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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

#231

Post by jhall1468 »

JackFr wrote: post #159
will_brown wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think she realizes that splitting up amazon and amazon basics will do little to nothing. I think amazon : amazon basics is a great example of antitrust/unfair monopoly the same as google search : almost all consumer facing google products. Both amazon and google search are the dominate online market leaders in their respective categories. In amazons case they unfairly use their market position to begin offer…

> In amazons case they unfairly use their market position to begin offering amazon private label products on their platform. They know what users are looking for, spend the most on, and they can give their own products dominate positions in the UI. 1) How is that different than a department store? If you go into housewares at Macy's you'll see their own branded stuff along with other brands. So at issue is not the pr…

> How is that different than a department store? If you go into housewares at Macy's you'll see their own branded stuff along with other brands. So at issue is not the practice itself, but rather that the digital marketplace makes it easier and more efficient.

It's 100% the exact same thing. Go to Walmart and see thousands of "Great Value" products and you'll get the exact same thing. Warren is off her rocker on this one. We have real tech monopolies in the Cable/ISP industry but we're talking about Amazon and Facebook.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#232

Post by tantalor »

andrewla wrote: post #150

From Warren's blog post: > ... Google’s ad exchange and businesses on the exchange would be split apart. Google Search would have to be spun off as well. I think maybe her team needs to do a little more research on what Google's business is. Splitting off Android/Play or GCP at least creates potentially viable businesses. Splitting up search and ads creates two non-viable businesses.

> two non-viable businesses

1. Search company earns money by selling ad spots to ads company.

2. Ads company earns money by selling ads to merchants.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#234

Post by andybak »

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?

Maybe that's not the right line to split across.

Keep search intact but mandate that it must offer equal access to 3rd parties to match any access it has internally.

(How you do this without a privacy disaster I'm not so sure about)

I'm thinking along the lines of privately held public infrastructure like local loop unbundling in telecoms.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#235

Post by pdabbadabba »

JackFr wrote: post #159
will_brown wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't think she realizes that splitting up amazon and amazon basics will do little to nothing. I think amazon : amazon basics is a great example of antitrust/unfair monopoly the same as google search : almost all consumer facing google products. Both amazon and google search are the dominate online market leaders in their respective categories. In amazons case they unfairly use their market position to begin offer…

> In amazons case they unfairly use their market position to begin offering amazon private label products on their platform. They know what users are looking for, spend the most on, and they can give their own products dominate positions in the UI. 1) How is that different than a department store? If you go into housewares at Macy's you'll see their own branded stuff along with other brands. So at issue is not the pr…

> 1) How is that different than a department store? If you go into housewares at Macy's you'll see their own branded stuff along with other brands. So at issue is not the practice itself, but rather that the digital marketplace makes it easier and more efficient.

The difference would be Amazon's [alleged] monopoly power.

> 2) The consumer (along with Amazon) is a beneficiary here. The losers are brands trying to sell commodity items at a markup. The play is not to undercut all the power strip sellers (to take an example) and once they are out of business, jack up the price. The play is to take the margin due to marketing and brand equity from the sellers and split it between the consumer and Jeff Bezos, so rather than being harmed, the consumer benefits from this.

That seems like a very charitable way of describing the situation, and even if accurate may only remain true in the short term. Whether undercutting branded sellers is the goal or not, that's exactly what's happening--even as you charitably describe it. What happens ten years down the road when those brands are gone due to Amazon's allegedly benevolent undercutting?

I'm not sure about the ultimate merits here (in fact, I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that Amazon has all of the market power that some say it does). But I think you may be dismissing this all a bit too quickly.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#236

Post by vonmoltke »

giarc wrote: post #108
nck4222 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, while I agree this a problem, large box retailers (Whole Foods before the Amazon acquisition, Walmart, etc) are well known for doing this as well. So if that's the line you draw, it extends further than just tech giants.

Perhaps grocery stores have done well to keep their brands on lower shelves and not end cap their own stuff. Amazon brands will often appear first in the list of results, which would be akin to putting Great Value products front and centre on all Walmart shelves.

CVS and Walgreens put their branded products right next to the name brands they are copying. They even color the packaging the same.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#237

Post by jhall1468 »

wongarsu wrote: post #195
Shivetya wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She has no proof, she does not need any. this is typical politician using FUD to scare the populace into letting them take actions which in the end only go to bolster their own campaign coffers and personal riches. With the upcoming Presidential campaign you can expect politicians tripping over each other using jealously and fear to get people to plea for action. Amazon is not a Standard Oil by any measure as they ha…

> Google is, well google. I don't have to use their search engine if I don't want to I don't have a problem with the dominance of their search engine. I have problems with them using their search engine and other platforms to prompt you to use Chrome, or how they use their quasi-monopoly on Android app marketplaces to force manufacturers to preload just about every Google App in existance on Android phones. Then ther…

> If Google would be just search I wouldn't have anything against them, but they are notorious for using the market position of one of their products to push another.

So does every department and grocery store in the US, and they have for decades, but nobody seems terribly bothered by Great Value at Walmart, or the the notorious contract negotiations with Walmart that put suppliers at a huge disadvantage, because if you want to be a national brand you need to be in Walmart.

But it's much better to talk about fantasy monopolies because they make nice sound bites.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#238

Post by confounded »

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…

> Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for things that will make my use of the internet objectively worse (NN, SOPA, etc...).

Is this true? It depends on your use of the internet and definitions of “worse”, but I know that both Google and Facebook have been strong opponents of state-level Internet privacy legislation. They also spend huge amounts on lobbying, SV outspending Wall Street about 2:1 for the last few years. Do telcos spend more?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#239

Post by wpietri »

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?

The obvious place to start splitting is to separate search from other things, like a non-search ad business, an OS, a browser, a mail client, a mapping and navigation business, and hey, another OS.

But I don't think it's impossible to split up search, either. I'm sure that Google doesn't just have 1000s of people working together in one big room with no structure. Their current organizational lines could tell us a lot about useful ways to break it up. Historically, for example, there were search infrastructure providers like Inktomi that sold services to consumer-facing search engines. Maybe a crawling-and-archiving group is separable; there are times I sure would have paid Google to use their crawl rather than doing my own. Parts of search were previously separate companies that perhaps could be spun out again. E.g., a lot of the structured-data stuff was once Metaweb.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#240

Post by dEnigma »

apcragg wrote: post #146
dEnigma wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they meant requiring industry-leading companies to apply freedom of speech on their platforms. That is, no censoring of comments, videos, reviews, etc. as long as they don't violate the law.

The government cannot compel speech. I don't think that using the power of the government to require some types of speech against the wishes of private entities solves the problem you think it's solving...

To clarify: I was just explaining what the above commenter meant, not stating my own opinion on the matter.
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