Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#471

Post by CamperBob2 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #418

CamperBob2 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying is tracked and google spent over 33% more than Comcast - in your own words - bribing members of Congress. Probably because they saw what happened when Microsoft tried to ignore Washington, DC. altogether. Can you blame Google for realizing that they couldn't just turn their backs on the game?

Google has long used lobbying for business objectives. For example, because Google profits from being a middle man for content created by other people, Google has lobbied for weaker copyright protections. Joel Splosky calls this "commoditizing your complement": https://www.gwern.net/Complement , and it explains Google's political positions to a tee. The idea that they were "forced" into it is wishful rationalization.

That's one perspective. Another school of thought says that both the extent and duration of copyright protection is counterproductive if not batshit insane, and lobbying for copyright liberalization benefits almost everyone regardless of the underlying motivation.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#472

Post by zip1234 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #439

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…

Saying Google == email is a bit naive. Google is search, and the internet starts with search. They definitely have a monopoly on search and it's what's essentially powering almost all of Google revenue right now.

Their revenue comes from ads, which happen to be on their search, which is used because it is the best, not because people are forced to use it.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#473

Post by wan23 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

lotu wrote: post #414

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,…

The problem is this type of vertical splitting doesn't solve the problem of large tech companies. It's like treating a burst appendix with a kidney transplant. The problem of Amazon is that it is effectively the only online shopping place, and thus can act as a Monopsony in hiring it's workers for warehouses, splitting AWS out of that doesn't fix that problem. Maybe you could require that distribution centers be owne…

Splitting AWS out of Amazon isn't the thing that really matters though so much as preventing Amazon from operating a store AND a marketplace on the same site, not to mention having its own product lines. If you want to sell something online and you're not already a household name then you're at a big disadvantage if you're not on Amazon, but if you do sell there then the price is giving Amazon insight into your business. And if Amazon chooses it can basically bury you by promoting your competitors or worse, selling its own copy of your product.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#474

Post by elefanten » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #416

psadauskas wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're putting words in my mouth, or misunderstanding my point. > you think Comcast should be broken up I think efforts to break up tech monopolies should first be focused on telecommunication companies. > because they lobby for things you don't like, Not just me, but are objectively harmful to 99% of the people they would affect > but FAANG is fine because they lobby for things you do. I'm mostly focusing on Goo…

> With Comcast (and other ISPs), you have only one choice, and they spend tons of money and effort making sure you only have that one choice, and continue to have only that one choice. Comcast recently spent nearly $1M to prevent Fort Collins from creating a municipal ISP[1]. That is actively anti-competitive and monopolistic by definition. I'm sure if the U.S. government was proposing to sell public bonds to build a…

It's municipal, so the magnitude of threat you're implying (oooh Government) is a misdirection. GP's point is that consistently lobbying to shut down the existence of any competition, public or private, is monopolistic behavior. And it is, pretty much by definition.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#475

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #391

psadauskas wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I should have checked the facts before speculating on which company spent more on lobbying. However, the things they are lobbying for/against also matter. As a recent example, Net Neutrality involved massive amounts of lobbing and had very clear "pro-consumer" and "anti-consumer" sides. From https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/net_neutrality/ > Not only was Google the pro-net neutrality organization…

I believe net neutrality is a regulatory capture move, and gives Google and Netflix a stranglehold over the industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316513 Marketing to the contrary, I believe there are good, strong justifications for against net neutrality, as a consumer and someone excited about the future of technology. Additionally, and far more importantly: Comcast is a regional monopoly. They have a lot…

That doesn't make sense - while Google may have a dominant position in a winner takes all ISPs can exclude others from the market far easier. If Google becomes grossly unreasonable it is easier to leave them - in a Geographic area your options are more constrained by physical availability and prices can be raised largely arbitrarily.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by elamje » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

rustyboy wrote: post #431

mal10c wrote: post #401

I ran across two quotes by Warren that caught my attention: > "unwind tech mergers that illegally undermine competition" > "I want a government that makes sure everybody — even the biggest and most powerful companies in America — plays by the rules" The word "illegally" in the first quote really set off my alarm bells. What have large companies like Amazon, Google, FB, etc. done that is considered illegal in this reg…

> "illegal" because Amazon uses their non-retail business profits to identify high selling items, produce them themselves, sell them at a lower price (because they have all the data also), and finally steer customers to those products. They're the market place and a player. This new idea isn't well defined in law, but using your profits from one company to undercut another area is illegal. > "by the rules" is the sam…

To your first point - Walmart, Target, and almost all Grocery stores in the southern US have private labels for significantly cheaper than name brand labels.

They are the market place and players. And they also drive traffic to their products via website and shelf placement. If you say amazon is illegal here, you can’t simply ignore almost all big players are.

Not sure that’s illegal anyways since the consumer has plenty of choices at Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc.

Historically with Walmart and Target being players and the marketplace, have you seen that damage the consumer? Largely consumers end up getting commodity goods for cheaper, and the goods that are specialized/branded for roughly equivalent prices to other marketplaces.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#477

Post by int_19h » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #391

psadauskas wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, I should have checked the facts before speculating on which company spent more on lobbying. However, the things they are lobbying for/against also matter. As a recent example, Net Neutrality involved massive amounts of lobbing and had very clear "pro-consumer" and "anti-consumer" sides. From https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/net_neutrality/ > Not only was Google the pro-net neutrality organization…

I believe net neutrality is a regulatory capture move, and gives Google and Netflix a stranglehold over the industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19316513 Marketing to the contrary, I believe there are good, strong justifications for against net neutrality, as a consumer and someone excited about the future of technology. Additionally, and far more importantly: Comcast is a regional monopoly. They have a lot…

You have claimed that it's a stranglehold, but never explained what actually makes it so, given that any would-be Google and Netflix competitor would have access to the same pipes as those two, and on the same terms.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#478

Post by nutellalover » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

Does legislature like this actually have a chance at passing? Or is this just bombastic liberal rhetoric to ignite the campaign trail?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#479

Post by zip1234 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

ztratar wrote: post #436

cooooooffffeeee wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're high if you think someone can compete with Amazon out of their garage now. Hell, you can't even sell a product on Amazon without a good chance that Amazon will just slap their Amazon Basics logo on it and undercut you to death. Similar to Wal-Mart many of their competitors are dead because they optimized their supply chain. No one gets that kind of access out of their garage.

And if Amazon is broken up, whoever thinks the US will still win the global E-commerce market against Alibaba is also quite high. The rules are changing. We need to think about the geopolitics here as well. We need US companies to win global markets in an era of increased competition.

Alibaba is a great example of why Amazon is NOT a monopoly.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#480

Post by int_19h » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

mushufasa wrote: post #330

fanzhang wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alre…

In the past couple years, a new legal theory proposed that the definition of monopoloy needs to be updated for the 21st century. Instead of focusing on consumer welfare, antitrust law should focus on 'anticompetitive behavior'. In this argument, amazon is the platform through which all other online sellers go to market, like railroads in the late 19th century. Behaving as both a platform and participant is anticompet…

It's not a new legal theory, though. It's a return to the old one that predated the current state of affairs. In other words, it's a return to what the people who originally wrote our anti-monopoly laws meant them to do.