13 ms·

The bad new politics of big tech

169 points by bhouston 9y ago

scrumper 9y ago
Article brings up an interesting angle on Mark Zuckerberg's baby kissing tour. I just had it down, like most people I think, as a sort of warm up for a political career. But it does make a lot of sense as a defensive move, an image repair exercise. To some degree it doesn't matter what it was; the establishment will see it as that and act all the more aggressively as a result.
- bbctol 9y ago
  I thought this tweet was interesting: https://twitter.com/libbycwatson/status/857943302599053314 https://twitter.com/libbycwatson/status/857943302599053314 It sure looks like a political campaign, but maybe the more connected things get, the more political everything becomes, and the more everything turns into campaigning.
- jack6e 9y ago
  I think the two views of his tour are inextricably linked. Protecting Facebook's image protects Zuckerberg's image, because, as the author says, "Zuckerberg is Facebook, and his image is his company’s." Regardless of whether he runs, Facebook needs good PR to stay popular and profitable. But if he does run, Zuckerberg will need Facebook to be popular, and him by extension, to have a chance. To most of the population, Zuckerberg is still just a kid in a hoodie and his only relevance is that he heads up the dominant social media platform of the moment, so his political hopes hinge on keeping that platform dominant. No one is talking about Tom Anderson running for president.
- dpeterson 9y ago
  If Zuckerberg ran for office he would have to let people know what his politics are and run as GOP, Democrat, Libertarian, etc. That would immediately alienate huge swaths of the population, not just of the U.S., but the world. It wouldn't matter what party he chose. I doubt he would open Facebook up to that kind of scrutiny.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
italophil 9y ago
'Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders both want big tech treated as, in Bannon’s words in Hong Kong this week, “public utilities.”' This is bizarre to me. Especially considering that ISP are not considered "public utilities" and net neutrality might be revoked.
- ufmace 9y ago
  That's about the stage this kind of stuff is at. Nothing's firm enough for any action to actually happen... yet. But it's interesting that there are significant forces on both the Left and Right starting to call for this. Don't expect any concrete, coherent policy proposals yet, this is just a sign that this is more likely to happen in the future. Do expect wild proclamations and contradictory, nonsensical policies proposed. That's the seeds from which new political movements are born and their platforms are built from.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
  I think part of this is because the ISPs actions are seen as purely done for businesses reasons not ideologies/censorship reasons. I think the net neutrality fight with regard to ISPs so far is mainly viewed as big companies fighting each other with regard to who pays whom what. The action of some of these other companies is seen as censorship.
- maxsilver 9y ago
  > Especially considering that ISP are not considered "public utilities" Depends on who you ask. The people who think parts of big tech should be treated as public utilities typically also believe ISPs should already be considered utility companies, and typically support net neutrality (or whatever they believe net neutrality to be, anyway).
- s17n 9y ago
  ISP's are heavily (though not always effectively) regulated.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
zebrafish 9y ago
I do not like the idea of "public utilities." However, I also don't like the size of the current players. The market works best when anti-trust has power. I love the products that some of these companies make. However, I believe that people should always have a realistic choice. The power should be with the individual. Because of the value of data & information today, I think that anti-trust should be applied horizontally in addition to its traditional vertical use cases. I get that horizontal integration reduces a lot of friction but at this point it feels like I have to pick a team.
- quadrangle 9y ago
  How about acknowledging that public-utilities are, in principle, a fine idea? In practice, public utilities and the messiness of democracy (especially at large scale) can lead to all sorts of potential corruption and inefficiencies (though not strictly necessarily). Choice is far from a value to prioritize in and of itself. It's a check on power that monopolies and oligopolies have. Choice may be important, but not for its own inherent value necessarily. When you say, "the power should be with the individual", taken to the extreme, that's an anti-organization view; anti-corporate, anti-government, anti-union, etc. and while there's solid philosophy around it, the fact is that coordination of individuals in the form of organized groups are so much more powerful than individuals. The individual right of association automatically leads to situations of power in the associated groups themselves. In other words, individual power is fundamentally unstable in social contexts. Tyranny of structurelessness etc. What we're really dealing with in our market today is a supply-side power imbalance. The supply side is all organized into companies and trade groups, and they have tons of power. The demand side is divided into individuals in many cases, and that in itself makes them dramatically less powerful. What we need is more demand side power in the balance. If there's any way to get that without totally overwhelming the important individual freedoms, it's worth doing. There's no way to get what the supply side offers at all if we broke the supply side all the way down to individuals and blocked them from even forming companies at all. And the only way to actually balance company power on the demand side is to have some associations / teams etc. so that the demand side is similarly organized. Sure, that brings up potential risks to individual autonomy, but we just have to constantly adapt to keep a balance.
