Live data from Hacker News

AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

variety.com

211–220 of 284 posts

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#211

The DOJ had tried to stop the deal[1] but it appears that the court ruled it could carry on [2]. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim said in a statement the DOJ was "disappointed with the Court's decision today. We continue to believe that the pay-TV market will be less competitive and less innovative as a result of the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. We will closely review the Court's opinion and…

Glad to hear the executive branch did something in favor of the people instead of corporations.

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#212
post #8

Yet more media consolidation. And this one has the inherent conflicts of interest you get when a distributor buys out a producer. And of course the idea of protecting the public interest isn't a thing anymore in DC.

Ma Bell 2.0

As of 2016 this is a diagram showing what went where and how it's back together now: https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner...

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#213
post #8

Yet more media consolidation. And this one has the inherent conflicts of interest you get when a distributor buys out a producer. And of course the idea of protecting the public interest isn't a thing anymore in DC.

> And this one has the inherent conflicts of interest you get when a distributor buys out a producer. I'm not sure I understand the conflicts. Isn't Netflix essentially doing the same thing? Consolidating production and distribution?

The difference is that I have one choice of ISP and many choices of over-the-top content, none of which can e.g. restrict my ability to access things unrelated to their service as an ISP can. It's apples v oranges.

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#214
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely shameful. AI judges can't come soon enough.

And who gets to decide what training data/processes the judges use?

AI Training Specialists who are appointed by the party in power, of course! So different!

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ma Bell 2.0

As of 2016 this is a diagram showing what went where and how it's back together now: https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/24/13389592/att-time-warner...

>f you thought music streaming exclusives were bad, just wait until Comcast starts windowing SNL sketches to keep people on its pipes while AT&T only streams CNN to AT&T phones, while Verizon keeps wielding mobile access to NFL games like a club against the American consumer.

Such an anti-consumer dystopia :( It is truly sad to see these markets devolve into such terribleness when there is so much possibility to be had with such incredible technology.

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#217

The DOJ had tried to stop the deal[1] but it appears that the court ruled it could carry on [2]. Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim said in a statement the DOJ was "disappointed with the Court's decision today. We continue to believe that the pay-TV market will be less competitive and less innovative as a result of the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. We will closely review the Court's opinion and…

Glad to hear the executive branch did something in favor of the people instead of corporations.

[deleted]

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should point out that this doesn't really change the broadband ISP landscape. Time Warner Cable is not apart of Time Warner anymore. All this does is give AT&T a better chance at entering the "original content" space and to take advantage of the fact that streaming providers like Youtube TV and Netflix would need to now pay AT&T for their content. Honestly I don't think this is all that bad of a move. I'd rather AT…

It's catastrophic. Companies should be allowed to either own the pipe or what flows through the pipe. Any attempts to own both need to be stopped and punished. The pipes must remain neutral so that small competitors can come up and disrupt and slay the big players once they get moribund.

> It's catastrophic. Companies should be allowed to either own the pipe or what flows through the pipe. Any attempts to own both need to be stopped and punished.

Not producing content doesn't magically make an ISP a neutral provider and I don't see how vertical integration (owning the pipe and some of what's going through it) gives ISPs more leverage than they already have.

For example, take an ISP that is just the pipe with no content production arm. That ISP could charge premiums to content providers to be put in a "fast lane" and then slow down the content of everyone else. This would be to the advantage of big players at the expense of small competitors, just like you say, and doesn't involve vertical integration in any way. AT&T doesn't need Time Warner to do this.

What's catastrophic is that we don't have net neutrality. There are plenty of good arguments against this merger, but preventing vertical integration doesn't get us any closer to net neutrality.

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#219
Cognitive dissonance is interesting. For example, tech folks generally love Japan and Hong Kong's railroads. But those systems work so well because of the exact sort of vertical integration techies get apoplectic about when it comes to the Internet: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-inf.... JR and MTR not only are private companies that own and operate the railroads, they own a ton of the land around the rail stations. They thus can capture value from both sides of a two-sided market--the customers going to a business near a rail station, and the business that benefits from having a rail station near it. That greatly increases incentive to invest in rail compared to a system where value can only be captured from the rider.

Interestingly, vertical integration also increases competition, as is the case in urban areas of Japan. If you can leverage your low-margin transit product to sell your high-margin real estate product, you have vastly more incentive to compete with other firms on the transit product.

Indeed, the vastly lower deployment costs enabled by 5G suggest an alternative vision of the future. We may end up with a system where you subscribe to "Google 5G" or "Facebook 5G" or even "Netflix 5G" service. It will be abhorrent to those who visualize a platonic model of infrastructure separated from content, but may in practice work a lot better than heavy government involvement in the infrastructure layer.

Re: AT&T Cleared by Judge to Buy Time Warner

#220

Lenin wrote about the inevitability of monopoly in 1916. He would not have been surprised that the 1911 break up of Standard Oil would be undone in 1999 with the ExxonMobil, nor the slow reconsolidation of the Baby Bells, nor the other monopolies bringing us back to the gilded age. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch0...

Funny, at the same time he took money from the Warburg family to fund his revolution that killed millions, the Warburg family went on to be part ownership of Standard Oil during the same period.
Post reply on HN