Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 735 posts

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#181

Post by nabla9 »

mabbo wrote: post #97

There's precedent to this in the USA. The US Government once passed regulations that caused one of the largest companies in America to break up into three smaller companies. Today those, three companies are entirely independent, employ over 400,000 people combined, and have a combined net work of over $400B. Those companies are Boeing Aircraft (153k employees, $244B market value), United Technologies (202k employees,…

Anti-competition law and it's interpretation has changed drastically in the US after Robert Bork's book 'The Antitrust Paradox' (1978). Reagan administration used it as their bible.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#182

Post by Permit »

> The parallel she uses to make her case is the breakup of Microsoft, which she weirdly calls “the tech giant of its time” (Microsoft is still a tech giant), and holds as perhaps the last example when government went toe to toe with the technology industry.

> “The government’s antitrust case against Microsoft helped clear a path for Internet companies like Google and Facebook to emerge,” Warren writes.

In what way was Microsoft 'broken up'? The outcome[1] from that antitrust case seems to be that Microsoft had to publicly expose all of Windows' APIs to developers (no secret APIs).

If anything, the outcome of the Microsoft case seems to support non-intervention as AppGoogBook all flourished despite no serious breakup of Microsoft.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#183

Post by peeters »

MagicPropmaker wrote: post #167

Microsoft is now worth more than Apple, and it used to be in the target of government regulators. What has it done right?

I'm not sure Apple can claim a monopoly the same way those other three can. How would you "break up" Apple when their business is largely focused to one market that has strong competition?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#185

Post by basch »

velcrovan wrote: post #135
basch wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook should be treated the same way and spit up vertically then, not horizontally. Datacenter and infrastructure and all their low level services should be split from client apps, NOT messenger split from whatsapp.

Not sure why this would carry over to Facebook. Amazon sells metered compute or hosting infrastructure used by half the internet, Facebook doesn't sell infrastructure to anyone. Going by their actual levers of market power, you absolutely would split WhatsApp and Instagram off.

I still dont think you can justify any of those as monopolies yet.

Snapchat, twitter, pinterest, reddit, youtube, hangouts/gmessenger, linkedin, skype/groupme, imessage, discord, kik, line, telegram, signal. Especially justifying Instagram, because facebook really made it what it is. WhatsApp MAYBE, but in reality what facebook is doing is owning both the US and INTL messengers, I dont think they overlap in a way that justifies splitting it up, because FB's US marketshare doesnt drastically increase from WA. Is it the justice departments job from to allow the most popular domestic product from merging with the most popular international product? Uber being able to swallow up or own shares in all these regional services should be questioned then. FB/WA still have viable competition from imessage, snapchat, and skype.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#187

Post by StreamBright »

fowkswe wrote: post #158

If there has ever been a monopoly, those 3 companies are it. 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.

The question is what is the problem you are trying to solve by splitting Amazon. It seems that you are assuming the Amazon retail side will be split. I think AWS vs retail separation is a much more likely scenario. Btw. if it wasn't for the IT needs of retail AWS wouldn't have been born. Many small shops would not have been creating cloud computing as we know today. I am not sure what is the goal here and I think Elizabeth Warren is quite often wrong so I am not convinced that Amazon needs to be split. Companies like Walmart can (and do) challenge Amazon in many aspects and there are other companies like Ebay that are on the market. I do not think that Amazon retail is a monopolistic stranglehold at all.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#188

Post by fowkswe »

throwaway082729 wrote: post #162
fowkswe wrote: post #158

If there has ever been a monopoly, those 3 companies are it. 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.

Walmart did too, for a long time. They have had a stranglehold on vendors for vendors and were the first to kill small brick and mortar shopping.

Walmart was contained to its brick and mortar footprint (no one in NYC for instance could use it). Amazon available to the entire population.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#189

Post by r00fus »

bjourne wrote: post #128
mabbo wrote: post #97

There's precedent to this in the USA. The US Government once passed regulations that caused one of the largest companies in America to break up into three smaller companies. Today those, three companies are entirely independent, employ over 400,000 people combined, and have a combined net work of over $400B. Those companies are Boeing Aircraft (153k employees, $244B market value), United Technologies (202k employees,…

But the companies will all still have the same owners. So one wonders if splitting them actually helps with anything?

Per Das Wiki [1]: "The government had little choice but to return service to the commercial airlines, but did so with several new conditions. The Air Mail Act of June 12, 1934, drafted at the height of the crisis by Black (and known as the "Black-McKellar bill"), restored competitive bidding, closely regulated airmail labor operations,[n 28] dissolved the holding companies that brought together airlines and aircraft manufacturers, and prevented companies that held the old contracts from obtaining new ones."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Mail_scandal#Effects_on_th...

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#190

Post by saas_sam »

fowkswe wrote: post #158

If there has ever been a monopoly, those 3 companies are it. 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.

A monopoly means you are the exclusive provider of something. Amazon has a ton of competition. People are CHOOSING to use Amazon because they are the best at what they do, for now. It's convenient. There is NOTHING stopping you from using boutique websites, Target.com, your neighborhood supermarket, or whatever you want. You choose Amazon because they are the cheapest, fastest, and easiest to work with. That is not a monopoly.
Post reply on HN