Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 735 posts

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#51

Post by Shivetya »

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…

She has no proof, she does not need any. this is typical politician using FUD to scare the populace into letting them take actions which in the end only go to bolster their own campaign coffers and personal riches. With the upcoming Presidential campaign you can expect politicians tripping over each other using jealously and fear to get people to plea for action.

Amazon is not a Standard Oil by any measure as they have ample competition when it comes to online sales. Facebook is still an opt in environment. If you don't want to join facebook you don't have to and no retailer is dumb enough (well that might not be true but I haven't found one) to require you to be a facebook member to purchase products or services. Google is, well google. I don't have to use their search engine if I don't want to.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#52

Post by wybiral »

Google/Facebook/Amazon have the power to push any startup competition out of the market in ways that are hard to even enumerate. Think about all of the services, devices, and standards that they control.

Watching the fanboys defend their favorite tech giant is incredible. These companies are not behaving in the markets or people's best interest and they are way too big, at a scale that dwarfs most of the worlds organizations.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#53

Post by keeganjw »

sct202 wrote: post #26
endofcapital wrote: post #2

Here we go, buckle up. With the amount of power democrats are likely to consolidate in the next few elections there could be some serious movement on this if it becomes a priority for the party. I think the big three are way too powerful and need to be broken up, but doing so intelligently is a tricky problem that I don't have much faith in government tackling. Zuckerberg integrating all the services yesterday seems…

I don't think it'll be a priority because I'm not really sure if this is a real thing that Warren believes or if she's just throwing this out there to see if it has legs.

If someone other than Warren gets elected, it could very well get put on the back burner. But this is defintely what Warren believes. When she was a professor at Harvard or the head of the CFPB, cracking down on very large, very powerful corporations was always her focus, whether via anti-trust or other means.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#54

Post by astazangasta »

c0nducktr wrote: post #21
sct202 wrote: post #8

I think we should also consider that even if you do break up a large company like that, you'd need to make sure they don't pull an AT&T and start merging with each other to basically re-create their previous structure.

Yeah, I'm still amazed that when AT&T was split up, there wasn't anything in the ruling preventing them from just joining the parts back together again.

I don't think those people imagined the subsequent wholesale abandonment of the government's antitrust role.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#55

Post by andrit »

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.

well, the element that corrupts government should be removed and a govt for the people restored. Just breaking it up is as anti productive as just breaking up a company, if the company isnt breaking any laws. Govt is a different type of entity than a corporation and as enlightening as the comparison might be, a thought exercise is all that comparison should really be.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#56

Post by 0815test »

Kephael wrote: post #42

These complaints are absurd and antibusiness. Every serious retailer sells their own brand of products. For instance, Walmart sells their own products under the "Great Value" label. Every FAANG caliber employee would have to look at relocating to work for a Chinese internet giant to make actual money or move to a proprietary trading firm. edit: To the people down voting me, I am sorry that you cannot LeetCode.

Walmart sell their own products, but they don't restrain their dealings with other suppliers in order to promote their own product lines. This is a key difference wrt. what Amazon is doing. In a world of fair competition, "Amazon Marketplace" would be the main Amazon Website, and you would additionally be able to restrict your view to products from the suppliers you trust, be they Amazon-the-supplier, Walmart or whoever.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#58

Post by geofft »

This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008

> Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. And Larry, please don't start Google." Otherwise Larry's going to mess up your numbers big time.

Since reading that, I've realized that a major part of my political beliefs is that future Larrys should be unable to start future Googles in their current form, and in particular that I don't believe it's a just use of the powers of government to enable the creation of future Googles.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#59

Post by untog »

crowbahr wrote: post #41
untog wrote: post #14

Comparisons will be made to Microsoft and Internet Explorer but to me the really crucial part of this isn't market dominance in the "what app are you using" sense, it's data. Facebook, Google and Amazon really do have an unprecedented amount of data on us. And keep vacuuming up more and more of it. Facebook should never have been allowed to buy WhatsApp (and maybe not Instagram though I'm less concerned about that on…

Gut reaction: I feel like Android would not survive Google being forced to remove all their apps from the Google play store.

Android is perhaps the closest in comparison to Microsoft/Internet Explorer. Spin off Android into its own company, including the Play Store. There would be nothing stopping Google from keeping their apps in the Play Store, but they would sit on the same level as competing mapping and search apps, and users would choose which one to use instead of have it preinstalled.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#60

Post by sct202 »

c0nducktr wrote: post #21
sct202 wrote: post #8

I think we should also consider that even if you do break up a large company like that, you'd need to make sure they don't pull an AT&T and start merging with each other to basically re-create their previous structure.

Yeah, I'm still amazed that when AT&T was split up, there wasn't anything in the ruling preventing them from just joining the parts back together again.

And the way Warren is describing splits, it sounds like GCP, Azure, and AWS would be spun out. Could you imagine if any combination of those three were allowed in the future to merge!
Post reply on HN