3 ms·

> Is it anything unusual for any other industry? Isn't that a big problem? Monopolies and oligopolies are crippling capitalism. The "too big to fail" conglomer

by kartan 9y ago

> Is it anything unusual for any other industry? Isn't that a big problem? Monopolies and oligopolies are crippling capitalism. The "too big to fail" conglomerates become just a part of the political system instead of the economic one. With the media industry, it gets worse, as it has an important role in keeping the democratic and economic powers in check. > No doubt the voices behind such "X mega-corps control Y" are in fact just advocating for legislation changes to mandate that they get a seat at the table. Is not that fair? Shouldn't all parts of society be represented in the industry that consolidates the cultural values of a nation? Why should only economic power have representation in the media? It is one person one vote, not one dollar one vote.

_red 9y ago
>Is not that fair? Shouldn't all parts of society be represented in the industry that consolidates the cultural values of a nation? Why should only economic power have representation in the media? It is one person one vote, not one dollar one vote. Your dollar is your vote. You choose what industries you support by where you spend your dollars (or cast your eyes in this case). You have the ability to hurt these corporate boogey-men by simply not giving them money / attention. You already have this power, you don't need a politician to give it to you. Use it.
- retr0grad3 9y ago
  The 'vote with your dollars' premise is flawed; the very nature of monopoly is to erode choice by consolidating market position and using influence (government, market) to maintain position which tends to mean creating barriers for more choice / new players to enter the market.
adventured 9y ago
> Monopolies and oligopolies are crippling capitalism. There's nothing happening now that is new. That has been repeating for 150 years post the Civil War industrial boom in the US. There are few examples of new, high competition industries not consolidating down to several big companies that stand above the rest. Retail? Mom & Pop shops -> Walmart, Target, Sears, Amazon, BestBuy, Kroger, Costco, CVS, Walgreens, etc. Software? Little companies circa 1970s, 1980s -> Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, etc Search engines? Lycos, Hotbot, AltaVista, Yahoo, Excite, MSN, Inktomi, GoTo, etc. -> Google Steel? Dozens of steel makers -> US Steel Oil? Dozens of refiners -> Standard Oil Automobiles? Hundreds of car makers -> Ford & GM Thousands of radio stations -> SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon Hundreds of auction companies -> eBay A thousand newspaper classified ad sections -> Craigslist A thousand computer makers -> Dell, HP, Gateway, IBM, Apple, etc These are all the same conceptual scenario playing out. That process is not in fact a bad thing. The only bad thing is if you allow the enlarged companies / winners (ie the companies with superior products/service/price/combination), to then prevent new competition through regulation (or direct violence). If you do that, then you get obnoxious airlines, or companies like Comcast, or crap automobiles such as what GM and Ford were producing for a few decades until a wave of foreign competition arrived (GM and Ford being prime examples of utilizing government to aggressive prevent competition). There's no scenario where even bad Capitalism (usually a combination of abusive government and abusive companies conspiring) doesn't kill itself. US Steel for example was killed by potent, nimble, cheaper foreign competition. GM and Ford had to figure out how to make higher quality cars again, as Toyota (and others) stole a huge amount of their market. I can't think of even a few examples where such consolidation has occurred, resulting in a horrible dominant product/company, in which the government hasn't played a primary role in ensuring said company's survival via regulatory protection. External to that, the market topples the eventual winners time and time again. Kodak was a monster in photo/camera, now where are they? Sears, toast. US Steel, toast. Pennsylvania Railroad? Doesn't exist. Pan-am? Doesn't exist. Standard Oil? A bit player, split into pieces, in a far larger global oil market. Microsoft? The Windows empire has been largely neutralized by Apple, Android, Linux in general, etc. Intel? The ARM army has put them in a box. Cisco? They're being made increasingly irrelevant by innovations such as those by Facebook in the datacenter, software is eating their pricey hardware. IBM? Who? Xerox? Irrelevant, largely toppled by Japanese competition. Alcoa? Smashed by China etc. Ford and GM? A dozen big foreign competitors took half their market.

by kartan 9y ago

_red 9y ago

>Is not that fair? Shouldn't all parts of society be represented in the industry that consolidates the cultural values of a nation? Why should only economic power have representation in the media? It is one person one vote, not one dollar one vote. Your dollar is your vote. You choose what industries you support by where you spend your dollars (or cast your eyes in this case). You have the ability to hurt these corporate boogey-men by simply not giving them money / attention. You already have this power, you don't need a politician to give it to you. Use it.

retr0grad3 9y ago
The 'vote with your dollars' premise is flawed; the very nature of monopoly is to erode choice by consolidating market position and using influence (government, market) to maintain position which tends to mean creating barriers for more choice / new players to enter the market.

adventured 9y ago

> Monopolies and oligopolies are crippling capitalism. There's nothing happening now that is new. That has been repeating for 150 years post the Civil War industrial boom in the US. There are few examples of new, high competition industries not consolidating down to several big companies that stand above the rest. Retail? Mom & Pop shops -> Walmart, Target, Sears, Amazon, BestBuy, Kroger, Costco, CVS, Walgreens, etc. Software? Little companies circa 1970s, 1980s -> Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, etc Search engines? Lycos, Hotbot, AltaVista, Yahoo, Excite, MSN, Inktomi, GoTo, etc. -> Google Steel? Dozens of steel makers -> US Steel Oil? Dozens of refiners -> Standard Oil Automobiles? Hundreds of car makers -> Ford & GM Thousands of radio stations -> SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon Hundreds of auction companies -> eBay A thousand newspaper classified ad sections -> Craigslist A thousand computer makers -> Dell, HP, Gateway, IBM, Apple, etc These are all the same conceptual scenario playing out. That process is not in fact a bad thing. The only bad thing is if you allow the enlarged companies / winners (ie the companies with superior products/service/price/combination), to then prevent new competition through regulation (or direct violence). If you do that, then you get obnoxious airlines, or companies like Comcast, or crap automobiles such as what GM and Ford were producing for a few decades until a wave of foreign competition arrived (GM and Ford being prime examples of utilizing government to aggressive prevent competition). There's no scenario where even bad Capitalism (usually a combination of abusive government and abusive companies conspiring) doesn't kill itself. US Steel for example was killed by potent, nimble, cheaper foreign competition. GM and Ford had to figure out how to make higher quality cars again, as Toyota (and others) stole a huge amount of their market. I can't think of even a few examples where such consolidation has occurred, resulting in a horrible dominant product/company, in which the government hasn't played a primary role in ensuring said company's survival via regulatory protection. External to that, the market topples the eventual winners time and time again. Kodak was a monster in photo/camera, now where are they? Sears, toast. US Steel, toast. Pennsylvania Railroad? Doesn't exist. Pan-am? Doesn't exist. Standard Oil? A bit player, split into pieces, in a far larger global oil market. Microsoft? The Windows empire has been largely neutralized by Apple, Android, Linux in general, etc. Intel? The ARM army has put them in a box. Cisco? They're being made increasingly irrelevant by innovations such as those by Facebook in the datacenter, software is eating their pricey hardware. IBM? Who? Xerox? Irrelevant, largely toppled by Japanese competition. Alcoa? Smashed by China etc. Ford and GM? A dozen big foreign competitors took half their market.