- 9y ago
ufmace 9y ago
> This isn’t to say that the end is near for these new giants — or even for Uber, whose business is, it says, still growing. Just that the golden age is over. The new era for them will be normal politics, normal regulation, with California senators deep in their pockets who fight for them as hard as Texans fight for oil, but with a deep bipartisan current flowing against them. What might happen if there's a strong bipartisan movement to regulate the new tech world?
- QAPereo 9y ago
  It will be regulated in that case... congress has very broad powers in this arena when they choose to exercise them.
- tomjen3 9y ago
  I don't buy the idea that they can't starve this of with money - what are the politicians going to do when images of their extra marital affairs ends up on every billboard in their districts? Images that were taken by private detectives and paid for by google and the other tech companies? Sure they might play the game like everybody else do, and just bribe the congress people. That would be stupid, but they can outspend most companies because they make so much money.
  - throwaway2048 9y ago
    If you think publicly threatening officials with information you are purloining off their accounts is going to end well for you...
- Stranger43 9y ago
  What have happened to other highly technical industries. A short list of regulations that might happen: Mandatory compliance with technical interoperability standards ie no proprietary facebook messenger or whatsapp protocols. Mandatory public 3rd party post incident reviews for security incidents or major bugs/outages on the template of the NTSB. Strictly enforced free-market regulation prohibiting exclusivity deals between tech companies and retail/content/service providers. A complete ban on default-on cross site tracking.(likely coming to Europe as a part of the cookie directory review the industry asked for) Heavy restrictions on what you can do in terms of using/selling the results of analysing user data.(partially already in effect across Europe)
guelo 9y ago
As a leftist I'm inclined to be pro-antitrust but Steve Bannon's interest has me reconsidering. Bannon is a powerful propagandist who uses deception and fraud. Since the government has given up on all responsibility to police political campaigns Bannon rightly sees tech companies as some of the last power centers that can slow down the spread of misinformation.
- mnglkhn2 9y ago
  > Bannon is a powerful propagandist who uses deception and fraud. Care to put some more meat on this statement? Do you think Bannon forced Charlie Rose to interview him? Or that he forced which questions to be asked? Out of curiosity, which points from Bannon's recent 60 Minutes sit-down, in your view, where inappropriate? Otherwise, please allow me to say that your statement is too broad and lacks enough specificity to make sense.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    >Do you think Bannon forced Charlie Rose to interview him Those two really went at it. Whenever the topic turned to the media Charlie's (conscious or otherwise) bias was so glaringly obvious. It was like watching a debate between the president of a police union and and a the director of an inner city drug treatment program or an oil company exec and a university professor who researches climate change. Neither side could comprehend that their biases reinforced by the people they surround themselves with throughout their careers causes them to greatly over-estimate the validity of their side of the issue. It was some damn good TV.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Bannon existed long before those interviews happened. He has a long history.
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  > Since the government has given up on all responsibility to police political campaigns I believe that's known as freedom of assembly. I'm not going to address some of your bizarre points involving your dislike of Steve Bannon.
pascalxus 9y ago
The real villians are the ISPs: Comcast and At&t. This is what we should be going after. They spend billions to corrupt politicians and prevent competition. And use government to set up legislation that prevents competition.
- basch 9y ago
  The ISPs are more traditional monopolies. However, our frameworks for evaluating what is too big need to evolve to handle things that traditionally were viewed as acceptable. http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
- ShabbosGoy 9y ago
