Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#731

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

bhl wrote: post #660

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can replace Google/Amazon/Facebook in seconds. You can not change your cable provider in a large number of areas, and even many of the ones that you can, you only have 2 choices between Comcast/Verizon/ATT/Centurylink. And, miraculously, as soon as a competitor arrives, you see prices drop and speeds increase. It happened in just about every area Google fiber rolled out to. Comcast also charge $10 for an extra 50…

> You can replace Google/Amazon/Facebook in seconds. This is largely false: look at market share of all their competitors — network effects are really hard to replace.

Google doesn't even have a network effect, they just have the World's best search engine. If it ceased to be the World's best, you could leave immediately. Amazon you can replace by just ordering from any of the other countless online vendors.

Facebook is harder to replace, but people thought Myspace would be around forever for the same reasons.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#732

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #259

confounded wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for things that will make my use of the internet objectively worse (NN, SOPA, etc...). Is this true? It depends on your use of the internet and definitions of “worse”, but I know that both Google and Facebook have been strong opponents of state-level Internet privacy legislation. They also spend huge amounts on lobbying,…

Alphabet spends about 50-75% more than Verizon or Comcast on lobbying. Which is amazing considering they’re not in a regulated industry. When you’re in a regulated industry, regulators micro-manage your business so there is a lot of lobbying involved dealing with relatively mundane and uncontroversial things. Not big picture stuff, but like cities vetoing fiber nodes because they’re ugly. Tech companies don’t deal wi…

[deleted]

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#733

Post by justinchan » Thu, Mar 14, 2019, 9:49 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #259

confounded wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, while FAANG occasionally do things I don’t approve of, they don’t actively lobby congress for things that will make my use of the internet objectively worse (NN, SOPA, etc...). Is this true? It depends on your use of the internet and definitions of “worse”, but I know that both Google and Facebook have been strong opponents of state-level Internet privacy legislation. They also spend huge amounts on lobbying,…

Alphabet spends about 50-75% more than Verizon or Comcast on lobbying. Which is amazing considering they’re not in a regulated industry. When you’re in a regulated industry, regulators micro-manage your business so there is a lot of lobbying involved dealing with relatively mundane and uncontroversial things. Not big picture stuff, but like cities vetoing fiber nodes because they’re ugly. Tech companies don’t deal wi…

Google does have Fiber though I imagine the extent of that is still much lower than a full Telecoms company. I think the exceptional spending on lobbying comes from the sheer breadth of services that Google provides:

> "Google said it lobbied on dozens of issues, reflecting how integral its services have become to American lives and commerce. The filing cited privacy, data security, antitrust, taxes, tariffs, trade, the opioid crisis, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, immigration, the future of work, encryption and national security."

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/google-se....

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#734

Post by JabavuAdams » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #171

JabavuAdams wrote: post #157

Whoops. Guess she won't be winning then...

If, as usual, people are voting heavily against their own interests and more according to the lobbyist propaganda fed by economics 101 professors, then you are likely on point.

People's actual interests aren't necessarily their stated interests, though. The notion of people as unitary individuals with a coherent executive isn't even right. The agglomeration of desires and drives that I call "me" might spin a good story about who I am and what I want, but it's basically a work of fiction.

EDIT> Aspirational fiction, perhaps.

Re: Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon

#735

Post by sol_remmy2 » Tue, Mar 19, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

fwip wrote: post #507

sol_remmy2 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. If you attribute America industrializing before China/India as luck, then I will lose trust in anything else you say. By 1915 America had higher GDP per capita than most of Western Europe - BEFORE WW1. Western Europe had higher GDP per capita than China/India by like 1200 AD. You are so so far off the mark. Also, India's population only started exponentially growing in the l…

"We were fortunate that we industrialized sooner," not "rate of industrialization is totally random and unpredictable." Edit: Also, the predictions are for next century. Even if they were making the straw claim you believe they are, they probably won't be around to collect on the super-long-term investment you suggest. Edit #2: Checked out your comment history, looks like you're just a garden-variety racist who think…

That's a very bigoted way of interpreting my comment