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Big Tech Has Become Too Powerful
- YorkianTones 11y agoConsolidation of resources and broadness of ecosystem produces synergistic effects that advance tech. Google benefits in its pursuit of self-driving cars and drone delivery from existing investments in maps, AI, machine learning, and data centers. Plus, the ad revenue stream funds R&D.
- AlexMuir 11y agoOT: This page loads the full article, flickers for a moment, and then hides everything but the first three paragraphs. Instead I see a button to 'Show the full article'. What is the reason for this? I've seen this pattern in a few places and assumed it was to speed up mobile page loads. But seeing as it loads the full page before hiding it I'm now not sure.
- WalterSear 11y agoIt is to speed up page loads. Most likely, the page is being rendered to HTML on the server and then client side javascript picks up where the server left off, once it has loaded and launched. So, you get the full page load, and >then< the javascript checks to see if it should display it. The alternative is to have the page hide the content initially and have the javascript re-enable it, but this would involve a flash of 'closed page' for actual subscriber and people who came via google.
- superuser2 11y agoNYT will let you hit any number of pages; your paywall quota is only consumed by those where you are interested enough to click "Show Full Article."
- anindyabd 11y agoI do not think this is the case. I tested this out by clicking on several articles without hitting "Show Full Article" on any of them. On the first article, I was told I was reading 2 of 10 free articles. After 8 clicks I hit my quota.
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- nordsieck 11y agoCompanies want paywalled content to be indexed by Google.
- Sir_Substance 11y agoIt doesn't do that on mine, benefits of blocking all their scripts I guess. Try throwing in privacy badger, ghostery and no script, then see if it still does it.
- morgante 11y agoIt's to expose you to the links underneath the article. After reading the headline and first paragraph, many people would bounce (especially on mobile). By giving them alternative exit strategies, the button marginally increases traffic. (Yes, this has been rigorously tested.)
- CPLX 11y agoI always assumed that was done as a metric, so they could see what percentage of people who saw the page actually read it. But admittedly that is just conjecture.
- striking 11y agoI take issue with the characterizations of industries as "Big X". Big Pharma, Big Tech... It's clearly an attempt at demonizing larger players in the tech industry. My opinion is that antitrust laws and such are not applicable here because even though the companies in question have an effective monopoly on traffic, it does not make it impossible for other players to create a profitable business. Google is not a domineering empire like Standard Oil or Ma Bell once were. They do not have total control over everything. Even if they have a certain product (for example, Google Drawings), it doesn't stop other smaller players from making quality products that people buy (Sketch, Illustrator, Inkscape, etc.) I don't really think this is a problem. (And where it is, existing antitrust laws are performing as they should.)
- aurelianito 11y agoI do have a problem with Apple forcing the iPhone app developers to use MacBooks, given that about 90% of the purchases from cellphone app stores are made using iPhones (as far as I remember). This is the kind of anti competitive behavior that an anti trust law is supposed to punish. I don't know the legal technicality they are using to avoid it. Big Tech also formed a cartel to lower engineers salaries. This is also something that should be punished by law (and AFAIK, they did win a class action suit). I do think this is a problem and needs to be addressed.
- superuser2 11y agoAntitrust law can't force you to develop your products for platforms you don't want to target. You will never see an antitrust decision that Apple must develop a Windows version of XCode, and in fact doing so would probably require a total re-architecture of the iOS platform. You might see antitrust law force Apple to allow sideloading, including apps built by toolchains third parties have hacked together. You're also not required to use a Macbook; the Mini is $500.
- aurelianito 11y agoWhy not? If a monopoly is allowed to choose, it can use its domination in one vertical to influence another vertical. Anyway, I would prefer a Linux version of the iPhone SDK. I do not use neither Windows nor OSX normally.
- brianlweiner 11y agoIt's interesting he points to acquisition of patent portfolios of the big 3 (Apple, Amazon, Google) but no real mention of their defensive necessity given the current patent climate (vs using them offensively to sue competitors)
- jMyles 11y agoSeriously. This is possibly the most important comment in the thread. End software patents, restrict the use of other patents, and then watch the rate of portfolio expansion plummet.
- raldi 11y agoIn what way does everyone "have to use Google's search engine"? There are no barriers to switching; you could switch to Bing forever in about five seconds. Unlike switching from Facebook, you don't need to get all your friends to come along. Unlike switching from GMail, you don't need to move a bunch of data. Unlike switching your company away from Windows, you don't need to buy all new software, retrain all staff, or get your partners to change the format they use to interchange data with you. If someone were to build a better search engine, we would all just switch. Like when everyone left Altavista in 1999.
- samsolomon 11y agoI think there's something to say about having a monopoly, because the product is better than the alternatives. That's better for consumers than having a monopoly, because there are no alternatives.
- sabrinaleblanc 11y agoTotally agree with you on this one, as long as the company doesn't stop better products from entering the market.
