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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

#241

Post by LMYahooTFY »

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…

Sorry if I'm asking something which is obvious to most people, but is it apparent that Comcast has out lobbied FAANG?

I recall Google having the highest expenditure on lobbying for one of the last few years.

The point about Comcast's anticompetitive practices still holds, but not as a "they do this worse than them" IMO.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#242

Post by basch »

apcragg wrote: post #142
basch wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. But if we are going to split up the store platform and the store brands, now youre going to have to split up Target, Walmart etc. Anyone besides Ikea who sells their own store brand and runs as a platform for others to sell their products. Any grocery store can do the same thing amazon is doing, use data about sales to push clones and store brands of popular products. What percent of products at Target are s…

The difference is that none of those examples dominate their market. The problem isn't "Amazon uses their platform to promote their own products" it's "Amazon uses their market dominance to promote their own products which might not otherwise be competitive"

I agree, I just think its Wal-marts playbook, and to single Amazon out is more political than do-goodery. In Wal-marts case its floorspace, in Amazon's its eshelf and datacenter storage.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#243

Post by pnloyd »

moate wrote: post #204
systematical wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You silo the search engine segment of the business as one company, the advertising segment as a separate business, etc etc. Alphabet is more than just the Google search engine at this point.

Wouldn't the loss of close integration between Google's ads business and services decrease their respective values though?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#244

Post by devy »

mabbo wrote: post #97

There's precedent to this in the USA. The US Government once passed regulations that caused one of the largest companies in America to break up into three smaller companies. Today those, three companies are entirely independent, employ over 400,000 people combined, and have a combined net work of over $400B. Those companies are Boeing Aircraft (153k employees, $244B market value), United Technologies (202k employees,…

What about Ma Bell?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#245

Post by alkibiades »

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…

that doesn’t get the headline as much. don’t worry she won’t break anything up. she just wants to stand out in primary

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#246

Post by nappy-doo »

yaacov wrote: post #176

Nitpicking here, but in Warren’s post she writes: > Google couldn’t smother competitors by demoting their products on Google Search. Isn’t this already illegal?

it might be in different countries, I don't know.

From my experience, the engineers in search are very aware they could do monopolistic things, and really try their hardest not to.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#247

Post by fanzhang »

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, does the public have the image of Comcast and Verizon CEOs as being specific people who are really rich and dislikable? So that taking them down a notch will make the public happy? And so taking them down a notch is a good political stance?

To be fair, I think there is some argument that some of the larger tech giants would benefit consumer welfare by being broken up. Facebook probably less so since people already have choice.

Warren does herself no favors by using $25 billion as the threshold of a monopoly. What a real monopoly is is when there is no consumer choice at all, leading to large corporate profits that hurt consumers at the pricing level.

By not using consumer choice or harm as the standard (which is what the court uses), Warren comes across (and perhaps actually intends) to be against large companies, regardless of welfare.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#248

Post by earenndil »

duxup wrote: post #214
devoply wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also see Elizabeth Warren has created a set of powerful enemies way too early that will do much to stop her from becoming America's first woman president. If you wanna do something like this wait until you are in office. These are not issues that your average American cares about.

Ii that really a thing though? Have we seen tech company lobbyists really push a lot of weight around? Companies that seemed to genuinely support net neutrality didn't seem to have much of any impact / participate all that much.

> Companies that seemed to genuinely support net neutrality

Which companies were those? Netflix and google both made statements that they support net neutrality, but I didn't see them lift a finger to do anything about it: it seems to have been mostly a pr move.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#249

Post by ortusdux »

mabbo wrote: post #97

There's precedent to this in the USA. The US Government once passed regulations that caused one of the largest companies in America to break up into three smaller companies. Today those, three companies are entirely independent, employ over 400,000 people combined, and have a combined net work of over $400B. Those companies are Boeing Aircraft (153k employees, $244B market value), United Technologies (202k employees,…

We also broke up Ma Bell back in 84 and it looks like they are on their way to fully reuniting as an even larger monopoly.

https://i.imgur.com/rMFqmbt.jpg

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/att-time-warner...

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#250

Post by landryraccoon »

oceanstone wrote: post #178

> The key components of the Warren plan include passing legislation that would designate companies with annual global revenue above $25 billion that provide marketplace, exchange, or third-party connectivity as “platform utilities” and prohibit those companies from owning participants on their platforms. As a Googler, speaking for myself, this seems like an interesting idea that could positively impact the tech scene…

I wonder how people’s perspectives might change if the largest and most influential companies of the next century aren’t American.
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