House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy” • Hacker News Board

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#51

Post by zozbot234 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #46

ABCLAW wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead of breaking them up though, we should simply be more stringent with anti trust hearings and merger approvals. There have been a few mergers recently that absolutely shouldn’t have been approved. Recently? Competition bureaus have been green lighting consolidation in key industry sectors for bullshit reasons with bad evidence for decades. Also, if we acknowledge that bureaus have allowed the over-consolidatio…

yes, and the focus on tech is a red herring distraction du jour. every company over $100MM should be scrutinized for breakup into smaller entities. m&a should be default deny, with extraordinary evidence required for approval, with penalties that pierce the corporate veil for not meeting stated fair market objectives. that would actually encourage competition and functional markets without harming substantive efficie…

> yes, and the focus on tech is a red herring distraction du jour. every company over $100MM should be scrutinized for breakup into smaller entities.

Or we could just levy punitive corporate taxes on large companies over $100MM, and let market participants figure out the most efficient breakup arrangement. Come to think of it, this doesn't look all that different from what the Biden administration seems to be planning re: global corporate taxation.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#52

Post by lend000 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #15

foolfoolz wrote: post #7

the problem with “breaking up big tech” is it only breaks up american companies. it has a long run impact of letting foreign companies take over american market share

Historically, breaking up monopolies has been very good for the end consumer. Bell Labs and Standard Oil both ended up being good things. Instead of breaking them up though, we should simply be more stringent with anti trust hearings and merger approvals. There have been a few mergers recently that absolutely shouldn’t have been approved.

The Standard Oil claim is historically false. Kerosene prices fell dramatically during Standard Oil's tenure [0]. The competition did not benefit from Standard Oil, but consumers benefitted dramatically.

A malevolent monopoly needs government support to sustain itself for long (like today's telecoms/internet companies). All of the natural monopolies that have existed without rent seeking either greatly benefitted the consumer (Standard Oil, Google, Amazon), or became less consumer friendly and lost their monopoly (Microsoft).

That isn't to say that the government shouldn't take extra steps to ensure powerful companies are upholding the spirit of the law (labor laws and liability laws, for example, at Amazon), but most of the anti-monopolist positions such as some described in the article seem horribly misguided and likely to have unintended consequences. Especially preventing acquisitions (how many talented founders start companies with the hopes of having an acquisition option) and preventing horizontal integration (would we have AWS and the rise of easy cloud computing if this law passed 20 years ago?)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#53

Post by sircastor » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #44

vmception wrote: post #3

Odds any of it gets out of committee? It seems a greater priority of this Congress is social reforms and the President and VP also have other priorities that are keeping Congress’ attention

Pretty good, actually. It's a rare area of agreement between the parties that Big Tech has too much power.

I think that’s the problem though. The parties agree that tech has too much power, but they disagree about the how and the why, and as a result they’re seeking different solutions.

I suspect this will end up like Florida’s embarrassing law to reduce deplatforming of candidates with weird exemptions carved out for favored businesses.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#54

Post by zozbot234 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

lend000 wrote: post #52

shakezula wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, breaking up monopolies has been very good for the end consumer. Bell Labs and Standard Oil both ended up being good things. Instead of breaking them up though, we should simply be more stringent with anti trust hearings and merger approvals. There have been a few mergers recently that absolutely shouldn’t have been approved.

The Standard Oil claim is historically false. Kerosene prices fell dramatically during Standard Oil's tenure [0]. The competition did not benefit from Standard Oil, but consumers benefitted dramatically. A malevolent monopoly needs government support to sustain itself for long (like today's telecoms/internet companies). All of the natural monopolies that have existed without rent seeking either greatly benefitted the…

Standard Oil is also a special case because a monopoly on the supply of environmentally harmful stuff is actually good for the environment - by the very action of charging a higher price, it helps compensate for a negative effect that would not be priced in otherwise. Breaking up Standard Oil was just a bad idea, all around.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#55

Post by sircastor » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:02 PM UTC

runawaybottle wrote: post #49

I wonder if this an inadvertent dark pattern used by Congress. Doesn’t this fundamentally set up lobbying infrastructure? You set up a racket where you start regulating a business, then said business reacts by funding massive lobbying toolkits to buy the crooks in Congress off to curtail regulation.

“This is a nice little multi-trillion dollar industry you got here… it’d be a shame if anything happened to it.”

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#56

Post by SkyMarshal » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #15

foolfoolz wrote: post #7

the problem with “breaking up big tech” is it only breaks up american companies. it has a long run impact of letting foreign companies take over american market share

Historically, breaking up monopolies has been very good for the end consumer. Bell Labs and Standard Oil both ended up being good things. Instead of breaking them up though, we should simply be more stringent with anti trust hearings and merger approvals. There have been a few mergers recently that absolutely shouldn’t have been approved.

>Historically, breaking up monopolies has been very good for the end consumer.

Historically the US was the largest economy with the largest monopolies, so yes that was true then. It's not necessarily true now or going forward since the US govt can only break up US monopolies but not their foreign competitors.

That said, it sounds like this bill 1) does not break up US big tech, and 2) is applicable to any enterprise operating in the US, similar to how GDPR applies to all companies operating in EU.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#57

Post by ethbr0 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

Links to the individual bills:

American Innovation and Choice Online Act https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...

Platform Competition and Opportunity Act https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...

Ending Platform Monopolies Act https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...

Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching (ACCESS) Act https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...

Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act https://cicilline.house.gov/sites/cicilline.house.gov/files/...

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#58

Post by paulpauper » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #7

the problem with “breaking up big tech” is it only breaks up american companies. it has a long run impact of letting foreign companies take over american market share

i don't see why this would be the case or why it would be bad. maybe consumers would benefit from foreign competition rather than US tech giants having so much control and power.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#59

Post by EastSmith » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

One of the bills (The "Ending Platform Monopolies Act") specifically targets companies with $600 billion market cap (AAFG), and misses Walmart by around $200 billion (it currently has market cap of less than $400 billion).

It will be really funny if Walmart stock rises due to Amazon being split, and hits the $600 billion.

Re: House lawmakers release anti-monopoly agenda for “a stronger online economy”

#60

Post by oblio » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

fridif wrote: post #17

chitowneats wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From where? Not Europe, where they don't have any of these companies, and have even more stringent regulations. China or Russia then? Easy, just ban their services like they do for ours.

Everything you touch or use has a component going through china

I used to think the American leverage over China was not that great (I'm not American).

Then Huawei was put on that Entity List (or whatever it's called) and prohibited from doing business with US companies.

Huawei was the world's #2 phone producer after Samsung and rising rapidly, I think the forecast was that within 2 quarters it would be #1, overtaking Samsung.

One year later, with the ban still ongoing, Huawei fell out of the top 5, its sales having shrunk 60% or more (https://www.gsmarena.com/sa_smartphone_market_surges_24_in_q...).