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Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

theregister.com

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Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#21

Post by meany »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #17
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough every actor here is doing the right thing. Adobe is serving their shareholder interests by munching up the competition, Figma is selling to Adobe because of the reasons you outlined, and the regulators are stepping in to represent the interests of the public. This is very much the system working as-designed

> This is very much the system working as-designed The system was designed to criminalize any attempt to monopolize, not just block the transaction. The Sherman antitrust act was quite clear about it: > Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign n…

Are you suggesting that Adobe and Figma executives should be criminally charged with an attempt to monopolize the market?

Edit: I looked up the justice department’s stance. From: https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you

The Sherman Antitrust Act

This Act outlaws all contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that unreasonably restrain interstate and foreign trade. This includes agreements among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate customers, which are punishable as criminal felonies.

The Sherman Act also makes it a crime to monopolize any part of interstate commerce. An unlawful monopoly exists when one firm controls the market for a product or service, and it has obtained that market power, not because its product or service is superior to others, but by suppressing competition with anticompetitive conduct.

The Act, however, is not violated simply when one firm's vigorous competition and lower prices take sales from its less efficient competitors; in that case, competition is working properly.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#23

Post by frereubu »

curiousllama wrote: post #9
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US govts primary concern is not figma shareholders. It's US citizens as it should be. The harm to citizens outweighs the benefit to shareholders by too much in this case to allow it.

What’s the implied harm to citizens?

For all those downvoting this question, I think you should take it at face value. It would be nice to think that "Genuine question..." is not a prerequisite for that.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#24

Post by HDThoreaun »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #13
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough every actor here is doing the right thing. Adobe is serving their shareholder interests by munching up the competition, Figma is selling to Adobe because of the reasons you outlined, and the regulators are stepping in to represent the interests of the public. This is very much the system working as-designed

No, something is off: > The $20 billion purchase price for Figma equated to 50 times its forecast $400 million annualized recurring revenues in 2022 If you think that serves Adobe shareholder interest, you are mistaken.

Creating a monopoly is in every business's interest.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#25

Post by jeppester »

edoggie wrote: post #19

Yet they couldn't be bothered to stop the merger of every major media company down to a total of basically three businesses.

Mistakes were made, lessons learned. Hopefully there will be fewer of these mergers and acquisitions going forward.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#26

Post by bradleybuda »

curiousllama wrote: post #9
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US govts primary concern is not figma shareholders. It's US citizens as it should be. The harm to citizens outweighs the benefit to shareholders by too much in this case to allow it.

What’s the implied harm to citizens?

One harm to citizens is that future entrepreneurs will be less motivated to create new products in a regulatory environment that makes it difficult or impossible for them to profit from selling their businesses. Therefore there will be fewer disruptive / innovative products.

If you think this is theoretical, see the startup scene in Europe and Canada.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#27

Post by kitsunesoba »

DrewADesign wrote: post #20
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, something is off: > The $20 billion purchase price for Figma equated to 50 times its forecast $400 million annualized recurring revenues in 2022 If you think that serves Adobe shareholder interest, you are mistaken.

Out of context? Sure. But Adobe isn't going to just buy it, operate it, and collect its revenue. Adobe rightfully sees itself standing on the edge of a cliff. Adobe XD, despite having some great features, was handily clobbered in the market first by Sketch, and then by the vastly lighter-weight Figma. Beyond that, Figma has a great, intuitive, smooth interface for making vector graphics. It's not nearly as powerful a…

I would say that for many users, Photoshop suffers from feature bloat even more than Illustrator does.

In my personal usage, nothing that’s been added since CS1/CS2 has much meaningful impact. Heck rewinding to 7.x or even 6.x would pose only minor inconveniences.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#28

Post by gameman144 »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #17
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely enough every actor here is doing the right thing. Adobe is serving their shareholder interests by munching up the competition, Figma is selling to Adobe because of the reasons you outlined, and the regulators are stepping in to represent the interests of the public. This is very much the system working as-designed

> This is very much the system working as-designed The system was designed to criminalize any attempt to monopolize, not just block the transaction. The Sherman antitrust act was quite clear about it: > Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign n…

Adobe isn't (ostensibly) trying to monopolize though, they're trying to buy another company.

Regulators step in and say "That would be a monopoly", to which everyone involved says "Darn, well we can't continue trying to merge then, since that would be a felony".

This all seems totally fine and legal and working as designed.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#29

Post by oldgradstudent »

meany wrote: post #21
oldgradstudent wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very much the system working as-designed The system was designed to criminalize any attempt to monopolize, not just block the transaction. The Sherman antitrust act was quite clear about it: > Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign n…

Are you suggesting that Adobe and Figma executives should be criminally charged with an attempt to monopolize the market? Edit: I looked up the justice department’s stance. From: https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you The Sherman Antitrust Act This Act outlaws all contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that unreasonably restrain interstate and foreign trade. This includes agreements among competitors t…

Yes. Or at least join the queue.

It it turns out, as almost everyone suspects, that Adobe is buying Figma not because Figma will be a source of revenue, but mainly to prevent competition, then it's a clear violation of the Sherman antitrust act and should be punished accordingly.

Before then in the front of the queue should be companies like Uber whose entire business plan was dumping to destroy the existing taxi industry, and then have the monopoly power to raise prices.

That's a pure monopoly play.

Re: Uncle Sam to block Adobe absorption of Figma over monopoly fears

#30

Post by oldgradstudent »

gameman144 wrote: post #28
oldgradstudent wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is very much the system working as-designed The system was designed to criminalize any attempt to monopolize, not just block the transaction. The Sherman antitrust act was quite clear about it: > Sec. 2. Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign n…

Adobe isn't (ostensibly) trying to monopolize though, they're trying to buy another company. Regulators step in and say "That would be a monopoly", to which everyone involved says "Darn, well we can't continue trying to merge then, since that would be a felony". This all seems totally fine and legal and working as designed.

Everyone suspects they're buying Figma for $20B not because they think it will bring that amount of money, but that it will maintains Adobe's pricing power.

Is that turns out to be true, then it seems a violation of the act.

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