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I don't think you can consider 5 companies to be an oligopoly especially when you don't see monopolistic practices. These companies regularly undercut each othe

I don't think you can consider 5 companies to be an oligopoly especially when you don't see monopolistic practices. These companies regularly undercut each other and innovate.

tabeth 10y ago
I find this kind of learned helplessness to be fascinating. Do you think big companies need apologists? Do you think there would be more or less innovation with more smaller firms?
- cylinder 10y ago
  Reminds me of when people were fine with erosion of civil liberties, expansion of surveillance, etc, under Obama because they trusted him and thought he was decent, and that they could probably trust future Presidents with that power too. Here, they find the current crop of leaders at these companies decent enough, not realizing their control and leadership will change over time.
- friedman23 10y ago
  Helplessness? Apologist? I don't consider Google/Facebook/etc my enemy like you seem to. These companies are not exploiting me, I have no reason to be hostile to them (profit is not exploitation). > Do you think there would be more or less innovation with more smaller firms? Likely less, I do not think that private space exploration or self driving cars would be possible without the massive accumulation of capital enabled by tech giants. Now let's look at the counterfactual, the US has massive tech giants and the majority innovation comes from or to the US. Other countries don't, other countries don't have nearly as much innovation bar a few exceptions. And truthfully, I find people that are anti capitalism to be far more interesting. It's amazing that people can convince themselves that private ownership is wrong while living in the most prosperous time in history and also believing that stripping those better off of their wealth will somehow lead to a more prosperous society when every time it has been done it has lead to disaster.
  - Method-X 10y ago
    Great post. You would really like Peter Thiel (read Zero To One).
  - majewsky 10y ago
    > I do not think that [...] self driving cars would be possible without the massive accumulation of capital enabled by tech giants Yet people are building self-driving cars as a hobby project. Sure, the whole topic would not progress that fast, but that statement is a bit overblown. (Same for private space exploration to a much more limited extent.)
    - taneq 10y ago
      People are building toy systems that work in limited scenarios, not putting in the hard engineering work to build robust, generally applicable systems. (Unless there's some significant hobbyist self-driving system I don't know about? The closest thing I can think of was comma.ai and that was barely at the "won't drive off a fairly straight highway, probably" stage.)
      - tomhoward 10y ago
        People are building toy systems that work in limited scenarios, not putting in the hard engineering work to build robust, generally applicable systems Also, they're building these systems using tech that has been developed and open-sourced by the big players.
  - sharemywin 10y ago
    It's funny you make it sound sound like Darpa had no part in self driving cars. or that the government space program didn't set the standard and the foundation for private space exploration. Yes Capitalism and Liberal Democracy is the most powerful system man has ever created. Hopefully we don't screw it up by giving all the credit to the guy handing you the apple from the orchard we call the "western world" Football is an awesome game but without the guys in the black and white uniforms it would be nothing but chaos.
aaron-lebo 10y ago
Except when they collude: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... and collude: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/07/apple-450-million-settlement-e-book-price-fixing-supreme-court https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/07/apple-450... ...and collude: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6590827/apple-music-major-labels-investigated-collusion http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6590827/apple-music-m...
- friedman23 10y ago
  Yes, and it's illegal. Having a monopoly isn't illegal. Anyway, your statement is completely unrelated to the subject of whether these companies would be innovating more if the market was less consolidated and I don't believe so.
  - aaron-lebo 10y ago
    Some kinds of monopoly are illegal. That first case was an antitrust case which has some connection to anti-monopoly, yeah? Those companies have had a decade at the top with all the money and talent in the world. Has tech gotten that much better since 2007? Has Apple's hardware gotten better relative to the competition? Has your web experience gotten remarkably better? Do we prefer Allo or Hangouts or x, y, or z to Google Talk? With the clout they have you have to innovate some and they certainly have. The question is whether they have innovated substantially. It doesn't seem like it.
    - friedman23 10y ago
      > Has tech gotten that much better since 2007? Yes > Apple's hardware gotten better relative to the competition? "Relative", explain why you put that qualifier please beyond not having an argument. Also yes. > Has your web experience gotten remarkably better? Yes > Do we prefer Allo or Hangouts or x, y, or z to Google Talk? Hangouts, what's your point here? You really don't remember what tech was like 10 years ago.

