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America is determined to sink Huawei

economist.com

71–80 of 127 posts

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean Alphabet, and yes. Nuke Facebook and Amazon while we're at it. Break up all the huge conglomerates.

Maybe there is a better word than “Nuke” to describe this? Perhaps a word not so strongly associated with death and destruction, unless you truly mean the physical locations of these orgs should be hit with atomic weapons?

That's fair, let's not call it nuking.

I think a starting point for discussion is to get past equating antitrust issues with monopoly status. In the previous century, these things went together coincidentally, but the scale of our economy has grown to a point where it is no longer necessary for the largest companies to have monopoly power in their market to engage in damaging anti-competitive practices. We instead see cartel-like cooperation between these companies instead of competition, such as apple-google wage fixing that was revealed years ago. Or their complete insulation from consumer feedback necessary for healthy capitalist markets to function, because their economies of scale insulate them by making consumer choices insignificant signals lost in the noise.

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#72
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This again? I think your point is appropriate when speaking Spanish, Portuguese (EDIT: not Portuguese), etc. However, in common English (no, not just in the US) the word "America" more often refers to the USA. Languages don't use the same or derivative words for many other countries as well.

Not even in Portuguese. "Americano" specifically means "someone from the United States". Spanish is the only major European language in which its local equivalent of "America/American" does not refer specifically to the USA.

Thank you, apologies and I've edited my comment.

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#73
post #66
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA is commonly known as America, and the fact that some variant of this comment always surfaces when it's referred to as such won't change that.

Half of HN comments are 'technically correct' comments. Deal with it.

That works if the statement is actually technically correct. That's not evident in this case.

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#74
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon should be forced to spin off AWS and release Twitch. Facebook should be forced to release Instagram and Whatsapp. Alphabet should be forced to release Youtube, Waymo, etc. That's about the right scale of antitrust required here.

But why? What will that accomplish?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23277101

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#75
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies who make a web browser and a company that builds the hardware backbone of a nation's internet are not even comparable.

Tangential conversation, but I might actually disagree with you there. The modern web browser is the gateway to easily the vast majority of content consumption and creation tools currently in existence. They can be compared in terms of whether control of such can sway the balance of power in a grander scheme.

The web browser is easier to replace than almost any of those things, though. I regularly use 2 or even 3 different web browsers on the same computer and another on my phone. If Chrome went away, there’d Be basically no impact on my life. Same not true for operating systems as it’s harder to switch.

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#76
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come? Everything they’ve got they just stole from other entities. Unless there’s a European company 4 year ahead this is just impossible. Plus I reject this notion off hand as huawei ships famously half baked and buggy software with their equipment.

> Everything they’ve got they just stole from other entities. Is this true, though?

Hard to tell what’s what when you shamelessly steal for decades with no accountability.

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#79
post #9

This may be a bit of pro-USA or pro-Western favoritism on my part, but if a company is getting away with illicitly gaining access to trade secrets in order to build a competitive advantage while shielded by its home country (not the best example, but t-mobile v. huawei - I imagine plenty of others are classified), is it in-scope for opposing nations to destabilize the company responsible for doing so?

If microsoft or google were to illicitly gain access to trade secrets through their extensive tracking systems, we wouldnt even know about it.

But is there a narrative that the federal government has a side channel way to deliver high quality intelligence to Google and Microsoft executives? How does it happen?

Re: America is determined to sink Huawei

#80
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal basis is that companies which violate US sanctions are not allowed to operate in the US, or transact business using financial services companies which operate in the US. That applies even if no part of the transaction passes through US territory.

It's unfair that non-US companies must annoy Huawei. Non-US companies usually don't benefit from this. It's like forcing foreigners to be part of your army.

Those companies, like every company seeking to do business around the world, will make its judgment call on whether it's worth it to satisfy any party's demands.
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