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Where Warren’s Wrong

stratechery.com

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Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#81

Post by samirillian »

morley wrote: post #18
philipodonnell wrote: post #7

I have to admit I'm a little taken aback by the focus on how the stated rationale is weak or doesn't fit every company equally while agreeing that there are real problems that would be addressed. Is there a word for this? Its almost nit-picking? Pedantry? Like dismissing someone who is fighting against anti-vaxxers because they didn't quote the most definitive study as rationale. Explanations of policy ideas aren't t…

I think Ben is arguing (or at least _has_ argued in past posts) that the way monopolies operate in the Internet age is completely different from how Standard Oil operated in the last century. Trying to bend the narrative around these companies to fit existing anti-trust legislation is not going to be sustainable, or will be easy for firms to slip, or will result in too few cases for prosecutors to be able to pursue.…

I feel like Ben does a good job of explaining the situation but we just disagree on whether it's good or bad that it's happening.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#82

Post by scarface74 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #45
replicatorblog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like the weakest part of the argument — Walmart, Kroger, Walgreens, Costco, and every other major retailer has a similar program. All use sales data to determine what sells best and copy it. I did this for a decade, designing store brand medical devices for all the major retailers. There are plenty of legitimate critiques of Amazon. The "private label" one is by far the weakest.

The difference between the other major retailers and Amazon is the search. When I go through a physical store I will see everything that they have up for sale and have the choice of buying everything - but on Amazon the sheer amount of products that are showing up in searches is the problem. Hard enough to compete against other vendors for the place on the first two search pages, it's unfair that Amazon gives their o…

And manufacturers also pay retailers for improve placement. Unlike online, you never know which product is in place because of paid placement.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#83

Post by mbesto »

cm2187 wrote: post #33
chj wrote: post #22

The author is nitpicking. Warren may be wrong about the history of bing and google, but that's not really important. She's 100% right about Amazon, and the author conveniently forgot to mention. Most people in tech industry always strive to build monopoly and dominance. In their eyes, Warren's idea is of course insane. But viewing from another point, in order to protect competition and small businesses, her proposal…

Actually amazon is the one that I would say doesn't have a monopoly. It doesn't have a monopoly in the retail space (far from it), nor in the cloud hosting (let alone server hosting) business, nor in online streaming (music/tv). Google on the other hand has close to a monopoly on search (and browsers). Facebook on social medias.

> Google on the other hand has close to a monopoly on search (and browsers)

Which are both free products/services. How do you have a monopoly on a freely provide service? They have a monopoly on the supply (eyeballs) of the digital advertising market.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#84

Post by nabla9 »

Stratechery is weirdly insular site. I don't know the background but it looks like the writer/writers just read business news and create their own ideas and don't like to study or read economics.

The "Aggregation Theory" is perfect example of this. It's like the author is not aware that the idea he came up has not been under study for decades and has well developed concepts, terminology and research subject.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#85

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Shivetya wrote: post #26
comnetxr wrote: post #16

Agree 95%, but one point he uses to crticize Warren seems wrong: Where Warren says "America’s big tech companies have achieved their level of dominance in part based on two strategies: using Mergers to Limit Competition,..." he argues that they achieved dominance by making good products and were already dominant when they started making major mergers, and that Warren doesn't understand this. It sounds like he's missi…

Sorry, but the idea that Apple needs to be separated from the App store is ludicrous. If you don't like the App store don't buy Apple products. There are hundreds of other phones to choose from and some get equal or better reviews. It would be one thing if Apple was the only cell phone maker in existence but that is so far from the truth. Amazon and online purchases, again, there are so many choices that you never ev…

>An example of why PACs are truly bad is a recent political office run revealed that one candidate, who could not see fit to pay their taxes on time, nor their school loans, had been on the part time pay roll of a PAC for nearly 200k a year. Seriously, you want to see how politicians roll in the money look how the shake down really pays them.

Look at what happens when a state officially becomes purple. The amount of money that flows in to make it go one way or the other is sickening.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#86

Post by throwawaymath »

gamblor956 wrote: post #68
everdev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

43% is a massive market share but a monopoly by the definition of the word has near 100% control of a market. I think the modern test is is it possible for someone to compete with Amazon? Costco and Wallmart certainly do. If you break up Amazon, I think online retail will just move to the next biggest player.

That is not, not has it ever been, the legal definition of monopoly.

What is the legal definition of a monopoly?

As a followup, should that definition remain the legal definition of a monopoly? Do we need a modern appraisal of that definition?

