I'll admit I'm sitting on the fence, and perhaps ignorant about anti-competitive behaviour in tech. These companies are winning over marketplaces by providing the highest quality, and lowest price services to consumers? Hypothetically, where they slip up in providing the best services, startups could thrive? Or are there elements I'm neglecting as to how large company domination negatively impacts innovation?
American tech giants are making life tough for startups
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Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#32How is this news? Yesterday’s immigrants make life tough for future immigrants. Likewise, yeaterday’s startups make it hard for new startups. It’s a circle of life. Evolution at play. Capitalism at play.
> It’s a circle of life. Evolution at play. Capitalism at play.
I'm not sure what that implies. We could say war and the strong robbing the weak aren't news, but we've developed societies and rule of law to limit those catastrophes and promote justice and opportunity for everyone. As a result, people have time, freedom, resources, and security to acquire skills and develop software, among other things, rather than having to fight for survival.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#33I'll admit I'm sitting on the fence, and perhaps ignorant about anti-competitive behaviour in tech. These companies are winning over marketplaces by providing the highest quality, and lowest price services to consumers? Hypothetically, where they slip up in providing the best services, startups could thrive? Or are there elements I'm neglecting as to how large company domination negatively impacts innovation?
They buy out companies long before most of them can become a threat. Google used to buy a new company every week a few years ago.
Also, when a smaller company does somehow manage to get known in the industry, it's usually under pressure to raise money or be acquired in order to compete with some other huge competitor.
I think this is mostly a regulatory fail in letting some companies grow so large and acquire smaller players. I think past a certain point, they shouldn't be allowed to do it. Finding out what that point is might be a little difficult, but probably not impossible.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#34I'll admit I'm sitting on the fence, and perhaps ignorant about anti-competitive behaviour in tech. These companies are winning over marketplaces by providing the highest quality, and lowest price services to consumers? Hypothetically, where they slip up in providing the best services, startups could thrive? Or are there elements I'm neglecting as to how large company domination negatively impacts innovation?
They buy out companies long before most of them can become a threat. Google used to buy a new company every week a few years ago. Also, when a smaller company does somehow manage to get known in the industry, it's usually under pressure to raise money or be acquired in order to compete with some other huge competitor. I think this is mostly a regulatory fail in letting some companies grow so large and acquire smaller…
I understand their strategy of neutralizing threats through acquisition. However, for this strategy to be effective, the companies have to consistently turn a profit on their acquisitions. Although it seems absurd for Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram), failing to keep Instagram popular amongst consumers will turn it into a 19 billion dollar writeoff as some Instragram clone captures consumer attention. IBM has a long record of acquiring competitive or smaller companies, but they're doing relatively poorly in the markets as of late. So while it seems clear that these companies might make life a nightmare for a lot of silicon valley entrepreneurs, they're still creating the best net value for society, no?
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#35Another reminder, alongside the apparent Microsoft GitHub acquision, that regulators need to step up and prevent large tech firms from acting anti competitively. From another Economist article ("How to Tame the Tech Titans", https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/01/18/how-to-tame-the... ): > Two broad changes of thinking would go a long way towards sensibly taming the titans. The first is to make better use of exist…
> Such scrutiny might have prevented Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and Google’s of Waze, Then again one of the main reasons people start companies like Instagram and Waze is so they can be bought by these giants.
I think people forget how inconsequential Instagram seemed at the time Facebook bought it. It was popular and growing fast, but the notion that this 12-person startup was worth a billion dollars was laughable. Read contemporaneous accounts and many reporters were incredulous. It was prima facie evidence of a bubble.
I don't know if a regulator would have had the foresight to see Instagram, which was still as much known for its filters as its social network as anything but a compliment? Look at how Instagram was seen as one of many similar products at the time:
https://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/instacrt-puts-all-other-...
https://lifehacker.com/5970648/five-best-photo-filter-apps
An early rival, Hipstamatic, was named the Apple App of the Year in 2010: https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/09/apple-top-apps-2010/
Insta has taken on a life of its own over the last 2-3 years, but if they had chose to go their own way, whose to say Facebook wouldn't have clobbered them, in much the way they nuked Foursquare.
I'm not opposed to regulation, per se, but we should also be careful not to indulge in revisionist history.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
They buy out companies long before most of them can become a threat. Google used to buy a new company every week a few years ago. Also, when a smaller company does somehow manage to get known in the industry, it's usually under pressure to raise money or be acquired in order to compete with some other huge competitor. I think this is mostly a regulatory fail in letting some companies grow so large and acquire smaller…
I understand their strategy of neutralizing threats through acquisition. However, for this strategy to be effective, the companies have to consistently turn a profit on their acquisitions. Although it seems absurd for Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram), failing to keep Instagram popular amongst consumers will turn it into a 19 billion dollar writeoff as some Instragram clone captu…
> Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram)
Do you mean WhatsApp? I think they "only" paid $1 billion for Instagram.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand their strategy of neutralizing threats through acquisition. However, for this strategy to be effective, the companies have to consistently turn a profit on their acquisitions. Although it seems absurd for Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram), failing to keep Instagram popular amongst consumers will turn it into a 19 billion dollar writeoff as some Instragram clone captu…
> Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram) Do you mean WhatsApp? I think they "only" paid $1 billion for Instagram.
Woops. Yep. It's hard to keep track of all these billion dollar Facebook acquisitions.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#38Google: we're so righteous we won't take Pentagon contacts.
Also Google: let's make the click through EULA as uninteligible as possible when we record our user's locations.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
They buy out companies long before most of them can become a threat. Google used to buy a new company every week a few years ago. Also, when a smaller company does somehow manage to get known in the industry, it's usually under pressure to raise money or be acquired in order to compete with some other huge competitor. I think this is mostly a regulatory fail in letting some companies grow so large and acquire smaller…
I understand their strategy of neutralizing threats through acquisition. However, for this strategy to be effective, the companies have to consistently turn a profit on their acquisitions. Although it seems absurd for Facebook to spend 19 billion to acquire a 14-person company (Instagram), failing to keep Instagram popular amongst consumers will turn it into a 19 billion dollar writeoff as some Instragram clone captu…
It’s about control, not size. IBM controlled powerful segments of the market, and would defend or compete by buying technology.
This scales down to small things like parking lots. Real estate guys will buy and operate little surface lots at a loss for years to deny competitors the ability to develop properties that compete with them.
Re: American tech giants are making life tough for startups
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Such scrutiny might have prevented Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and Google’s of Waze, Then again one of the main reasons people start companies like Instagram and Waze is so they can be bought by these giants.
I think people forget how inconsequential Instagram seemed at the time Facebook bought it. It was popular and growing fast, but the notion that this 12-person startup was worth a billion dollars was laughable. Read contemporaneous accounts and many reporters were incredulous. It was prima facie evidence of a bubble. I don't know if a regulator would have had the foresight to see Instagram, which was still as much kno…
Yeah this is definitely correct. I was on board believing FB would become bigger and bigger. But the Instagram acquisition seemed crazy. How many users did Instagram have when it was acquired? 30 million? How could anyone think Instagram would get to where it did (Instagram is supposed to do $6-7B in revenue this year).
Also, FB itself wasn’t what it is now at the time either.