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The worst possible antitrust outcome

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Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#71

Post by Workaccount2 »

palata wrote: post #50
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it? To who, politicians? Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

> your reward is losing control if it? That's not what I understand from the GP. What they say is taht if your business is extremely successful, it can keep being extremely successful and you can keep control over it. You just cannot accumulate more money for yourself. Like if the highest amount of money in a video game was 1 billion. Once you reach it, you don't go back to 0, you just can't go higher. Makes sense to…

I face palm through the back of my skull when people think billionaires have billions of dollars. Virtually none of them do.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#72

Post by Workaccount2 »

mxkopy wrote: post #44
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it? To who, politicians? Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

You should be forced to invest into all aspects of the social fabric that makes your success possible. Your reward is being able to be a successful philanthropist

Your 401k is their social fabric contribution.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#73

Post by incompatible »

BizarroLand wrote: post #46
guyzero wrote: post #35

I generally like Doctorow's writing and agree with a lot of what he says here, but: "Google has stolen every fact about our lives, in service to propping up a monopoly that lets it steal our money, too." I still have all the facts about my life and I don't think any money has been stolen. I get that this is rhetorical, but he's gone over the edge here.

That's among the worst takes I've ever seen. "Oh, a company knows literally everything about me and clandestinely sells that information to the highest bidder in order to target every facet of my existence so that multinational conglomerations can extract every erg of value from every heartbeat of my existence, but that's cool because I also know that information" Geez.

It's basically a language quibble, that copying data is never "stealing", also in the copyright-violation context. I suppose they'd be happy with a rewording.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#74

Post by Workaccount2 »

The worst thing about Google is that they discovered the ad-model and created an entire generation that is entitled to free tools and services on the internet. People who think Gmail, drive, sheets, translate, Gemini, YouTube, search, android, etc., etc. are all inherently free services that Google is greedily slapping ads on.

Google is a monster because people so heavily favor the ad-model over paying for things.

Kagi wonderful, but paying for search? Lol that shit is free!

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#75

Post by blargey »

nielsbot wrote: post #45
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if your business is extremely successful, your reward is losing control if it? To who, politicians? Leaving the large business intact and just changing the leader doesn’t seem like it changes anything.

Taxation = losing control of your business? Sounds a little hyperbolic. But explain more what you mean?

They're pointing to the fact that most of a given billion+aire's net worth is ownership of a highly valued company (stock). Their billions are literally just the market-assigned value of the control itself, so it falls upon people suggesting a wealth cap to come up with an arrangement that can divest them of that value without divesting them of the ownership/control rights that said value is being derived from.

Of course, control of a very large company is itself the sort of power that wealth caps are supposed to curb, like when people buy newspapers / social media platforms / etc - so you could also just proclaim it a feature instead of a bug, but it still warrants a defense.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#76

Post by tripletpeaks »

idle_zealot wrote: post #17
jmward01 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have nothing against rich. I have everything against a single person having a megaphone for themselves and a gag for everyone else and still calling it a democracy. We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Having said that, the practical implication is that money needs to loose power and there are very few ways to truly do that other than just take it away. So, I agr…

I'm not sure I understand what distinction you're drawing between ideological opposition to rich people existing and opposition to disproportionately powerful people existing. In what hypothetical world are these not the exact same thing? Money is a unit of exchange that exists to compel action. That's the point of it, and is just another way of saying "power over others". A world where being rich doesn't grant power…

If I read their post correctly, they’re saying they wouldn’t mind rich people if money didn’t… do the stuff that money does. But it does, so they do.

Like yes I think if money didn’t confer incredible power over others and distortionary effects over the shared environment, and allow crazy-wide reach for one’s possibly-nutty beliefs, lots of people wouldn’t have so big a problem with the ultra-rich. Like if the money were just a score on a pinball machine high score table. Cool, you hit a billion, good for you, glad you’re so good at the game, that’s nice. Not a lot of people would mind that so much. But that’s not how money works.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#77

Post by alexashka »

culopatin wrote: post #33
JKCalhoun wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need strong laws that reduce the voice of money and increase the voice of individuals. Seeing the how flaccid "strong" laws have become, I prefer we go back to reducing the voice of money by taxing it away. Maybe our country could then finally have nice things.

What do you do when all the money goes away to countries that don’t tax them that hard?

Anyone that wants to take their money and leave and never come back ought to be encouraged to do so as soon as possible.

The never come back bit solves the imaginary problem you mention.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#78

Post by isleyaardvark »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #54

> One of the facts established in the verdict was that Google had been slipping Apple more than $20b/year in exchange for which, Apple forbore from making a competing search engine. Didn't Apple say that 1) they weren't interested in being in the Search Engine business 2) (in testimony) Google was by far the best search engine that they were going to use anyway ? Certainly, $20B/Y weighs on the scale, but knowing App…

His quote is stunningly disingenuous, I'm surprised to hear that coming from Doctorow.

That Google has paid Apple to be the default search engine was a business deal that has been open knowledge for a decade or more. Other search engines could've paid to be the default. Apple didn't have a search engine when they created the iPhone, and why would they start? Ever? MS didn't do so well. And why would Apple want to make their own search engine? Even if Apple did, the reaction would certainly be that Apple was abusing their position to promote their own search engine and would be committing an anti-trust violation then.

Also I think it's safe to say there is no actual testimony about a quid pro quo arrangement to get Apple to agree to not make a search engine.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#79

Post by graeme »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #54

> One of the facts established in the verdict was that Google had been slipping Apple more than $20b/year in exchange for which, Apple forbore from making a competing search engine. Didn't Apple say that 1) they weren't interested in being in the Search Engine business 2) (in testimony) Google was by far the best search engine that they were going to use anyway ? Certainly, $20B/Y weighs on the scale, but knowing App…

The idea is that without $20 billion or an incentive to send people to google Apple might have become interested in chipping away at the search business. Sori already handles a lot of search.

Google didn't want Apple thinking about that. They wanted Apple to have an incentive to send traffic to google.

Re: The worst possible antitrust outcome

#80

Post by thoroughburro »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #68
spongebobstoes wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why do you think that will happen? how could that scenario be prevented, while still taxing money? if you put more effort into making your point, I'm sure you could get better engagement

Look at what Texas has been doing to California. People who assign billionaires as being the living manifestation of greed are somehow quick to hand wave away "billionaires will move to protect their wealth".

We should be so lucky. They are leeches.
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