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

Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 293 posts

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#211

Post by perl4ever »

maxerickson wrote: post #106
zozbot234 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. Property taxes mostly bear on land, not capital. Especially in heavily urbanized areas with lots of land value, as we see in CA. Landed property is not "wealth", it's just undue appropriation of something that is created by the community. Land taxes reverse this undue appropriation and let the community that actually created that wealth benefit from it, as it should. It's like the opposite of a wealth tax!

I mean, lots of billionaires also essentially got lucky. DOS and Windows weren't the most glorious software to ever stalk the Earth, they were the operating systems that happened to get popular on cheap hardware. Arguing that Bill Gates created all that wealth that comes with the network effect inherent in software and a homeowner is unduly appropriating community value is really something or other.

Some nobody told Gates exactly how to get rich with computers. I read it (the specific advice) in an old issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia. The key is that out of millions of people saying millions of things, Gates was the one to pick up on the important one.

So, sure, he was lucky in a way, to be around and read it, but it seems unfair to say he merely appropriated value that belonged to everyone. The advice was worthless to the person giving it away, and everyone else.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#212

Post by adventured »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #177
option wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you do understand that ad network pays for search engine, right? And operating systems isn’t exactly a profit generator either...

The market didn't always work that way. Until Google monopolized it, search engines and ad networks were independent pieces competing on an open market. For example, one of early Google's successes was getting Yahoo to license its search engine.

> Until Google monopolized it, search engines and ad networks were independent pieces competing on an open market

It was always a mixture of both scenarios.

Yahoo prior to using AltaVista, Inktomi or Google had its own search tech - going back to 1995 - and its own advertising network.

AltaVista had its own search tech and its own ad network.

Lycos, a top 5 portal at the time, had its own search tech and its own ad network.

GoTo.com, very popular in its day, was both a search engine (acquired) paired up with its own famous ad system.

For several years AOL flirted on & off again with their own search tech, initially based on WebCrawler, prior to and after their deal with Excite. They also ran their own ad network.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#213

Post by klipt »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #177
option wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you do understand that ad network pays for search engine, right? And operating systems isn’t exactly a profit generator either...

The market didn't always work that way. Until Google monopolized it, search engines and ad networks were independent pieces competing on an open market. For example, one of early Google's successes was getting Yahoo to license its search engine.

Google tried monetising search in other ways and apart from ads, none of them would have kept the company profitable. Even duckduckgo which considers itself the "anti Google" gets all its money from ads.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#215

Post by toast0 »

option wrote: post #157
toast0 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restructuring the company as Alphabet with a set of subsidiaries was a start to setting up lines to divide the company along. The way to divide up Google is into the ad network, the search engine, operating systems, and everything else. Allow them to contract each other on public FRAND terms to start with, but setup annual reviews to consider a bigger hammer. If they play games with moving house to avoid jurisdiction…

you do understand that ad network pays for search engine, right? And operating systems isn’t exactly a profit generator either...

Of course an ad network would pay a search engine for clicks (and a premium for exclusivity, perhaps). There's certainly some synergy, but it's also quite possible to run them as separate businesses.

Operating systems might have to get lumped into the 'everything else' bucket if they don't generate enough revenue through charging manufacturers or getting paid by ad networks.

Splitting up these things may not make any of the markets (search, ads, OSes, other consumer services, other enterprise/cloud services) more competitive, but it would prevent using monopoly positions in search and ads to subsidize Google products in other markets.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#216

Post by dlp211 »

rayiner wrote: post #180
dlp211 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now name the Democrats trying to replace capitalism...I'll wait.

57% of them: https://news.gallup.com/poll/240725/democrats-positive-socia... All of the major candidates have endorsed the Green New Deal, which espouses a massive economic program where the "public receives" "ownership stakes." It also calls for a WWII-level economic mobilization premised on wide-scale central planning.

From that article:

"Socialism as a concept is open to many interpretations. Gallup was describing socialism in questions asked in the 1940s in terms of government ownership of businesses -- something that Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez and most other left-leaning Democratic candidates have not advocated. Instead, socialism today seems to embody sets of programs by which the government helps regulate and in some instances run and pay for social programs focused on basic population needs in health, education, housing and employment."

So not destroying capitalism but rather trying to blunt some of the sharp edges of capitalism. Nobody is trying to replace Google, GM, or JP Morgan with a government run company.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#217

Post by bryan_w »

WWLink wrote: post #141
deevolution wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you break up alphabet?they will just move their corporation over seas, set up in africa and avoid any monopoly breakers. The government has no power over these companies. They would have to raid the offices and send the ceo to prison before alphabet agrees to break their monopoly.

The same way that most companies end up when they leave California. The engineers don't move away. They start up new companies that end up being competition to their old employer. Half the time, after some years, the big old company buys out the new competition and ends up with offices in the area again. This happens all the time in the space industry lol.

Except in this case it would be the government sending the message that if you become too successful, we'll find a way to break you up.

That would drive startups away permanently

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#218

Post by rolltiide »

klipt wrote: post #210
WalterBright wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Seattle Times estimated in the 1990s that Microsoft created 10,000+ millionaire employees in the city. This was before the anti-trust litigation. In fact, most everyone I knew that worked for Microsoft in the 1990s became a millionaire.

And today one million dollars can buy you ... 1/2 a Bay Area house?

The only person that said one million was you

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#219

Post by ssivark »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #203
esotericn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can generalize that much. Personally none of that stuff mattered once I earned more than like, twice minimum wage. Nowhere near $200K. Maybe that's a US thing, since you guys have so much tied up in work (health insurance etc). I just think about having enough money to get by and help people around me, employment fits around that, not the other way around. Sure, people who are actually earning biscu…

It goes pretty fast if you have kids in the US. We have twins and preschool alone is 700/month. You're also supposed to save like 500/month/kid for college - we have 3 so that's another 1500/month. Minivan to lug everyone around is 600/month.

I acknowledge your point. Then I wonder how much of that is that in a consumption oriented economy, there will always pop up services that will claim to provide enough marginal value to absorb all otherwise unspent cash. I acknowledge that it is especially hard to “skimp” on spending for the people one cares about — so one might feel guilty over any cash flow “not used”. It feels like a different version of hedonic adaptation, harder to make decisions in.

Re: Tech Workers Backing Candidates Looking to Break Up Their Employers

#220

Post by throwGuardian »

kick wrote: post #205
throwGuardian wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the underpaid, overworked campaign staff of Sanders [1] and Warren? [1]: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/7...

The underlying issue is that while the Sanders campaign’s collective bargaining agreement with its staff union sets hourly pay above $15, there are also salaried workers on the team. Your statement is at minimum misleading, according to the article you linked. EDIT: Reading it further, it's a terrible article. Yglesias is a hack. No Sanders fan, but this is yellow journalism.

What part of my statement is misleading? Here's the history of Sanders' campaign underpayment: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/labor-fight-roils-be...
Post reply on HN