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

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#481

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

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 government is already being dis-intermediated. You could look at this as the government eliminating their competition.

These companies have more revenue and cash on hand than many countries. Looking at the Bay Area, Google and Facebook are taking the lead on repairing and improving infrastructure because the government can't do it alone anymore.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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

diminoten wrote: post #444

giggles_giggles wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a recent example, Net Neutrality involved massive amounts of lobbing and had very clear "pro-consumer" and "anti-consumer" sides This isn't as uncontroversial of an opinion as it might appear to be in a place like HN. What you're admitting here basically is that you think Comcast should be broken up because they lobby for things you don't like, but FAANG is fine because they lobby for things you do.

It's uncontroversial to say Net Neutrality is pro-consumer on HN because we're the people who know the technical aspects of the concept; it's uncontroversial anywhere people know what it's about. But the point is well made. We can't be breaking up companies that don't do what we want, if they're playing by the rules. The real answer is to change the rules. Warren is running on some populist anger, and that's a danger…

That's fine also, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive. If lax laws have allowed monopolies to take hold, then the job of the government is to protect consumers by creating a free market - and that may mean breaking companies up. In the case that the monopoly is natural or sufficiently hard to prevent, the government should either take over the industry and run it as a non-profit or intervene in such a way that creates a free market.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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

iamnubsrs wrote: post #262

vonmoltke wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CVS and Walgreens put their branded products right next to the name brands they are copying. They even color the packaging the same.

But Amazon just fullfils orders on most of the products while collecting data , where as brick and mortar stores resell the competitions products

Don’t brick and mortar stores collect inventory and trend data too? Amazon isn’t the first one to do this, they just put the data closer to the center of their business so it’s more public that they collect data.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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

dfxm12 wrote: post #413

giggles_giggles wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a recent example, Net Neutrality involved massive amounts of lobbing and had very clear "pro-consumer" and "anti-consumer" sides This isn't as uncontroversial of an opinion as it might appear to be in a place like HN. What you're admitting here basically is that you think Comcast should be broken up because they lobby for things you don't like, but FAANG is fine because they lobby for things you do.

Isn't the point of government to represent the people? Sure, the parent poster is but one person, but on the whole, Americans were in favor of Net Neutrality. Perhaps outright defending FANG is going too far, but the parent definitely has a point that ISP's should be looked into when we're discussing "breaking up" companies.

There are multiple ways to represent the people and their best interests. It is not always the role of the government to do what is most popular. Raising taxes instead of increased deficit spending is an example of something that is often unpopular, but in many cases the objectively better option.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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

JackFr wrote: post #339

pdabbadabba wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) How is that different than a department store? If you go into housewares at Macy's you'll see their own branded stuff along with other brands. So at issue is not the practice itself, but rather that the digital marketplace makes it easier and more efficient. The difference would be Amazon's [alleged] monopoly power. > 2) The consumer (along with Amazon) is a beneficiary here. The losers are brands trying to sell…

> What happens ten years down the road when those brands are gone due to Amazon's allegedly benevolent undercutting? It doesn't matter. The power strips are still being manufactured at the same factory in China.

Again, there's a lot more to think about. What about prices? Even if manufacturing costs remain the same, costs for consumers are likely to rise per unit quality in the absence of meaningful competition. There will also be additional downward pressure on prices paid to those factories if there are fewer (or one one) buyer.

As I said before, I'm not convinced that all of these things will actually happen. But the answer can't be as simple as "who cares...Amazon is just cutting out the middle man."

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by rexpop » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:09 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…

No, it's worse.

What's the purpose of monopoly laws? What is their spirit? Consumer benefit, right? If that is better served by municipal utilities, then while it may not violate the word of antitrust, it certainly violates the spirit.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by int_19h » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

cowl wrote: post #388

mushufasa wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

so we are ok with removing the only thing we as people have going for us, consumer welfare consideration and focus only on how to make it easier for businesses to screw us. Should I feel better that the business that is screwing me is a "small business" instead of a giant? is that the new standard?

It's not either-or. The problem is that the current interpretation only looks at consumer impact, and ignores a lot of anti-competitive behavior that makes the market less free overall. In practice, this still hurts consumers, it's just that much harder to prove because of indirect effects - and so monopolies get away with it more often than they used to.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by elamje » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

I don’t see how Amazon is such an threat to consumers?

Genuine question, can someone explain how they are bad? I might give pushback to help get to understanding other people, but I’m not trying to start a war on here:)

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#489

Post by tmaly » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

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,…

I think it was Stigler, the nobel laureate, that had done quite a bit or research on monopolys and the effect of mergers and acquisitions on jobs.

https://promarket.org/stigler-monopolies-competition-tough-w...

It was back in 2001 that I remember reading a newspaper article on this

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

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Post by dahdum » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:12 PM UTC

Seems like Democratic candidates are clamoring over each other to be further left, and I don't quite understand it. I supported Bernie in 2016, and even he is now too far left for my tastes.

Democrats lost the centrist vote in 2016, not the left, and if they don't take a hard right turn after the nomination we'll have 4 more years of Trump.