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An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
91–100 of 113 posts
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#92> it gave away its new product for no or low cost to existing clients, and bundled it with existing product lines. In a society with functional antitrust laws, such activity would be illegal. But alas. I find this statement highly suspect. What kind of world do we want to live in where regulators delineate product areas. I see Microsoft integrating Teams into their productivity product bundle as feature; not a bug. O…
The problem is that you can just starve any competition when you are large enough. Amazon did that with a lot of competitors. On the console market you can it see very clearly, although here two behemoths are fighting it out. Following Microsofts own statements and that from their sales team, Teams was indeed free to lure more users. I don't think this particular issue is a problem, but the overall structure of tech…
> The problem is that you can just starve any competition when you are large enough. Amazon did that with a lot of competitors.
Amazon did that by offering superior prices, customer service, product range, delivery, etc. That's only a problem if Amazon raises prices or cuts quality after it's competitors are vanquished. What we've observed is just the opposite. Amazon continue to relentlessly push lower prices, better customer experience and faster delivery.
Competition is not a goal in and of itself. It's merely a means to the end of improving consumer welfare. Antitrust law is careful about this distinction. It's not illegal to be a monopoly because you delight you consistently delight your customers much than your competitors. In fact just the opposite, restraining a superior product from growing its marketshare would be actively harmful to consumer welfare.
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#93[deleted]
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#94If people are interested in getting more data on why monopolies and monopsonies are bad I'd recommend "The Myth Of Capitalism" (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40751646-the-myth-of-...).
It made a compelling case for breaking up large corporations in the interest of reducing inequality (via more competition and reduced consumer prices). However, it's the only book I've read on the subject so am unsure if it's a widely held and reliably informed view.
For commenters that are wondering what world we'd be living in with functional anti-trust laws, the book suggests we look to the US between the late 1930's and the early 1980s.
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#95If people are interested in getting more data on why monopolies and monopsonies are bad I'd recommend "The Myth Of Capitalism" ( https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/40751646-the-myth-of-... ). It made a compelling case for breaking up large corporations in the interest of reducing inequality (via more competition and reduced consumer prices). However, it's the only book I've read on the subject so am unsure if it'…
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Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if it's Office thing or they just push it to all Windows users.
It's an O365 thing, it has nothing to do with Windows. It also depends on a few things with the subscription and settings, so everyone won't get it automatically and if you do it's easy* to turn off. *Once you know where to look.
>It's an O365 thing
It's now a "Microsoft 365" thing.
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#97I'm not sure who is benefitting those mega managers other than executives or shareholders. We need to find a way to discourage mega-mergers. Either through antitrust law or progressive taxation on mega mergers starting at few $1Bln. 1. The economy is a whole losses efficiency due to lack of competition. 2. Less competition for talent. 3. More fragile economy (e.g. too big to fail). https://www.economist.com/special-r…
I don’t know. I’m feeling the need for large gatekeepers especially in the media space. I have lost faith in the public’s ability to make reasoned decisions for themselves.
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we run the risk of creating separate product areas and none of them working well together or, have mandated open apis that _force_ products to integrate. That's what the web is today (mostly). Links, and embedable content (like frames). APIs and data. The reason companies don't do this - as demonstrated fairly recently by google with their removal of xmpp protocols from google chat - is that open apis prevent lock.…
> That's what the web is today Are you suggesting that the web is the way it is today because benevolent governments dictated it be so? Do you have any links about this?
My impression is that most of the open standards upon which the web is based such as HTML, HTTP, IP, etc. are mostly government funded either through academia, CERN, military, etc.
Things are a little different now that private industry is funding most of this stuff
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#99I'm not sure who is benefitting those mega managers other than executives or shareholders. We need to find a way to discourage mega-mergers. Either through antitrust law or progressive taxation on mega mergers starting at few $1Bln. 1. The economy is a whole losses efficiency due to lack of competition. 2. Less competition for talent. 3. More fragile economy (e.g. too big to fail). https://www.economist.com/special-r…
I don’t know. I’m feeling the need for large gatekeepers especially in the media space. I have lost faith in the public’s ability to make reasoned decisions for themselves.
I feel like this approach addresses a symptom but not the root problem. How can people regain a shared truth and stop becoming so polarized while still prioritizing freedom of expression?
Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft
#100I'm not sure who is benefitting those mega managers other than executives or shareholders. We need to find a way to discourage mega-mergers. Either through antitrust law or progressive taxation on mega mergers starting at few $1Bln. 1. The economy is a whole losses efficiency due to lack of competition. 2. Less competition for talent. 3. More fragile economy (e.g. too big to fail). https://www.economist.com/special-r…
It's caused by cheap money. Google's recent $10B bond offering sold at rates as low as 0.45%. When capital is this cheap, the math to make acquisitions work is easy. If rates rise to say 5%, the discounted cash flow models all fall apart. It's one more example of printing money and keeping rates near 0 increasing inequality.