  "Villain" as a word evokes the image of a silent film tycoon malevolently twirling their moustache over bags of money. Rational might be the word you're after. AT&T and Comcast are acting as corporations to maximize shareholder returns. But it is true that money often corrupts. A completely unregulated market leads to negative externalities that the taxpayer is ultimately responsible for. A completely regulated market stifles innovation and kills growth. I'm not sure if regulation is a viable option at this point, mainly due to the sheer incompetence of regulatory bodies and government bureaucrats.
  - pascalxus 9y ago
    It's true, they're just fulfilling their duties to shareholders. But, when corporations start using the government to stifle competition: this is a line that should not be crossed and deserves precisely the reaction that this article has mentioned. Google and Facebook have not crossed this line, at least not yet. They're actions are rational, only if they succeed. If there's enough political reaction that results in the breaking up of these monopolies, it may not be so rational afterall.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      Like in my neighborhood where Spectrum and AT&T are the only choices, w/ Spectrum being majority. I called to see if they had any packages cheaper than what I was grandfathered in under after the Time Warner merger. They said no, Spectrum has set the floor at $60/mo for 100 Mps and did away with Time Warner's cheaper tiers.
toss1 9y ago
The smart ones will start building significant large offices and headquarters outside of SV & Seattle. Amazon is already starting to location-shop for a second headquarters. They'll need to get more senators on their side than just the 4 from CA and WA.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
As I see it, the Yelp comment in the video is not wrong, Google needs to find ways to increase the monetization to compensate for falling CPCs. They do that by putting more and more sponsored content on the first page and pushing people to their own sites as much as they can. One of the things I find interesting are the 'one boxes'. These are insets in the search page which has extracted what Google thinks is the answer you are looking for, from some other web page. If they guess right, they get a non-obvious benefit, you don't click over to a non-google page that has ads on it. If those ads are from some other supplier, its a big win for Google, if they are from Google they now have to share revenue with the site owner. We know that 'facts' are not copyrightable and "fair use" doctrine allows for some limited copying to identify context, which means it is unclear if you can even stop them from doing this to your pages. Some subtle, some not so subtle, but when the choice is to start using your monopoly power to shore up the bottom line, or not. I have never seen a company that hasn't started taking "just a few" shots from that trough. The challenge, and I don't know if it will damage Google or not, is that path can lead to some really egregious behaviors. And big companies, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Proctor and Gamble, who have gone before have always paid a higher price for taking that road than the benefit they received.
- yellow_postit 9y ago
  Those boxes also seem to map to the answers given from google assistant
- MarkMc 9y ago
  Well if I search "height eiffel tower" on Google I see the 'one box' but I don't see any ads. At least in this case Google seems to be placing user experience over (short term) bottom line.
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    Good example. You won't click the top organic link (Wikipedia) because the answer is right there, and you'll miss the pop down banner ad from Wikipedia where they are asking for donations. Just below it, you see a bunch of questions related to the Eiffel tower that generally jump to ad filled pages, but only pages where the ads come from Google. And on the right you'll see a link to Google maps for the Eiffel tower where, if you click on the map link, you can find places that advertise on Google where you can eat or visit and some reviews of them, if you click on the Eiffel tower link you'll go to a web site that sets up tours. (and pays Google to be there) What you won't see are any Yelp recommendations or links for the Eiffel tour (you would if you searched 'height eiffel tower yelp' and got https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-tour-eiffel-paris-4 https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-tour-eiffel-paris-4 as the first link). Google has effectively wrapped your 'factoid' type search with pretty much any sort of commercial intent query you might have, around their content, so that if you were a restaurant you would much rather have a lot of Google reviews because you would rank higher in that map link, and if you were a tour operator you would want to bid on the link under the 'keyword'. And if you were a content site you would want to have your links up at the top of the page under likely queries you may not have thought of yet, but once you read them you go "There are two? Really? Lets check that out." Having operated a web search engine and seeing all the ways the product guys and gals could, and did, "tweak" things I look at that sort of page much more critically than the typical user.
danblick 9y ago
For those interested in this topic I might recommend Tim Wu's books "The Master Switch" or "The Attention Merchants". "The Master Switch" in particular is about the history of communications industries in the US and how the organization of those industries affected free speech. (Of particular interest: Bell had a government-supported monopoly for about 70 years, in part because people thought of monopoly differently in 1900 than in 1970.) I read that Tim is also responsible for coining the term "net neutrality".
