The worst possible antitrust outcome • Hacker News Board

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#41

Post by gleenn » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:27 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #35

I generally like Doctorow's writing and agree with a lot of what he says here, but: "Google has stolen every fact about our lives, in service to propping up a monopoly that lets it steal our money, too." I still have all the facts about my life and I don't think any money has been stolen. I get that this is rhetorical, but he's gone over the edge here.

I think your phrase choice is also quite funny. Obviously a fact isn't physically stolen, it has been surveilled and sold to the highest bidder. Every fair chance a competitor had to offer you something better was taken from you, it just wasn't done in front of your face. And that data is becoming more and more valuable as we speak as all this AI data race heats up.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#42

Post by nielsbot » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:27 PM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #26

pdonis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action Not in a free market. In a free market, people have the option to refuse to accept your money if they don't want to give you what you want to buy from them with it.

> people have the option to refuse to accept your money... This is the contradiction, isn't it? A free market that you or I might define requires safeguards like a social welfare net to make sure individuals are truly free to decline an offer that is harmful to them. Without such a welfare net one is compelled to accept an offer that is harmful (to one's health, morality, etc.) because the alternative is to lose your…

People like to talk about politically tyranny, but forgot about the tyranny of capitalism.

We've financialized servitude is all.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#43

Post by palata » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:29 PM UTC

bigbadfeline wrote: post #30

idle_zealot wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand what distinction you're drawing between ideological opposition to rich people existing and opposition to disproportionately powerful people existing. In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing? Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action. That's the point of it, and is just another way of saying "power over others". A world where being rich doesn't grant power…

> A world where being rich doesn't grant power over others is one where money isn't money. First off, my money doesn't grant me power over anybody and it's still money. That leaves only one logically possible version of your statement and the correction looks like this: "A world where being rich doesn't grant power over others is one where big money isn't big money" In that form, your statement is perfectly logical,…

What the hell are you talking about?

> First off, my money doesn't grant me power over anybody and it's still money.

Sure, but it doesn't invalidate the sentence you quoted. At all. You can't "educate" people if you don't understand basic sentences. Let me quote it again, so that maybe you can try to understand it properly:

> A world where being rich doesn't grant power over others is one where money isn't money.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#44

Post by mxkopy » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:29 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

saulpw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's rich, and then there's 10x rich, and 100x rich, and 1000x rich, and 10000x rich, and now even 100000x rich. Millionaires are fine, billionaires are bad, and hectobillionaires are supremely terrible. I think once someone gets to a billion dollars net worth, they should get an AmEx black card, and 99% of their assets moved into a sovereign public wealth fund. They can have anything they want, they lose the powe…

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it? To who, politicians? Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

You should be forced to invest into all aspects of the social fabric that makes your success possible. Your reward is being able to be a successful philanthropist

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#45

Post by nielsbot » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

saulpw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's rich, and then there's 10x rich, and 100x rich, and 1000x rich, and 10000x rich, and now even 100000x rich. Millionaires are fine, billionaires are bad, and hectobillionaires are supremely terrible. I think once someone gets to a billion dollars net worth, they should get an AmEx black card, and 99% of their assets moved into a sovereign public wealth fund. They can have anything they want, they lose the powe…

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it? To who, politicians? Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

Taxation = losing control of your business? Sounds a little hyperbolic. But explain more what you mean?

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#46

Post by BizarroLand » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #35

I generally like Doctorow's writing and agree with a lot of what he says here, but: "Google has stolen every fact about our lives, in service to propping up a monopoly that lets it steal our money, too." I still have all the facts about my life and I don't think any money has been stolen. I get that this is rhetorical, but he's gone over the edge here.

That's among the worst takes I've ever seen.

"Oh, a company knows literally everything about me and clandestinely sells that information to the highest bidder in order to target every facet of my existence so that multinational conglomerations can extract every erg of value from every heartbeat of my existence, but that's cool because I also know that information"

Geez.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#47

Post by nielsbot » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:31 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #18

frogperson wrote: post #2

Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. The kind of power that comes with billions of dollars just doesnt work with justice or democracy.

> Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. This consistently happens in a very specific way. A corporation that dominates a concentrated market becomes excessively large, which makes its early shareholders billionaires. In other words, if you want to change this, you need to enforce antitrust laws and break up large corporations.

As well as tax like we used to in the 50s. (Ok, we can argue about the specifics, but you get the idea)

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#48

Post by BizarroLand » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:31 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #8

frogperson wrote: post #2

Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. The kind of power that comes with billions of dollars just doesnt work with justice or democracy.

> The kind of power that comes with billions of dollars just doesnt work with justice or democracy. The government has billions of dollars. Thankfully government officials are immune to the corrupting influence of billions of dollars.

If you ever need to see what a false equivalence is, look at this comment

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#49

Post by nielsbot » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:32 PM UTC

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #8

frogperson wrote: post #2

Americans have allowed the rich to become too wealthy. The kind of power that comes with billions of dollars just doesnt work with justice or democracy.

> The kind of power that comes with billions of dollars just doesnt work with justice or democracy. The government has billions of dollars. Thankfully government officials are immune to the corrupting influence of billions of dollars.

The bad part is that congress is bought so cheaply. Not with billions.

Under our current system you have to be daft to not invest in buying the government--it's a great return on your investment!

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#50

Post by palata » Wed, Sep 03, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

saulpw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's rich, and then there's 10x rich, and 100x rich, and 1000x rich, and 10000x rich, and now even 100000x rich. Millionaires are fine, billionaires are bad, and hectobillionaires are supremely terrible. I think once someone gets to a billion dollars net worth, they should get an AmEx black card, and 99% of their assets moved into a sovereign public wealth fund. They can have anything they want, they lose the powe…

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it? To who, politicians? Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

> your reward is losing control if it?

That's not what I understand from the GP. What they say is taht if your business is extremely successful, it can keep being extremely successful and you can keep control over it.

You just cannot accumulate more money for yourself. Like if the highest amount of money in a video game was 1 billion. Once you reach it, you don't go back to 0, you just can't go higher.

Makes sense to me.