Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

Post by afiler » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #249

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,…

We also broke up Ma Bell back in 84 and it looks like they are on their way to fully reuniting as an even larger monopoly. https://i.imgur.com/rMFqmbt.jpg https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/att-time-warner...

Post by charmides » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

Kaveren wrote: post #420

sarbaz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also the first idea I've seen that tries to deal with the free speech problem on the internet. A lot of platforms today apply varying amounts of censorship (like youtube's copyright takedown mess), but there isn't really anything we can do because it's a privately owned platform and they can do whatever they want. But when they control such a large amount of mindshare, we end up putting the idea of free speec…

Just because something has a lot of mindshare doesn't mean you have any business silencing their choices. People who don't agree with the policies of private companies like Facebook can simply not use it. Try Gab if you want a private company that is anti-censorship.

Post by jonahb » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #534

Despegar wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read her proposal? There would be a structural separation from distribution and first party goods. Just like railroads couldn't own interests in the commodities they were transporting, Amazon couldn't operate a market place and also own private label brands. https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

How would this be applied? I feel like nearly every grocery store chain in the USA has it's own brand competing with same 3rd party brands they carry. Whole Foods had "360", Walgreens has "Nice". It's been too long since I've been to a Safeway, a Lucky's, a Ralph's, etc but it became pretty clear that each one had it's own brand. And let's not forget Trader Joe's which is almost 90% all it's own brand.

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

axaxs wrote: post #37

untog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Medium article[1] mentions a couple - Google prioritizing their reviews above Yelp in search results, Amazon copying third party products that were successful on its marketplace. [1] https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big...

RE Amazon... how is this much different than say, store branded items from a grocery or WalMart, or quasi store brands(ie brands mainly only sold in WalMart, like Brahma boots or Ozark Trail)?

Post by petey283 » Fri, Mar 08, 2019, 8:02 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #531

dahdum wrote: post #490

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.

> Democrats lost the centrist vote in 2016, not the left They lost huge numbers of working class manufacturing industry workers in the Midwest, who perceived HC as a tool of Wall Street, and rightly or wrongly, instrumental in the secular economic decline of their jobs and communities. This was literally reflected in a schism of working class vs professional class counties in the midwest, with the former going for DJ…