- tolmasky 11y agoUsually preventing better products is done through legal assistance: 1. Abusive use of patents to prevent small upstarts that can't afford litigation 2. Getting regulations passed that are so expensive only established players can afford them. 3. Making visa requirements so complex and expensive that it becomes a competitive advantage to have an entire department dedicated to it in your largco. Having so much money that you can put out a product that integrated better with yours is just another spin on putting out a great product as far as I'm concerned, and thus never worries me. IMHO doing away with patents would do much more to "curb bad monopolies" than any litigious strategy.
- cssblondie 11y agoWhich, as you seem to be acknowledging, is really the whole debate over the antitrust cases.
- malthaus 11y agoUnfortunately they are big enough to fuel a lot of the irrational valuation exuberance in the startup world as exiting to e.g. Facebook is a valid exit strategy instead of building a standalone (and profitable) business. Besides, the giants diversifying into experimental R&D moonshot projects is a bad sign too. Shareholders should not support that and probably wont in the mid- to long-term.
- ido 11y agoBesides, the giants diversifying into experimental R&D moonshot projects is a bad sign too. Isn't that how society gets technological advances?
- varelse 11y agoSo right now the moonshots are privatized and the liberals are unhappy about it. When the pendulum shifts, the moonshots will be publicly funded again and the conservatives will be unhappy. Takeaway: happiness is unattainable.
- ido 11y agoI am happy for any moonshots, regardless of who funds them. The more the merrier :)
- carboncopy 11y ago> the moonshots are privatized and the liberals are unhappy about it I've never heard this take before, can you elaborate?
- varelse 11y agoReally? IMO as a former Ph.D. academic who chose industry because there was no future there, science funding in America has dried up into a shriveled husk of its former self in an age of bottomless pockets for overseas military adventures and an educational system that isn't creating the next generation we need. So we're left with mostly Elon Musk to carry the embers of our space program while Craig Venter, Google and a few other companies are increasingly taking on aging research, something I think will ultimately have enormous returns in the private sector. Just not in time for next quarter's results so David Einhorn (and his net worth of 1/40th that of Bill Gates) can go @#$% himself. And for all the supposedly wasted public money on science cited by conservative sorts that got us here, it's trivial to find yet another dead-end weapons system or overseas military adventure that cost the taxpayers exponentially more. To be fair, there is the Connectome Project ($100M annually) and also the Exascale Project ($126M) but those won't even cover the cost of a single F-22 fighter jet ($339M).
- varelse 11y agoI think this problem takes care of itself, but it takes time, more time perhaps than people are willing to allow. 1. As organizations metastasize, the negative tail of the competence distribution becomes more and more populated. In response, the organization clamps down with restrictive rules that retard its innovation in exchange for protecting itself from the invisible stupid within. See Microsoft, see IBM, and see increasingly Google and Facebook as they turn to acqui-hires over internal expertise. 2. It's nice to rant yet again about 20-year patent cycles, but when are we going to fix the copyright system? Or will we eternally be Mickey Mouse's beeyotch? At this point, I'd be happy with a Mickey Mouse Forever Amendment(tm) to the constitution if it would free up all the other copyrights. 3. Working around patents is what clever people do best. Make more or import more clever people and you'll eventually get the companies that knock Google and Facebook onto their increasingly lethargic keesters. And free bonus, if you make more technically literate young adults, they'll have a lot less to fear from looming technological unemployment.
- spydum 11y agoi recently was having a discussion about #1 with some folks. I'm not sure its about the competence fall off, i think it's the desire to draw on productivity gains by orienting themselves in a process-centric fashion, versus the original product-centric design. Process centric makes sense for specialization and squeezing productivity gains out (standardized tooling/platforms, bureacracy, layers of middle management to bring it all together). Product-centric makes sense for innovation, but its inefficient in the long-term (small teams, wide range of responsibility).
- varelse 11y agoSo unless you want your core talent to flee for startups and begin the cycle anew, one has to find a middle ground, no? The moonshots seem like a reasonable attempt to do so to me. But perhaps that because I'm 100% progress-driven. Process drives me nuts. It's great to have someone who can drive your progress through the channels of process, but I find that talent exceedingly rare. That said, my best work has happened the few times I've found that magic combo.
- trouser_chili 11y agoWhat a joke. Big Tech too powerful? How about the military industrial complex? Pharmaceutical companies? THE BANKS? THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ITSELF? No, those are all OK because they fit the agenda of total control. Technology is the only industry putting up a fight, the only industry that is solving problems for people instead of creating them. Can't have that.
- jMyles 11y agoDon't forget big ag, "major" media, and the private prisons / police unions. They're big players too, and the entirety of their influence isn't evident by their market caps. > only industry putting up a fight Firearms? Gun companies are starting to refuse to sell to police in states where ownership by other citizens is prohibited. And, predictably, we're suddenly in the middle of a "gun control" debate, despite firearms deaths and especially murders on a steady decline over decades.
- danenania 11y agoThis. Our society happily tolerates so many entrenched monopolies and cartels that are actively hostile to their customers and blatantly manipulate government to keep competitors out. The tech industry is the least of our worries.
- bsbechtel 11y agoWhile true, the main concern I have with tech companies becoming too powerful is their access and control of personal data. This becomes even more concerning when they're so big they have significant data on individuals who actively avoid their services.
