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Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

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Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#61

Post by awillen »

sanderjd wrote: post #46
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

This right here. I own an e-commerce business, and I sell on Amazon, but I do about 10x the revenue on my own site that I do on Amazon.

I'm in no way unique in this regard - for all of the talk of how much Amazon dominates e-commerce, the reality is that it's never been easier to successfully run your own e-commerce site (just look at Shopify's market cap).

Sure, if you're selling totally commoditized goods that's a different story, but even there you've got substantial enough web presences from retailers like Walmart and Target that Amazon still can't reasonably be called a monopoly.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#62

Post by jimmaswell »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

A social network is a natural monopoly due to the network effect. It wouldn't make any sense to split it up. Regulating it like any other natural monopoly could make sense.

Amazon is certainly not an online shopping monopoly. It's just a superior service. I can get a similar online shopping experience from Wal Mart and many others. If Amazon can offer us such good service through having its own big network of warehouses, drivers, etc. that's impossible with a bunch of smaller companies then I say let them be as big as they are so long as they don't egregiously abuse it.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#63

Post by mywittyname »

sanderjd wrote: post #46
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

You're right on the technicals, but the GP is right in spirit.

It seems like society needs a term for the concept of a company accumulating far too much power, and that we need laws similar to anti-trust laws, that apply to these companies. This is an incredibly difficult problem to address specifically because FB is not a classic monopoly. I'm not even sure what it would mean to "break them up".

Amazon, MS, Apple, and Google are all far easier to split up. Each company has logical seams to split at (i.e., aws/retail, gcp/search/android, itunes/devices, etc). You could split FB and insta, but that doesn't really curb FB's power and influence at all.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#64

Post by m_ke »

I was just thinking last night about what I'd coin as "Apple Driven Development". If you look at the wave of tech business trends in the past 15 years they're largely driven by what Apple allowed to happen on the iPhone. It started with the launch of the iPhone, which forced a lot of businesses to move from an open web to mobile apps, then we got a wave of social apps that aimed for growth and ignored revenue because there was no easy way to charge users money, then at some point Tim Cook figured out that subscriptions are the ultimate business model and apple nudged the whole industry over to subscriptions, now apple is deciding that targeted advertising is bad and is in the process of killing the whole industry.

They get to do all of it because they managed to capture the upper class of consumers.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#65

Post by hardtke »

sanderjd wrote: post #46
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

I know this is the inevitable and cliche pushback, but it never seems to be grappled with so it remains worth pointing out: none of the three things you mentioned are anywhere close to monopolies. There are lots of social networks (Twitter and TikTok are extremely successful, among others), lots of ways to search the internet, and lots of ways to shop online. The analogy with the railroads simply is not apt, their mo…

The monopoly is not on the consumer side, it is on the advertising side. Google and Facebook are the only companies that have access to data on basically every sale on the internet (almost every site that uses their ad tools reports back their sales). This data gives them a defensible duopoly on digital advertising.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#66

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

maxwell wrote: post #35
BbzzbB wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They literally didn't invest in their Android app because they wanted to be exclusive Mind blown, I had no idea Snapchat was iOS exclusive. I was thinking just yesterday about how Clubhouse's strategy may (who knows really) have backfired, it seems to me by betting on FOMO-manufacturing they just gave time for others (like Twitter Spaces) to catch up before they filled a niche.

Snapchat launched their Android app in 2012. Maybe stories landed in iOS before Android?

I sortof exaggerated, they did have an Android app but basically invested nothing in it. I remember that just before FB cloned them (in literally every place they could) they were talking about how iOS was all that mattered, as those users are richer.

They didn't seem to get that you either need to show user growth or revenue growth, and failed at both.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#67

Post by ItsMonkk »

jeremydeanlakey wrote: post #45
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

"when a company has a monopoly on a network it... basically becomes a government." A monopoly functions like a government. Or inverted: a government functions like a monopoly. I find both angles interesting.

I'm found of "a democratically elected government is the least bad monopoly". If you must have a monopoly, it should be a government. But if you can avoid a monopoly, do that instead.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#68

Post by chiefalchemist »

jeremydeanlakey wrote: post #45
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

"when a company has a monopoly on a network it... basically becomes a government." A monopoly functions like a government. Or inverted: a government functions like a monopoly. I find both angles interesting.

That's the crux of the friction here. The old monopoly (gov) is being overrun by the new "monopoly" (tech). While it might not be a battle for the known universe, controlling the spice (i.e., attention, information, nudges, etc.) is definitely in play.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#69

Post by Kalium »

AlbertCory wrote: post #56

I wrote this [1] four years ago. It shows how to break up FAANG by making their biggest asset, their data, transparent and regulated. And you would get a check from it. Imagine your consuming history on Amazon in a company by itself, you own dividend-paying shares, and if you don't like their policies, you can take the data elsewhere, or keep it private. Anyone who wants to use it, including "Amazon" itself, has to p…

I love the idea of data portability and data dividends. I love it dearly. It gets at what are by far the most critical principles here - data sovereignty and data value.

So it is with a heavy heart that I similarly always find myself deeply concerned by the security implications of such a world. As soon as you create data import and export functions, we will collectively realize that most people both have absolutely no idea how to handle it and are incredibly resistant to education on the subject. A lot of well-meaning ordinary people are going to get hurt when they get tricked into mishandling their data. There's already a sizable black market for personal data, and increasing transparency and access is going to grow that by both providing more ways to access data and more ways to use it.

I don't know a good way to reconcile these two. The tension hurts my heart.

Re: Trust-Busting as the Unsexy Answer to Google and Facebook

#70

Post by hk1337 »

adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: post #26
camjohnson26 wrote: post #9

Trust busting can seem like it’s anti free market, but when a company has a monopoly on a network it stops functioning as a company and basically becomes a government. The problem with Facebook/Amazon/Google is that they have a monopoly on a specific information network, for Facebook the social graph, internet discoverability for Google, and online shopping for Amazon. It’s similar to if a single company owned the ro…

Well, duh. "Free market" does not mean "unregulated market". It requires that the market be free from monopolies and that all agents have complete information. Regulation and trust-busting are, in practice, required to bring about a free market. Co-opting the term "free market" was a fantastically successful bit of propaganda.

It could be that idea of a free market if everyone did what was right and not cheat, screw over, sabotage the competition to get ahead. You beat the competition by being better.

We don't have that though, people are assholes, so we have a regulated market.

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