I don't think you can consider 5 companies to be an oligopoly especially when you don't see monopolistic practices. These companies regularly undercut each other and innovate.

tabeth 10y ago

I find this kind of learned helplessness to be fascinating. Do you think big companies need apologists? Do you think there would be more or less innovation with more smaller firms?

cylinder 10y ago
Reminds me of when people were fine with erosion of civil liberties, expansion of surveillance, etc, under Obama because they trusted him and thought he was decent, and that they could probably trust future Presidents with that power too. Here, they find the current crop of leaders at these companies decent enough, not realizing their control and leadership will change over time.
friedman23 10y ago
Helplessness? Apologist? I don't consider Google/Facebook/etc my enemy like you seem to. These companies are not exploiting me, I have no reason to be hostile to them (profit is not exploitation). > Do you think there would be more or less innovation with more smaller firms? Likely less, I do not think that private space exploration or self driving cars would be possible without the massive accumulation of capital enabled by tech giants. Now let's look at the counterfactual, the US has massive tech giants and the majority innovation comes from or to the US. Other countries don't, other countries don't have nearly as much innovation bar a few exceptions. And truthfully, I find people that are anti capitalism to be far more interesting. It's amazing that people can convince themselves that private ownership is wrong while living in the most prosperous time in history and also believing that stripping those better off of their wealth will somehow lead to a more prosperous society when every time it has been done it has lead to disaster.
- Method-X 10y ago
  Great post. You would really like Peter Thiel (read Zero To One).
- majewsky 10y ago
  > I do not think that [...] self driving cars would be possible without the massive accumulation of capital enabled by tech giants Yet people are building self-driving cars as a hobby project. Sure, the whole topic would not progress that fast, but that statement is a bit overblown. (Same for private space exploration to a much more limited extent.)
  - taneq 10y ago
    People are building toy systems that work in limited scenarios, not putting in the hard engineering work to build robust, generally applicable systems. (Unless there's some significant hobbyist self-driving system I don't know about? The closest thing I can think of was comma.ai and that was barely at the "won't drive off a fairly straight highway, probably" stage.)
    - tomhoward 10y ago
      People are building toy systems that work in limited scenarios, not putting in the hard engineering work to build robust, generally applicable systems Also, they're building these systems using tech that has been developed and open-sourced by the big players.
- sharemywin 10y ago
  It's funny you make it sound sound like Darpa had no part in self driving cars. or that the government space program didn't set the standard and the foundation for private space exploration. Yes Capitalism and Liberal Democracy is the most powerful system man has ever created. Hopefully we don't screw it up by giving all the credit to the guy handing you the apple from the orchard we call the "western world" Football is an awesome game but without the guys in the black and white uniforms it would be nothing but chaos.

aaron-lebo 10y ago

Except when they collude: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo... and collude: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/07/apple-450-million-settlement-e-book-price-fixing-supreme-court https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/07/apple-450... ...and collude: http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6590827/apple-music-major-labels-investigated-collusion http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6590827/apple-music-m...

friedman23 10y ago
Yes, and it's illegal. Having a monopoly isn't illegal. Anyway, your statement is completely unrelated to the subject of whether these companies would be innovating more if the market was less consolidated and I don't believe so.
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Some kinds of monopoly are illegal. That first case was an antitrust case which has some connection to anti-monopoly, yeah? Those companies have had a decade at the top with all the money and talent in the world. Has tech gotten that much better since 2007? Has Apple's hardware gotten better relative to the competition? Has your web experience gotten remarkably better? Do we prefer Allo or Hangouts or x, y, or z to Google Talk? With the clout they have you have to innovate some and they certainly have. The question is whether they have innovated substantially. It doesn't seem like it.
  - friedman23 10y ago
    > Has tech gotten that much better since 2007? Yes > Apple's hardware gotten better relative to the competition? "Relative", explain why you put that qualifier please beyond not having an argument. Also yes. > Has your web experience gotten remarkably better? Yes > Do we prefer Allo or Hangouts or x, y, or z to Google Talk? Hangouts, what's your point here? You really don't remember what tech was like 10 years ago.