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Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

nytimes.com

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Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#221

Post by mechagodzilla »

systematical wrote: post #180
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.

Yeah no one cares about monopolies anymore. But how exactly do you split up a search engine for instance?

You would probably split google's search engine off from the rest of their services/products, so that they can't use their search engine dominance to unfairly harm competition.

Similarly, you could divide Amazon into a platform company that does fulfillment for others and a separate company that sells their own products, as well as splitting off things like AWS into their own companies.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#222

Post by jcriddle4 »

Preventing those companies from buying out others and using their incredible size and resources to quashing competition I can support. Splitting into pieces can make sense as well. It looks like Warren's definition of "Fair Use" is more in the context of selling widgets and does not appear to be tied to free speech issues. I guess that Elizabeth Warren isn't supporting a definition of "fair use" of these platforms that matches the United States Supreme court definition of free speech.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#223

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

komali2 wrote: post #145
sarbaz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also the first idea I've seen that tries to deal with the free speech problem on the internet. A lot of platforms today apply varying amounts of censorship (like youtube's copyright takedown mess), but there isn't really anything we can do because it's a privately owned platform and they can do whatever they want. But when they control such a large amount of mindshare, we end up putting the idea of free speec…

Is this a good idea? Giving "fair time" to not only YouTube malcontents, but also actively bad actors i.e. state funded shills? I don't see how this could be implemented to the best interest of the USA without "censorship" being involved at some point.

How is it any different than letting them use the mail? You can't combine the First Amendment with censorship.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#224

Post by fastball »

908087 wrote: post #203
saas_sam wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If Amazon achieve their goal, you won't have the option of going to your neighborhood supermarket.. because it will have either been run out of business or acquired by Amazon.

And we can have that discussion then.

When Amazon is actually a monopoly.

Until then, they're not. And being good at business is not a problem.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#225

Post by the_trapper »

psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

Don't forget Spectrum (the result of the Charter and TWC merger) as well.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#226

Post by moate »

sj3k wrote: post #197
neuronic wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If, as usual, people are voting heavily against their own interests and more according to the lobbyist propaganda fed by economics 101 professors, then you are likely on point.

what lobbyists are lobbying to break up big tech companies? Not everything is propaganda.

Also possible he was saying that people will vote in favor of keeping these companies together and not bringing anti-trust issues to court because lobbyists push hard to feed a "capitalism shouldn't be touched by the government" view which is against the consumers best interests. That would drive them to vote against Warren and her politics.

Also, do you expect people to name names of lobbyists? I think it's pretty safe to assume there are groups who feel that the FAANG companies are too powerful and need to go the way of Bell labs. And many people (wrongly? rightly?) label anything they feel is politically motivated speech as "propaganda".

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#227

Post by jakelazaroff »

psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

Can you avoid using services that run on AWS, though? Or avoid sites that advertise and get analytics from Google? These companies are so dangerous not only because of their consumer-facing services, but the fact that they've made themselves an integral part of our online infrastructure.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#228

Post by criddell »

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.

I think retail is dead for me. Other than grocery store for food and the drugstore for health care items, I hardly ever go to a physical store for any reason. I was at an Apple store yesterday to get an iPad fixed and before that, I was at a record store just after Christmas.

If Amazon was shut down tomorrow, I'm not going to start going to bricks and mortar stores again. I'd find new online suppliers.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#229

Post by sonnyblarney »

the_trapper wrote: post #194

I think breaking up the ISPs and media conglomerates would be much more impactful. I can't think of a single market segment where Google and Amazon lack effective competition. Facebook is already bleeding users, and how would you break up a social media company in an impactful way anyhow? Facebook's ventures outside of social media aren't even close to being monopolies.

Yeah, they are not monopolies in the classical sense, so the regulatory position has to be much more nuanced.

But there are issues:

+ Amazon uses profits from AWS to dump in other sectors, selling goods and services below market value. The weird situation could mean Amazon pumps many billion dollars a year into pushing major grocers (who operate on thin margins) out of business. This is not good for anyone - but it's not a case of 'monopoly' so much.

+ Google is dumping in adjacent areas of tech - giving away Android for free, for example.

There should be some regulatory tweaks here, but it's going to be tricky.

As you point out - a much easier win would be to break up value chain consolidation over all.

Carriers, tech providers, content creators, content distributors - might benefit from being separate entities.

I don't think there are any net benefits to society from these entities being consolidated. There are no economies of scale, no proper synergies. There are however, huge incentives for investors to have AT&T own content creation and distribution obviously, so they can subsidize their own assets and not others. There's no long win for consumers so it makes sense to keep them separate.

Finally - there might be an opportunity on platforms. I think that the Apple store may be an anti-competitive issue - the notion that you don't control/own the $1K device you just bought is getting ridiculous. I would require platform makers to at allow open access to the platform. Same would apply to mobile phones being 'locked' onto a network - that should just not happen.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#230

Post by mailslot »

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.

Amazon isn’t a monopoly the way that AT&T or Comcast are. People have a choice and can easily go to Walmart, Target, or most any other retailers online or at a physical location. In this case, Amazon is winning by out-competing their competition. That’s not monopolistic, it’s winning at competition. Fairly, I might add.

One way they’ve grown is by allowing small companies to easily add their products to their stores. Good luck getting Macy’s to sell your custom line of trollface shirts. Shelf space is live or die for small brands. Amazon has a lower barrier to entry without the strong arm tactics big retailers have used for years.

Retail is often a middleman operation with exclusivity deals and price fixing. Brick and mortar is failing for so many reasons. It’s not that there are restrictions preventing fair competition, it’s that the old guard is slow and incompetent and likely won’t survive the old model of exclusivity on goods.

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