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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

#311

Post by basch »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #297
basch wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predatory pricing to push companies out of business is absolutely illegal, and covered under anti-trust law. It's also very hard to prove without getting the intent in writing.

"Predatory pricing to push companies out of business is absolutely illegal" It's impossible to prove in most cases because it may have nothing to do with intent. Amazon's advantage in 'groceries' is inherently structural. They can sell bananas for 10 cents less than Safeway because their opex may be subsidized, or they can transport cheaper, not 'because they are acting predatorily'. The nature of this value chain ov…

I really like Stratechery's analysis of Whole Foods as an amazon customer. https://stratechery.com/2017/amazons-new-customer/ specifcally https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/strateche...

In this model, Amazon WANTS grocery stores to stick around, and buy groceries from Amazon wholesale grocery. The same way that amazon wants AWS to be everyones platform, and for their business to flourish.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#312

Post by pooya13 »

Most people are on the same page about ISPs so I will skip that. Social networks should be public utility companies or else heavily regulated and treansparent to avoid censorship or what is referred to as surveillance capitalism. Networks should be open for third parties in a regulated manner after a certain size threshold. This would for example prevent Amazon from creating a massive delivery network in a competition free environment and then use it to squash any new competition for decades and decades. People might have a choice now to use Amazon or not but as delivery prices decline the options shrink to the point that you might not have any realistic alternative depivery channel. However with current US political system that has money interest and regulations tied in a biased way towards concentrated capital these will likely not happen.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#313

Post by notatoad »

will_brown wrote: post #112
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…

>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…

>It’s kind of like standard oil buying up the railroads so they owned the supply chain and no other oil could be moved.

kind of, but not really at all. Google and Amazon aren't preventing anybody else from using their services - getting other people to use their services is kind of their whole business model. If you want to compare Google or Amazon to transporting oil on railroads, it'd be like if the company that owned nearly all the railroads owned a couple of oil wells (but not all of them) and still transported everybody else's oil for a fair price.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#314

Post by Gpetrium »

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,…

One of the perceived risks of breaking up the tech giants is that they will be at a competitive disadvantage to their foreign peers. The degree of competitive risk at the time of Boeing's split was perceived as lower. As long as Americans are ok with losing some areas of advantages, they should move forward.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#315

Post by JohnFen »

rayiner wrote: post #292
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 odd SV myopia. The trend in broadband has been more competition. Verizon competes with Comcast in almost its entire FiOS service area. These days it also competes with cellular—15% (and growing) of households have abandoned wired broadband in favor of cellular. There are four major cellular providers. In tech, the trend has been in the other direction. If you don’t consider Sprint a viable competitor to AT&T, wh…

> The trend in broadband has been more competition.

I'm not in SV, but this is 100% not true in my area. Where I live, my choice for broadband providers consists of Comcast. There is no alternative, nor is there any sign that competition is coming.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#316

Post by Bhilai »

pradn wrote: post #295
Permit wrote: post #182

> The parallel she uses to make her case is the breakup of Microsoft, which she weirdly calls “the tech giant of its time” (Microsoft is still a tech giant), and holds as perhaps the last example when government went toe to toe with the technology industry. > “The government’s antitrust case against Microsoft helped clear a path for Internet companies like Google and Facebook to emerge,” Warren writes. In what way wa…

It's funny how Microsoft isn't mentioned in the same breath as FAANG companies. It's in the top 3 companies by market cap, has a dozen billion-dollar businesses, does really well in enterprise, is aggressive in the cloud and hardware, has a large seat at the open-source table these days, and has a large set of older products that keep generating billions. If Apple is in there, why not Microsoft? Both are heavily conc…

Microsoft is pretty big in consumer space as well - Xbox, Skype, Bing ...I think its Silicon Valley vs not in Silicon Valley thing. Microsoft is counted out because of not being physically located in SV. Thats my theory.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#317

Post by Apocryphon »

ortusdux wrote: post #249
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...

Imagine how much of a larger monopoly they would be now if they were never broken up in the first place.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#319

Post by rayiner »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #306
rayiner wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That odd SV myopia. The trend in broadband has been more competition. Verizon competes with Comcast in almost its entire FiOS service area. These days it also competes with cellular—15% (and growing) of households have abandoned wired broadband in favor of cellular. There are four major cellular providers. In tech, the trend has been in the other direction. If you don’t consider Sprint a viable competitor to AT&T, wh…

You have to look at areas where Comcast is the only choice, what the prices and speeds available are there, and the prices and speeds that are suddenly available when a competitor arises. And phone service is not a viable alternative. Even 50gb (the standard cap it seems nowadays before throttling) gets you only 10-20 hours of video at high quality.

Sure, in some areas the lack of ISP competition is particularly acute. But on the flip side, lack of competition in tech is a nationwide problem. I’ve got gigabit through both Verizon and Comcast at my house. It’s much easier for me to switch between the two than for me to switch off gmail (which has years of my emails), or to switch off Facebook (which all my aunts and uncles use).

As to cellular—it’s a viable alternative for lots of people. Many people don’t need more than 10-20 hours of high quality video per month. 20% of people are already smartphone-only users, and that figure is growing. At the same time, those data caps are growing. Verizon’s 5G service has no data cap. Even if there is a soft cap of a few hundred GB, that’ll be a viable wired replacement for most people.

The trend in tech, by contrast, is the opposite. We’re not on the precipice of increased competition in search or mobile OSs. Indeed, with Microsoft throwing in the towel on Windows Mobile, there is less competition in that space than ever.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#320

Post by leesec »

debaserab2 wrote: post #300
rayiner wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet spends about 50-75% more than Verizon or Comcast on lobbying. Which is amazing considering they’re not in a regulated industry. When you’re in a regulated industry, regulators micro-manage your business so there is a lot of lobbying involved dealing with relatively mundane and uncontroversial things. Not big picture stuff, but like cities vetoing fiber nodes because they’re ugly. Tech companies don’t deal wi…

Could the fact that they spend so much on lobbying be one of the reasons their industry is still unregulated?

Is the Pope catholic?
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