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  He also wrote this article which helped me put a finger on the difference between "monopoly" and "concentration." https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-oligopoly-problem https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-oligopoly-proble...
duderific 9y ago
I dunno, this makes for an interesting article, and clicks for Buzzfeed, but the reality is that unless the money is gotten out of politics at a large scale, money and lobbyists will continue to largely direct what happens in Washington. This is the same for the tech industry as any other large sectors of the economy. Additionally, with the current administration, they are looking to deregulate much more so than go the other direction. The only thing that could get the wind blowing the other way would be some kind of large scale scandal at Google/Facebook etc. that would make big headlines. But probably Congress would make some noise and nothing substantial in terms of policy or law would come of it.
Glyptodon 9y ago
I think the intractable problem is that it does very much make sense to have a unified marketplace for everything, but that it is also very much not ideal for it to be run by either a private for-profit monopoly or the government for different reasons. I think the same is true of a basket full of internet-based services. For example, I'm completely convinced that if Facebook is declared a Monopoly and taken apart it would only pave the way for a successor to become the new "Facebook Replacement"/"Monopoly." I think the same thing is roughly true for parts of Amazon. And of Google.
- larkeith 9y ago
  Something like Openbazaar or another P2P market might be the solution, if it gets large enough to eclipse other marketplaces. Whether Openbazaar itself has that potential I couldn't say, as I haven't yet used it.
- pc2g4d 9y ago
  Peer to peer commerce could take over???
- slimshady94 9y ago
  This is where the blockchain - a decentralized trustless database - comes in. The new Facebook will be an open protocol no one controls and everyone benefits from.
squozzer 9y ago
It's an apt metaphor, comparing politics to a shark (or pirahna) feeding frenzy. And while we congratulate ourselves for finally coming to our senses about "the SV", I offer the following counterpoint -- when people who normally disagree with each other are in sync on a topic, it's either an issue of mortal danger or a tawdry bit of extortion. And by my reckoning, the Four Horsemen aren't The Axis Powers or even The Axis of Evil. Which leaves extortion. To steal a meme: Gee, nice company you have there. It would be a shame if someone regulated it. BTW, I'm up for re-election.
Animats 9y ago
Eric Schmidt demanding the firing of antitrust researchers at the New America Foundation may go down in history as one of the worst decisions ever by a corporate officer. Nobody was paying much attention to antitrust papers from there. Now both Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon want Schmidt's head, and antitrust is coming back. The last time there was an unregulated industry with network effects this strong was when railroads had enormous power and used it to force high rates and favor companies they owned. This generated strong political opposition from businesses that needed to ship goods by rail, which was most businesses. Railroads were forced to become common carriers. Something like that might happen in network infrastructure.
- ScottBurson 9y ago
  Yes, the Streisand effect is alive and well.
- tiggybear 9y ago
  I mean Googlers tend to be highly socially conscious, independent-thinking, and financially secure employees, right? Seems like a perfect company to test some new tech collective bargaining attempts. What happens if 80% of googlers organize through an app, stand up and say we are all walking out the door if we don't start acting more socially responsible through A, B, and C initiatives. So many of them were ready to quit over a coworker with differing opinions, I would think many more would be willing to quit over a company having evil actions. After all, actions > opinions.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    I don't know if employees care enough to risk leaving a high-paying job with great benefits, even if they agree in principle. I empathize with the employees it's not like they have any control over Google's lobbying strategies any more than other large companies.
  - guelo 9y ago
AnthonyMouse 9y ago
There have traditionally been two types of monopoly, exemplified by Standard Oil and AT&T. Standard Oil came about through mergers. This is the one where antitrust fits -- you break them up, problem solved. AT&T is a natural monopoly. Breaking them up doesn't fix it; the last mile has to be treated as a public utility because a local monopoly is still a monopoly and it's not practical to build fifteen independent last mile networks everywhere. But Facebook, despite being a monopoly or nearly so, isn't either of these. It makes no sense to speak of breaking Facebook up -- what does that even look like? Each if the Baby Books gets 1/20th of the users? But it's also not a natural monopoly because what makes Facebook a monopoly is a lack of interoperability. If "Facebook" was a federated system where anyone can set up their own social networking server and still communicate with anyone else on any provider, there would be no monopoly. Some people would use Google and some people would use Microsoft and some people would have their own server in their basement and they could all still talk to each other. Social networking is not a natural monopoly any more than email is -- unless you allow the largest player to refuse interoperability with competitors.