- itstriz 11y agoIf you follow Reich, you'll see he shares your concern about military industrial complex, big pharma, and "too big too fail" banks.
- jazzyk 11y agoI agree. But I think you are missing the fact that all the big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc. went to the dark side a while ago. They have become big corps looking to squeeze proftis/blood out of a stone. So the article is really about the old guard having to contend with the newcomers.
- andyl 11y agoI believe that Big Media is too powerful - unfairly promotes the interests of the establishment at the expense of the middle class.
- sabrinaleblanc 11y agoThe monopoly concern is legitimate, especially if the accusations against Apple, Google and Amazon have validaty in them. I think the real issue at hand is the bullying that is taking place for new entrants. Google arm restling a new entrant is like a child trying to wrestle with a boxer. There should be better policies in place to prevent frivilous litigations from tech giants.
- cryptoz 11y agoOT, but important I think. It's interesting that the article title is > Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful but on HN it was changed into a question: > Is Big Tech Too Powerful?
- unfasten 11y agoTake a look at the URL slug: nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html It looks like they changed the headline on the website. The slug usually reflects the original headline and they don't want to change it later to keep links working. (I'm assuming this is the case here since I didn't personally see the original headline). News sites are much too fond playing with their headlines to drum up hits, and with New York Times in particular I can't help but think of this quote from one of their editors: I often hear from readers that they would prefer a straight, neutral treatment — just the facts. But The Times has moved away from that, reflecting editors’ reasonable belief that the basics can be found in many news outlets, every minute of the day. They want to provide “value-added” coverage. source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/sunday-review/did-reddit-boss-coverage-cross-a-line-ellen-pao.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/sunday-review/did-reddit-b...
- plonh 11y agoThat's awesome, the editors spitting in the face of their readers and the graves of their ancestors. It puts a clear point on what's wrong the Times, though: rich kid rambligs in a classic font.
- whatgoodisaroad 11y agoMaybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that the OSS Movement in general is a response to the problems that this article is enumerating. And yet, there's no mention of open source in the NY Times article. Perhaps a better-researched version of this article would merely lament that OSS hasn't been more successful than it has.
- RyanZAG 11y agoBig Tech is a total monster. But it's not the current Google, Apple, Amazon who are the monsters of Big Tech. It's the company being born today that will be the Big Tech of the future that will be the true monster. I'm not looking forward to it... EDIT: Or maybe I am. Is it better to live in a cage if the cage is nice enough? Who knows. Humanity possibly just hasn't developed a good enough cage yet.
- bernardlunn 11y agoThe regulators come just when natural forces are eroding a monopoly - Microsoft, then Google, next Apple.
- bernardlunn 11y agoThe regulators come just when natural forces are eroding a monopoly - Microsoft, then Google, next Apple.
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- thadd 11y agoI forget the context, but I saw someone (a writer for the National Review, I think) say this to someone: You must be one of those people that think that airplanes fly not because physicists and engineers found a way to propel steel through the air, but because the FAA allows them to. This reminds me of that.
- plonh 11y agoIt is fair to say that planes don't come crashing down much, because the FAA prohibits it. Private enterprise had a very low bar for safety, when left to its own devices.
- jasondrowley 11y agoTotally unrelated, but it's nice to find another J. Rowley out there!
- Xorlev 11y agoApple rolls out ad blocking because modern ads are hugely invasive and slow down the experience. Those most impacted by this proclaim that big tech is too powerful. Throw in Google to skirt the thrust of the issue. Color me unimpressed by the Times' "value-added" coverage.
- gozo 11y agoIf there's anything I take away from this discussion, it is that I miss the days when technology was about technology and people where skeptical about big corporations rather than having some weird personal relationship with them. Things have overall gotten better and better for people that want to create rather than consume, but I'm not sure it's going to last. It's weird to me that people put forward disruption as something prevalent in the industry, but they assume everything will somehow magically only get better.
- Zigurd 11y ago"Big Tech" should told Big Media to piss off when content protection was first introduced. Then we'd have smaller attack surfaces and better business models.
- 11thEarlOfMar 11y agoThis is backwards. More of humanity is empowered to go into business and compete today than ever in history. There are forces that level the playing field: Open source; Utility-Grade Internet services (where Google and Amazon compete head-to-head); cheap, ubiquitous connected computers; billions of Internet-connected customers... It has never been easier for a couple of people to build and launch an app or online business and sell to the entire planet. If you consider anyone who has done this a 'business' I am skeptical that there are in fact fewer businesses being created.
- tsotha 11y ago>Contrary to the conventional view of an American economy bubbling with innovative small companies, the reality is quite different. The rate at which new businesses have formed in the United States has slowed markedly since the late 1970s. Big Tech’s sweeping patents, standard platforms, fleets of lawyers to litigate against potential rivals and armies of lobbyists have created formidable barriers to new entrants. Eh... nice try on that stolen base. The internet, which is what drives "big tech", wasn't really an economic force until the mid '90s. If business formation has slowed since the '70s it's more likely to be a result of rise of the regulatory state. You can't do anything without a permit any more, something that wasn't true in 1970.