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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

#71

Post by travisoneill1 »

untog wrote: post #28
travisoneill1 wrote: post #19

What is the alleged anti-competitive behavior? The article doesn't mention it. It sounds like she is calling for their breakup merely for being big and powerful, and if that were cause enough to break up an entity we would logically start with the government.

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...

A quick search for a local restaurant shows yelp as the top hit. Google shows a info box to the side with their own reviews. I don't see a problem with this, and I can't imagine it being illegal. Companies are allowed to cross-promote between their services. Changing this would go far beyond tech companies.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#72

Post by all2 »

geofft wrote: post #58

This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 > Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. A…

But that also means conglomerates like GE, or Raytheon, or Lockheed Martin...

There is a place in the world for massive technologically focused organizations.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#73

Post by Kephael »

0815test wrote: post #56
Kephael wrote: post #42

These complaints are absurd and antibusiness. Every serious retailer sells their own brand of products. For instance, Walmart sells their own products under the "Great Value" label. Every FAANG caliber employee would have to look at relocating to work for a Chinese internet giant to make actual money or move to a proprietary trading firm. edit: To the people down voting me, I am sorry that you cannot LeetCode.

Walmart sell their own products, but they don't restrain their dealings with other suppliers in order to promote their own product lines. This is a key difference wrt. what Amazon is doing. In a world of fair competition, "Amazon Marketplace" would be the main Amazon Website, and you would additionally be able to restrict your view to products from the suppliers you trust, be they Amazon-the-supplier, Walmart or whoe…

Best Buy, Sears, K-Mart, and Jet (Walmart) have or had the same functionality.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#74

Post by geofft »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #19

What is the alleged anti-competitive behavior? The article doesn't mention it. It sounds like she is calling for their breakup merely for being big and powerful, and if that were cause enough to break up an entity we would logically start with the government.

There's a difference, at least on paper, between the government and corporations: the government is big and powerful, but (in a republican society) is accountable in some way to the people and society as a whole. Corporations are also big and powerful, and (in a capitalist society) accountable only to a majority of their shareholders.

So there's a reason to believe that you cannot have corporations serve the public interest without either breaking them up to limit their power or fundamentally redefining what it means to be a corporation, but you can have government serve the public interest while remaining big and powerful. If the federal government followed the views of the American public to the detriment of career politicians, we'd say, "Great, you're actually doing your job." If Amazon followed the views of the American public to the detriment of career managers, we'd be very confused.

(That said, breaking up the government sounds like a fine plan too, I just don't think it needs to be first)

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#75

Post by logicchains »

dnissley wrote: post #34
logicchains wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would help give China a fairer chance in the AI race. Due to economies of scale and the sheer amount of resources they command, Facebook and Google are able to conduct research that would otherwise be incredibly expensive (e.g. training AlphaZero), and offer incredibly high salaries to lure in researchers. Apparently 80% of all machine learning engineers work at Google or Facebook! Breaking this concentration of m…

It would also give other companies in the US a better shot at the same goal. The focus on China seems unwarranted.

But presumably if other companies in the US got as powerful as Facebook/Google, they'd just be broken up too, for the same reasons, no? And if they weren't that big/powerful, they'd lack the economies of scale to do what Google and Facebook are doing now. So any other country with giant technology companies (which in practice right now is just China) would have an advantage.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#76

Post by geofft »

all2 wrote: post #72
geofft wrote: post #58

This is an excellent goal, and Paul Graham has articulated the reasoning pretty clearly: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/886953410356011008 > Here's how to explain to people the distinction between fighting poverty and fighting economic inequality. If you're fighting poverty, you might say "Let's have universal health care." If you're fighting economic inequality, you have to say "Let's have universal health care. A…

But that also means conglomerates like GE, or Raytheon, or Lockheed Martin... There is a place in the world for massive technologically focused organizations.

Er, what is the place in the world for them? Defense contractors should be ground to bits.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#77

Post by all2 »

sgjohnson wrote: post #63

While I agree that we should break apart giant companies (and not just Amazon, telecoms too), the first large entity that we should break apart, is the government. The only way to stop monopolies from forming is by getting rid of legislation that heavily benefits large businesses.

> ... the first large entity that we should break apart, is the government.

If you're talking about the United States of America, it is already broken apart. By design we have three distinct branches, due process, and free speech/press.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#78

Post by vlangber »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #32
vlangber wrote: post #11

I think the most obvious candidate is to split Google and Youtube.

Not at all. It's to split Amazon retail and AWS. Not that I'm opposed to that or not, but it is the most obvious. If you look at templates of prior antitrust action, you'd probably see roadmaps of splitting ad presentation/platform from ad brokering/targeting in all of the companies mentioning.

I might have a different perspective since I live in Norway. Amazon is not as dominating here as in the US.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#79

Post by briffle »

jsutton wrote: post #35
travisoneill1 wrote: post #19

What is the alleged anti-competitive behavior? The article doesn't mention it. It sounds like she is calling for their breakup merely for being big and powerful, and if that were cause enough to break up an entity we would logically start with the government.

For starters, Amazon provided a marketplace platform for third parties to sell goods. They then gathered data on which items sold the best, created their own line of products based off this data, and crushed their customers-turned-competitors using their massive advantage in economies of scale.

So I guess all those store brand groceries are anti-competitive behaviors?

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#80

Post by seaborn63 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #12

I know that Facebook has instagram and whatsapp, but wouldn't breaking Facebook up leave the still monolithic but waning Facebook proper together? I'm not saying WhatsApp and Instagram aren't massive, but am I wrong in assuming that Facebook is still a monolith regardless if it loses it subsidiaries?

Just off the top of my head, maybe FB Markeplace and Messenger get split out into their own companies? Maybe their Live feature get's split off into it's own thing too.

That makes me think that Amazon might have to give up Twitch too

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