Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#61

Post by digitaltrees » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

fiter wrote: post #38

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what it comes down to is the appropriate amount and type of regulation that suits the market. As market concentration happens, those corporations must necessarily become more regulated to ensure consumer choice and employee rights. The less concentrated the market, the less regulation required because natural market forces will have larger impacts. Once a corporation reaches a significant size, they largely o…

Do you think monopolies like PG&E in California are well-regulated? If not, could you tell me why this isn't due to systemic difficulties in setting up a well-regulated monopoly? EDIT: I should put my thesis in here: It is easy for regulatory capture to happen in the case of monopoly and regulator. I would also expect the monopoly plus regulator to perform more poorly than either a competitive company or a public ent…

Regulation generally is not the same as regulation specifically related to antitrust. You can create a well regulated monopoly where none of the regulations are designed to prevent negative effects of being a monopoly.

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#62

Post by digitaltrees » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

ishjoh wrote: post #56

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what it comes down to is the appropriate amount and type of regulation that suits the market. As market concentration happens, those corporations must necessarily become more regulated to ensure consumer choice and employee rights. The less concentrated the market, the less regulation required because natural market forces will have larger impacts. Once a corporation reaches a significant size, they largely o…

The hardest part of regulation is not erecting artificial barriers to entry. There are a lot of examples where regulatory capture happens to ensure that a near monopoly can comfortably maintain its position, and it strangles competition from startups.

Target antitrust.

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#63

Post by tabtab » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:07 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #53

tabtab wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's fully from efficiency of scale, especially outside of manufacturing. What I keep seeing is using one's size to keep out newcomers as the most important factor. You have more patents and more lawyers and can accept financial losses longer on specific products to keep them out: products A and B subsidize C when C is threatened. And you can bundle multiple products into "special deals" the way a single…

Amazon is the archetypal example. They didn’t litigate their way to dominance. Amazon is just better than all the mom-and-pop alternatives, and that is fueled by technology and scale. Wal-Mart is another example, except optimizing for price. Apple is another.

I'm mostly talking about after one gets dominant, not how they got dominant. Microsoft was already dominant in PC software by the late 1980's.

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#64

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

sykic wrote: post #55

dragonwriter wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fail to see what your point is. The point is exactly and only what the text of the comment said. > You believe the totality of all U.S. healthcare spending ought to be viewed as a tax No, I never said that. Nor, AFAICT, did anyone upthread. The claim rb808 made seems to be more "comparing tax rates between countries where there is a substantial difference in the extent to which essential services are provided thr…

I think I may have upset you. I don't understand your original comment in the context it was made. From my perspective rb808 thinks that health care expenditures ought to be added to the U.S. tax computation to make comparisons to other OECD nations' tax rates. I don't agree with this for the reasons I stated. As an aside I think if one doesn't view something as a tax then it shouldn't be added to the tax calculation…

As an aside, the parent comment appears to be a misplaced response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19382254

> I think I may have upset you.

It's probably best not to post your guesses about other people's emotions when they don't contribute to the discussion.

> I don't understand your original comment in the context it was made.

Clearly, and you keep trying to interpret it as a defense of (what I have already explained why I consider a misinterpretation of) rb808’s comment, even after I have explained both that I see your interpretation of his comment as wrong, and that my original comment was a tangent that didn't intend to defend his comment (whether as I interpret it or as you do) in the first place.

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#65

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

This is the inevitable result of efficiencies of scale. With computers, databases, instant communications, why would a business be restricted in anyway to expand as far as it can once it has perfected whatever it is selling. In the long run, it would be beneficial for all consumers to be able to select from multiple sellers, but in the short term, it's beneficial for each consumer to purchase from the whomever is giv…

> That means everyone uses one of the top few banks, one of the top few retailers, one of the top few electronic device manufacturers, etc.

That may explain Google search, but not e.g. Luxotica, which is a monopoly in eye-wear. I'm not sure how much of the centralization is of the "I go to the best provider for me" kind, vs. the "Katamari Damacy" style, but the former is only good for customer in the short term, and the latter not even then.

Free markets and democracies are good at a lot of things, but self preservation is not one of them - that has to be applied from "outside" the system, early and often.

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#66

Post by ykevinator » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

This is the inevitable result of efficiencies of scale. With computers, databases, instant communications, why would a business be restricted in anyway to expand as far as it can once it has perfected whatever it is selling. In the long run, it would be beneficial for all consumers to be able to select from multiple sellers, but in the short term, it's beneficial for each consumer to purchase from the whomever is giv…

Sometimes. I'm totally unhappy with spectrum formerly time Warner. They're awful and I have no choice. I'm also super happy with my sewage and I have no choice. The danger is that we get de facto monopolies like Google and wind up paying $5 for a mouse click and we really have no other options.

Re: Market Concentration Is Threatening the US Economy

#67

Post by octokatt » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

This is the inevitable result of efficiencies of scale. With computers, databases, instant communications, why would a business be restricted in anyway to expand as far as it can once it has perfected whatever it is selling. In the long run, it would be beneficial for all consumers to be able to select from multiple sellers, but in the short term, it's beneficial for each consumer to purchase from the whomever is giv…

Monopolies are not beneficial for customers. They are always maximally beneficial to the monopolist, because customers have no choice.

Therefore, customers will be forced to always pay the maximum amount for a good, instead of being able to bargain for a lower price.

As capitalism is based on creating efficiencies of market through customer choice, I have to wonder why mercantilism is back in vogue with a new coat of paint.