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  I agree Facebook isn't a great example of a monopoly. But consider Google. As it stands google is very much a monopoly in the sense that Microsoft was. The power google has to do good/bad is tremendous. Consider your reliance on google: - search - email - maps/navigation - youtube, news, your browser - possibly your phone OS, contacts, calendar Google hasn't really done anything too overtly Orwellian (e.g. only promoting news that shows it in a good light). It even hasn't been too restrictive on interoperability (but neither was Microsoft, it just came pre-installed with IE). So I suppose the question becomes "Should power be broken up preemptively?" Or, perhaps politicians are rightly scared as they understand that they are losing political control to a technological system (they don't control) that increasingly has the power to shift public opinion (now that TV is dead).
  - foolinaround 9y ago
    > Google hasn't really done anything too overtly Orwellian (e.g. only promoting news that shows it in a good light). Well, they already are... https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/09/11/report-google-bias-against-leading-conservative-websites-is-real/ https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/09/11/report-google-bias-...
robg 9y ago
Can someone explain to me how any of these companies could ever be considered monopolies? Competitive products are available at the same or lower costs and widely so.
- face_mcgace 9y ago
  Let's say I own a railroad and you own a soap company. For years to get your product to consumers you pay me money and I transport it to stores to be sold. Now, I see how lucrative your soap company is, so I decide to get into the soap making business. However, I raise prices on how much it costs to ship your soap while lowering my prices. I also ship all my soap first, cause delays in shipping your soap, etc. People can buy my lower quality soap cheaper and stores make bigger profits so I ship continually more soap than you. Keep in mind your soap is what consumers want but they can't access it anymore (since stores stock less / supply is always limited / etc) so they have to by my lower quality soap. Now replace "railroad" with "search engine" and "soap company" with "reviews" and you have the same situation with Google vs. Yelp or Google Shopping or Google Maps. Essentially you're just stifling competition at this point and preventing the market from choosing products.
  - tomjen3 9y ago
    In that scenario would your railroad company not make even more money but just charging higher freight rates?
jondubois 9y ago
Yes. These big tech companies have to be nationalized. I hate what they've done to society.
gbacon 9y ago
When companies fall short in the marketplace, they seek to outmaneuver their competitors in courtrooms and legislative lobbies.
djyaz1200 9y ago
Why is anyone surprised these big tech companies become monopolies? They are explicitly granted that power through patents. Amazon and Google have been granted long monopolies by key patents they hold for things like one click buying and bidding on search results respectively. 17 years is too long for a patent in tech IMO. Something more like 6/7 years seems more appropriate. The patent office (run until recently by a Google alum) basically stopped issuing new meaningful software patents. The judicial system makes it very expensive to enforce patents and the media has labeled rights holders trolls (in fairness some are bad actors). The aggregate of these forces... making patents last too long, making them expensive/difficult to enforce and rarely issuing defensible/valuable new IP is DRAMATICALLY favoring the interests of big tech giants. Therefore, a key step in limiting monopoly power is thoughtful patent reform. Let small startups secure IP faster/easier and defend it without labeling them trolls. Make patents expire faster so companies can have a head start but not own a market for nearly a generation. Those changes would provide a steady stream of new challengers the opportunity regularly try to come "kill the kings". That's how to limit the otherwise inevitable aggregation of money/power that comes with entrenched/unchallenged success.
- talmand 9y ago
  To me it's not the length of the patents, but the granting of patents that shouldn't have been done in the first place. Like the countless patents that follow the "take Patent A and add 'with computer' on it to create Patent B" formula.
  - djyaz1200 9y ago
    It's not binary. There are some questionable patents out there for sure, but that doesn't mean that innovators shouldn't be able to get reasonable patents to incentivize risk taking. It's a complicated problem.
    - talmand 9y ago
      I see a difference between reasonable and obvious.
darepublic 9y ago
Too many nods to Yelp in this article