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#87

Post by DeepThoughts »

patrec wrote: post #42
Shivetya wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but the idea that Apple needs to be separated from the App store is ludicrous. If you don't like the App store don't buy Apple products. There are hundreds of other phones to choose from and some get equal or better reviews. It would be one thing if Apple was the only cell phone maker in existence but that is so far from the truth. Amazon and online purchases, again, there are so many choices that you never ev…

There are just two phone makers in existence: Google and Apple. If you care about privacy and security, there is just a single phone maker: Apple. The only difference between different brands of Google phones is how much additional insecurity and crap the notional manufacturer adds on top. Amazon has complete dominance over books in the US and are on their way to abolishing book ownership outright.

No one is currently preventing you from homerolling a mobile operating system and building your own smartphone (provided that you avoid or license existing patents). It would be difficult to break into that market, establish share and make money in the short term, but no one is actively being prevented from doing so (see Chinese knockoffs).

I fail to see how you see the above scenario as some flavor of monopoly.

The problem here is that Warren was arguing in either ignorance or bad faith by implying these orgs need to be broken up because they are too big or monopoly’s. They are neither. I could sit down today and create a new Facebook, Instagram, or Amazon and release it. There will be no consequences or jackbooted thugs coming to shut me down.

Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you should be able to use scary words to shut it down.

The reality is that people like Warren want to dictate winners and losers in the market. If you feel privacy or business practices aren’t to your liking, you don’t have to use Facebook or Amazon. Don’t like that Google is censoring (or not censoring) something? Use Duck Duck Go, or Ask. But don’t pretend to be Teddy Roosevelt when you’re really just trying to project your personal biases on the market.

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#88

Post by hopler »

phillmv wrote: post #69
jmrobertson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so imagine separating Apple/Google totally from its current oversight position, and having a totally open app store. Like the world _just_ got past learning not to click 'download here!' on a browser, and that was after 20 years of the internet. I'd be open to alternative proposals, but separating the App Store with no replacement is not a secure solution by any means and causes more problems than it solves, a…

I don't understand why people should not be permitted to go to netflix.com to install the netflix app, or to twitter.com etc etc

Because then they'd install a fake Netflix malware from getnetflix.com

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#89

Post by scarface74 »

yathaid wrote: post #38
jmrobertson wrote: post #24

Reading her stuff, it seems like proposals to separate Apple from the App store indicate a total lack of awareness about InfoSec, and at best a poorly researched policy proposal from a technical standpoint. The only reason the App Store isn't a simmering cesspool of malware is that Apple heavily moderates what gets on there, and Google does somewhat the same. That doesn't mean that there perhaps isn't a less MSFT + I…

It's not Apple's oversight of the app store that is the problem Warren is targeting, it is the participation. Apple can either take 30% from Spotify or have iTunes, not both. Similar argument for Amazon and Amazon Basics. The article does raise an interesting point though about not thinking of these companies as "tech"; the Amazon argument can be applied to any private label I guess, hence the point about unintended…

So is she going to break up the PlayStation, XBox, Nintendo, and Kindle Stores from their platforms?

Is she going to stop physical retailers from having store brands that “compete unfairly”?

Re: Where Warren’s Wrong

#90

Post by bhauer »

> Moreover, Apple, not without merit, argues that restricting rendering engines to the one that ships with the OS (all browsers on iOS have no choice but to use the built-in rendering engine) has significant security benefits; this is debatable, but ultimately, most don’t care, simply because browsers are means to information, not ends.

I care about being able to install an alternative browser engine on my devices.

I think the reason we're today debating the risks of large social networks and the tech titans in general is that there were finally enough voices of concern that we could no longer be ignored. That had to start somewhere, and it did. It started with a smaller group who have been raising concerns about these companies centralizing user data and surveilling on their users for years. So dismissing a potential future battlefield (browser consolidation versus browser engine choice) seems an echo of those who dismissed concerns about social network overreach five years ago.

That said, I personally favor promoting alternatives and educating people about those alternatives. I don't use Facebook and yet I am able to easily communicate with friends and family. Do I want to destroy or break-up Facebook? Meh, not really. I'm fine with Facebook simply not being a part of my life. That includes blocking its domains via DNS. Improving the ability for laypeople to fully block the various surveillance tools of these firms is where I'd like to see more effort spent, not in application of government power.

Looping back to the point above, the tough one right now is mobile: You either choose the surveillance apparatus called Android or the walled garden called iOS. There are some fringe options, among which Purism 5 looks particularly promising.

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