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Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

nytimes.com

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Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#671

Post by sytelus »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #452
lotu wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is this type of vertical splitting doesn't solve the problem of large tech companies. It's like treating a burst appendix with a kidney transplant. The problem of Amazon is that it is effectively the only online shopping place, and thus can act as a Monopsony in hiring it's workers for warehouses, splitting AWS out of that doesn't fix that problem. Maybe you could require that distribution centers be owne…

If we had a progressive corporate tax, I think all the problems would sort themselves out. You want to build a trillion dollar company? Fine. Corporate tax rate of 50%. You're a small business with less than $1M in revenue. Cool. Corporate tax rate of 0%. Big companies will break up to take advantage of the tax code. Problem solved. Instead, the bigger you are, the harder you can lobby for tax breaks. Currently, if y…

Taxes don't solve these problems. In your setup, companies would "break up" but only on paper to take advantage of tax code. Outside of papers filed in Delaware no one would even know these were separate companies. Many billionaires often have few 100s LLCs filed in such a complex graph of ownerships that would take days to decipher.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#672

Post by dj_brown_sugar »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #500
int_19h wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have claimed that it's a stranglehold, but never explained what actually makes it so, given that any would-be Google and Netflix competitor would have access to the same pipes as those two, and on the same terms.

Economy of scale. For instance, Netflix has CDN boxes all over the planet, colocated by the ISPs. ISPs have to colocate them for free, because with net neutrality, they have to either accept the massive network traffic over their peering connections, or accept the box. Any smaller provider would need to pay for the privilege of colocation in an ISP's datacenter, and they'd also have to supply all of those boxes, that…

> Without net neutrality, ISPs would be free to charge big players like Google and Netflix more money, and that would leave a lot more room for smaller players to get involved.

When ISPs decide that they should charge more for all video traffic, the smaller companies can't pay it but the larger ones can. Why would the ISPs act in the benefit of small companies when they can make more by charging more for all streaming video.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#673

Post by bhl »

samlevine wrote: post #650
jonahb wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thought, clearly expressed in Elizabeth Warren's post, is that Amazon et al are stifling innovation by discouraging entrants and using dominant positions in adjacent industries to crowd out competitors. This isn't a new idea—it's one of the pillars of antitrust.

They're not stifling innovation. Their successes have had massive spillover effects helping other companies to innovate. The Golden Goose is still laying eggs. This isn't Standard Oil. It's not Ma Bell. When they stop innovating and start extracting rents we can have a reasonable conversation about breaking them up.

When does a company stop innovating and start becoming a rent seeker? Don’t most companies eventually become the latter?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#674

Post by [deleted] »

gottebp wrote: post #364
psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

In addition: We had 27 large banks in the early 90's. These have merged into four enormous ones today [0]. We had 50 media corporations in the early 80's. They have merged into six today [1]. [0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-banking-oligopoly-in-on... [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control...

[deleted]

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#675

Post by brmgb »

rayiner wrote: post #561
brmgb wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly because France never used copper cable as a TV distribution system and is going straight to fiber. Deployment is admittedly slower than it should be especially in the countryside where it will never be profitable due to low density. Meanwhile, people are stuck with ADSL and VDSL which give connections closer to 10mbps than 15. Cost wise however, you can't even compare the USA and France. In France, a fu…

According to the December 2017 OECD data, France and the U.S. are basically tied in terms of fiber deployment (12-13% of total broadband connections): https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.10-PctFibreToTotalBroad... . Which is pretty remarkable because in the U.S., fiber is a relatively smaller upgrade, because fast cable alternatives are available in almost every fiber market. (Just 1/3 of people who can get FiOS act…

> And how quickly is France's number going to grow given that France's second largest ISP recently cancelled its plans to deploy fiber? https://www.reuters.com/article/altice-sfr-france/altice-aba....

Most likely unaffected. You rightfully pointed that the state is paying for much of it. A significant part of the deployment is actually done directly by the state (via the equivalent of counties) which owns the infrastructure.

> Also note that the French deployment is being heavily subsidized by the government (to the tune of $24 billion). Except for a small amount during the post-2008 economic stimulus, broadband deployment in the U.S. is not subsidized. Whereas the French government is paying a direct subsidy to build fiber in rural areas, in the U.S. rural deployment is financed by a cross subsidy (taxing ISPs in urban areas to subsidize ISPs in rural ones).

I don't really see what this has to do with my initial point: mandatory leasing of ISP private infrastructure to their competitors successfully create competition.

It is not subsidies to ISP by the way. Most of this money goes to counties so they can build their own infrastructure which they then lease to ISP. It makes a lot of sense because while this infrastructure wouldn't be profitable if privately built they have a significant positive economic impact on the region where they are deployed.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#676

Post by kelnos »

cooooooffffeeee wrote: post #419
psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

She's called out Comcast before too — don't jump to the conclusion that someone can't chew gum and walk at the same time without at least a 10 second Google.

True. Another commenter linked to an article about Warren ragging on Comcast... back in 2016. What has she done about Comcast since then? Anything?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#677

Post by sytelus »

pradn wrote: post #284
nabla9 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-competition law and it's interpretation has changed drastically in the US after Robert Bork's book 'The Antitrust Paradox' (1978). Reagan administration used it as their bible.

Yes. Broadly speaking, the law went from looking at concentration as a bad thing on its own to only looking at whether consumer prices would be impacted. The prevalent idea now is that mega-mergers will reduce prices because of economies of scale. It also doesn't help that there seems to be academic corruption or at least conflicts of interest driving the new interpretation. https://www.propublica.org/article/these-p…

This is classic example of short term optimization. Sure, prices can be lower now but it might stagnate there for long time because there is no competition allowed. If it is technologically feasible, competition would find the global optimal point eventually in longer term but monopolies will settle in local minima.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#678

Post by romwell »

ams6110 wrote: post #617
psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

Comcast (et. al.) monopolies are largely due to local/municipal franchise agreements. Breaking up Comcast into a bunch of little baby Comcasts would not do any good if they are still granted local monopolies by little town boards and city councils.

Exactly. That's what happened to Ma Bell, and lo and behold! AT&T / Verizon still hold a large part of the country in a chokehold.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#679

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

cooooooffffeeee wrote: post #506
ztratar wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if Amazon is broken up, whoever thinks the US will still win the global E-commerce market against Alibaba is also quite high. The rules are changing. We need to think about the geopolitics here as well. We need US companies to win global markets in an era of increased competition.

>We need US companies to win global markets why

Because otherwise the companies that do win the global markets do the same thing to US companies that you are saying Amazon does to small companies.

How is it a good thing for the US to limit their own companies, when foreign companies don't have the same limitations? Giant companies will still exist, they will just cease to be US based companies.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#680

Post by skookumchuck »

psadauskas wrote: post #211

How about going after Comcast and Verizon first, the actual tech monopolies ? I already don’t use Facebook, I buy things online from places other than Amazon, and have email accounts that aren’t hosted by Google. However, all of that goes over Comcast’s network because that’s my only viable choice for Internet service. Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for…

Comcast's monopoly is held in place by regulation that prevents competition, not market forces. It doesn't need to be broken up, just relax those regulations.
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