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Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

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Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#81

Post by zjaffee »

SilasX wrote: post #14
umvi wrote: post #3

If they are, they are not a traditional monopolies. Traditional monopolies "control supply of a good or service, and where the entry of new producers is prevented or highly restricted." In this case, the supply of a good or service (social networking, webpage indexing and searching) are not controlled by Facebook and Google because they aren't finite resources. Anyone can index the web and anyone can build a social n…

Agreed, I made a similar point recently[1], that a monopoly should be judged by lock-in, not by raw market percentage, which is an arbitrary measure anyway; no one cares that I have a monopoly on SilasX-labor. What matters is whether it's hard for others to offer alternatives to SilasX-labor and whether buyers can switch to that alternative. In that sense, you should worry about monopolies on OSes or rail routes, whi…

I'd be interested to see something happen to remove the lock in on facebook. Namely, detach the network from the other services.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#82

Post by sheana_ahlqvist »

jimjansen1 wrote: post #34
umvi wrote: post #3

If they are, they are not a traditional monopolies. Traditional monopolies "control supply of a good or service, and where the entry of new producers is prevented or highly restricted." In this case, the supply of a good or service (social networking, webpage indexing and searching) are not controlled by Facebook and Google because they aren't finite resources. Anyone can index the web and anyone can build a social n…

>Anyone can index the web and anyone can build a social network and Google/Facebook aren't going to crush you with lawsuits or some other nefarious tactic to maintain their position (AFAIK). Maybe but you're also almost certainly going to be acquired by them.

Yeah, and I'm glad that this episode touched on how acquisitions should be thought of in the context of monopolies. It may be time to start thinking in terms of anti-trust when larger companies acquire teeny tiny companies, not just when large companies merge.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#83

Post by paulddraper »

hildaman wrote: post #45

I don't think they are monopolies. I use DuckDuckGo for search & Twitter for social media. I find discovering new things/People on Twitter more interesting than the sclerotic family/friends stuff on Facebook.

See also: Bing, Instagram, Snapchat, Yahoo (though Yahoo now uses Google because Google was better).

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#84

Post by paulddraper »

gajeam wrote: post #48
hartator wrote: post #13

What matter are laws that are making harder to compete with them. Thanks to GDPR, you’ll probably never see a fb competitor emerge in Europe for example.

Why is this the case? Don't the data portability rules make it easier for Europeans to be able to switch to a Facebook alternative?

The argument for this point of view is that regulations like GDPR (or other things like corporate taxes) are easier for companies with gobs of capital and armies of lawyers/accounts to accommodate than companies lacking those resources.

A tall person may not appreciate flood waters, but a short person appreciates them even less.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#85

Post by rdxm »

It absolutely matters! The key takeaway is how the regulatory bodies adapt to the new world. It's the same challenge faced in the old world, but, this is arguably more important because lines of communication and network effects impact a far larger body of people...

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#86

Post by ABCLAW »

biglenny wrote: post #77
ABCLAW wrote: post #74

Oh boy - it's that time again. Time for a bunch of people with no competition law or economics background to get upset over the term 'monopoly'.

You seem to have a unique perspective based on your comment history. Could you explain why or why not you see F/G as monopolistic forces? I have no opinion on the matter, but I'm trying to understand.

I think the all or nothing discussion linked to the word monopoly is what causes most of the issue.

Abuse of dominant market position is the most accurate developed term of art to describe what these firms do. But the devil is in the details - the treatment, definition and remedies associated with the offense are fairly arcande, and seemingly innocuous terms can make or break the entire framework.

Here's the EU's brief blurb on the issue:

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consumers/abuse_en.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/overview_en.html

This is, however, just the basic 101 theory. The reality is a lot less rosy. In actuality, almost every level of the pro-competitive state regulatory framework is subverted, and that's by design. A state benefits from corporations that abuse their dominant market position and act anticompetitively if the harm suffered is less than the benefits. For instance, if the harm is primarily suffered in foreign markets, or by a different financial class, etc.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#88

Post by davidf18 »

umvi wrote: post #3

If they are, they are not a traditional monopolies. Traditional monopolies "control supply of a good or service, and where the entry of new producers is prevented or highly restricted." In this case, the supply of a good or service (social networking, webpage indexing and searching) are not controlled by Facebook and Google because they aren't finite resources. Anyone can index the web and anyone can build a social n…

Firms like Facebook, Google, Intel, and Microsoft have monopoly rents [1]. The structure of the business makes it difficult to have competitors. e.g. Intel architecture and Windows OS for most PCs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_rent#Monopoly_rent

See also: Rent-Seeking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#89

Post by lolsal »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #76

Here's the question you need to answer. If they are evil, can they cause a lot of harm that will be hard to protect against or correct? If so, then it matters. Google and Facebook both want to be publishers when it suits them, and common carriers when it suits them, and both have shown, I think we can all agree, a propensity to be evil. I think it's telling that Google retired, "Don't be evil." I think Google is wors…

> to avoid using Google is difficult, if not impossible.

Sincere question - why? Aren't there alternatives to all google services? I have not opted out of using Google services, so I'm genuinely curious. Everything I can think of has an easy alternative to use.

Re: Google and Facebook are monopolies. Does it matter? [audio]

#90

Post by benj111 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #59
SilasX wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I made a similar point recently[1], that a monopoly should be judged by lock-in, not by raw market percentage, which is an arbitrary measure anyway; no one cares that I have a monopoly on SilasX-labor. What matters is whether it's hard for others to offer alternatives to SilasX-labor and whether buyers can switch to that alternative. In that sense, you should worry about monopolies on OSes or rail routes, whi…

> a monopoly should be judged by lock-in, not by raw market percentage Monopolies are predominantly, in anti-trust law, judged by market (pricing) power, not raw market percentage. This directly relates to whether there is effective competition in the market—which may be slightly different than your question of whether buyers can switch to an alternative; it is more whether the alternative(s) are empirically substitu…

I think the interesting thing is that the users aren't the customers in these examples. Anti trust law would be concerned with the advertisers and fb/google. Not the users.

I suppose you could make the argument that fb/google are monopolies because the advertisers have to go through them to reach us. It isn't clear to me though that this is the problem we actually want to solve. This leads me to believe that anti monopoly laws might not be the correct tools for dealing with these companies.

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