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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

#31

Post by dEnigma »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #24
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #16

To what end? "illegally undermine competition?" She is inferring that Google/Amazon/Facebook are committing anti-trust crimes? What proof does she have? >Companies would be barred from transferring or sharing users’ data with third parties. That can be done without breaking them up. I don't think she realizes that splitting up amazon and amazon basics will do little to nothing. There are other things that can be done…

> You could require freedom of speech apply to industry leaders for example. What does this mean? Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Jeff Bezos, et al already have their constitutionally protected speech, except for where their roles as executives at public companies restrict them. If they find those restrictions onerous they can leave their roles.

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.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#32

Post by throwaway5752 »

vlangber wrote: post #11

I think the most obvious candidate is to split Google and Youtube.

Not at all. It's to split Amazon retail and AWS. Not that I'm opposed to that or not, but it is the most obvious. If you look at templates of prior antitrust action, you'd probably see roadmaps of splitting ad presentation/platform from ad brokering/targeting in all of the companies mentioning.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#33

Post by wernercd »

dekhn wrote: post #15
vlangber wrote: post #11

I think the most obvious candidate is to split Google and Youtube.

which would be very interesting, as youtube is 100% dependent on Google infrastructure to work (everything from machine learning to data delivery).

And Windows was dependent in Internet Explorer to operate.

And that dependence was both created artificially and then abused.

Why can't YouTube switch to, say, Azure? Or Oracle Cloud? or whatever other magic exists?

Infrastructure exists outside of Google - as did the ability to decouple Internet Explorer from Windows.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#34

Post by dnissley »

logicchains wrote: post #17
thr_w wrote: post #3

Is breaking them up really a priority? What benefit would that have that we couldn't achieve via properly taxing and regulating them in the first place?

It would help give China a fairer chance in the AI race. Due to economies of scale and the sheer amount of resources they command, Facebook and Google are able to conduct research that would otherwise be incredibly expensive (e.g. training AlphaZero), and offer incredibly high salaries to lure in researchers. Apparently 80% of all machine learning engineers work at Google or Facebook! Breaking this concentration of m…

It would also give other companies in the US a better shot at the same goal. The focus on China seems unwarranted.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#35

Post by jsutton »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #19

What is the alleged anti-competitive behavior? The article doesn't mention it. It sounds like she is calling for their breakup merely for being big and powerful, and if that were cause enough to break up an entity we would logically start with the government.

For starters, Amazon provided a marketplace platform for third parties to sell goods. They then gathered data on which items sold the best, created their own line of products based off this data, and crushed their customers-turned-competitors using their massive advantage in economies of scale.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#37

Post by axaxs »

untog wrote: post #28
travisoneill1 wrote: post #19

What is the alleged anti-competitive behavior? The article doesn't mention it. It sounds like she is calling for their breakup merely for being big and powerful, and if that were cause enough to break up an entity we would logically start with the government.

The Medium article[1] mentions a couple - Google prioritizing their reviews above Yelp in search results, Amazon copying third party products that were successful on its marketplace. [1] https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

RE Amazon... how is this much different than say, store branded items from a grocery or WalMart, or quasi store brands(ie brands mainly only sold in WalMart, like Brahma boots or Ozark Trail)?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#38

Post by tobr »

dekhn wrote: post #15
vlangber wrote: post #11

I think the most obvious candidate is to split Google and Youtube.

which would be very interesting, as youtube is 100% dependent on Google infrastructure to work (everything from machine learning to data delivery).

By definition, since it's owned by Google. You can apply the same logic to any proposed split.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#40

Post by 0815test »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #32
vlangber wrote: post #11

I think the most obvious candidate is to split Google and Youtube.

Not at all. It's to split Amazon retail and AWS. Not that I'm opposed to that or not, but it is the most obvious. If you look at templates of prior antitrust action, you'd probably see roadmaps of splitting ad presentation/platform from ad brokering/targeting in all of the companies mentioning.

AWS has plenty of viable competitors. They should split Amazon-the-website and Amazon-the-supplier-logistics-and-physical-retail-company, and force Amazon-the-website to accept listings from competitors fairly and openly.
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