong. AT&T was controlled by the government until 1984…

I think it's even more wrong than that, and suffers badly from post hoc ergo propter hoc. How could the growth of answering machines be connected to the break-up of AT&T, which was about separating local from long-distance service? According to https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nma... , there were commercial answering machines being sold in the U.S. in 1960. The increase in the use of answering…

> How could the growth of answering machines be connected to the break-up of AT&T, which was about separating local from long-distance service?

I believe they are talking about AT&T's ability to impose rules over what devices could be connected to the telephone network, and how. That's one of the reasons that both early answering machines (like the one you linked to) and modems used acoustic couplers. It's true, though, that court cases had eroded how tightly AT&T could control what devices could be connected to phone jacks well before the breakup of the Bell System. Still, 1200 baud modems were only possible with a direct connection, and didn't become commercially available until the year after the Bell System breakup.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#166

Post by asiachick »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

That road analogy fails pretty quickly. If we wanted to follow that direction then it would like owning a home where there are 20 roads directly in front of your house and you can choose any one of them but you keep choosing Apple/Amazon/Facebook/Google

For example I just moved and had to buy lots of stuff. I ordered from Macy's, Walmart, Target, Wayfair, and Amazon.

It's trivial to use Bing or Ducduckgo over Google. When a search engine starts doing better for me I'll switch.

As for Facebook, plenty of people using other services to stay connected

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#167

Post by nathias »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #30
nathias wrote: post #25

We should consider technologies a public good once they go over some threshold of users, they should then eiter be nationalized or regulated as public or broken up.

So then what if social networks capped the number of users at 1 below that threshold? For example, if nationalization occurs at 1 million users, what if all social networks limited the number of accounts to 999,999?. Personally I think that would be awesome. Imagine if every town, city, and borough of very large cities had their own independent social network or networks.

Yes, we would go back from platforms to protocols and the internet would be good again.

As for when a technology become good? There are a lot of possible criteria, but that doesn't really matter we can come up with a fuzzy cut off and any transparent criteria for it would be preferrable to the current state.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#168

Post by bmitc »

sanderjd wrote: post #46
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

I made a comment recently addressing these very things.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28851867

My contention summarized is that using market share as it has historically been used is not good, because these software-based companies can scale to much greater power than ever before whereas in the past, one had to gain significant market share to wield the same or even less power.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#169

Post by bmitc »

oconnor663 wrote: post #122
HWR_14 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question posed by the monopolies is not "are these the only options". But do these wield too much market power to be controlled by the market. That is, sure, Bing and DDG make up 5% of the global search, but is that enough. Yes, people use Twitter and TikTok, but does that replace the social graph of FB? Yes, I can buy directly online from many places, but if people are going to Amazon instead of Google to search…

I don't know what the formal definitions of any of these things are, but I assume (hope?) that it's important not to equate being successful with being a monopoly by definition. If Ford came out with an amazing new car tomorrow, and suddenly 95% of new cars purchased were Fords, we probably shouldn't initiate trust-busting action against Ford on that basis alone. We want car companies to try to capture market share b…

The Justice department has some good documentation.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

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