169 points by bhouston 9y ago

Article brings up an interesting angle on Mark Zuckerberg's baby kissing tour. I just had it down, like most people I think, as a sort of warm up for a political career. But it does make a lot of sense as a defensive move, an image repair exercise. To some degree it doesn't matter what it was; the establishment will see it as that and act all the more aggressively as a result.

bbctol 9y ago
I thought this tweet was interesting: https://twitter.com/libbycwatson/status/857943302599053314 https://twitter.com/libbycwatson/status/857943302599053314 It sure looks like a political campaign, but maybe the more connected things get, the more political everything becomes, and the more everything turns into campaigning.
jack6e 9y ago
I think the two views of his tour are inextricably linked. Protecting Facebook's image protects Zuckerberg's image, because, as the author says, "Zuckerberg is Facebook, and his image is his company’s." Regardless of whether he runs, Facebook needs good PR to stay popular and profitable. But if he does run, Zuckerberg will need Facebook to be popular, and him by extension, to have a chance. To most of the population, Zuckerberg is still just a kid in a hoodie and his only relevance is that he heads up the dominant social media platform of the moment, so his political hopes hinge on keeping that platform dominant. No one is talking about Tom Anderson running for president.
dpeterson 9y ago
If Zuckerberg ran for office he would have to let people know what his politics are and run as GOP, Democrat, Libertarian, etc. That would immediately alienate huge swaths of the population, not just of the U.S., but the world. It wouldn't matter what party he chose. I doubt he would open Facebook up to that kind of scrutiny.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

italophil 9y ago

'Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders both want big tech treated as, in Bannon’s words in Hong Kong this week, “public utilities.”' This is bizarre to me. Especially considering that ISP are not considered "public utilities" and net neutrality might be revoked.

ufmace 9y ago
That's about the stage this kind of stuff is at. Nothing's firm enough for any action to actually happen... yet. But it's interesting that there are significant forces on both the Left and Right starting to call for this. Don't expect any concrete, coherent policy proposals yet, this is just a sign that this is more likely to happen in the future. Do expect wild proclamations and contradictory, nonsensical policies proposed. That's the seeds from which new political movements are born and their platforms are built from.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
I think part of this is because the ISPs actions are seen as purely done for businesses reasons not ideologies/censorship reasons. I think the net neutrality fight with regard to ISPs so far is mainly viewed as big companies fighting each other with regard to who pays whom what. The action of some of these other companies is seen as censorship.
maxsilver 9y ago
> Especially considering that ISP are not considered "public utilities" Depends on who you ask. The people who think parts of big tech should be treated as public utilities typically also believe ISPs should already be considered utility companies, and typically support net neutrality (or whatever they believe net neutrality to be, anyway).
s17n 9y ago
ISP's are heavily (though not always effectively) regulated.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

zebrafish 9y ago

I do not like the idea of "public utilities." However, I also don't like the size of the current players. The market works best when anti-trust has power. I love the products that some of these companies make. However, I believe that people should always have a realistic choice. The power should be with the individual. Because of the value of data & information today, I think that anti-trust should be applied horizontally in addition to its traditional vertical use cases. I get that horizontal integration reduces a lot of friction but at this point it feels like I have to pick a team.

quadrangle 9y ago
How about acknowledging that public-utilities are, in principle, a fine idea? In practice, public utilities and the messiness of democracy (especially at large scale) can lead to all sorts of potential corruption and inefficiencies (though not strictly necessarily). Choice is far from a value to prioritize in and of itself. It's a check on power that monopolies and oligopolies have. Choice may be important, but not for its own inherent value necessarily. When you say, "the power should be with the individual", taken to the extreme, that's an anti-organization view; anti-corporate, anti-government, anti-union, etc. and while there's solid philosophy around it, the fact is that coordination of individuals in the form of organized groups are so much more powerful than individuals. The individual right of association automatically leads to situations of power in the associated groups themselves. In other words, individual power is fundamentally unstable in social contexts. Tyranny of structurelessness etc. What we're really dealing with in our market today is a supply-side power imbalance. The supply side is all organized into companies and trade groups, and they have tons of power. The demand side is divided into individuals in many cases, and that in itself makes them dramatically less powerful. What we need is more demand side power in the balance. If there's any way to get that without totally overwhelming the important individual freedoms, it's worth doing. There's no way to get what the supply side offers at all if we broke the supply side all the way down to individuals and blocked them from even forming companies at all. And the only way to actually balance company power on the demand side is to have some associations / teams etc. so that the demand side is similarly organized. Sure, that brings up potential risks to individual autonomy, but we just have to constantly adapt to keep a balance.
9y ago

ufmace 9y ago

> This isn’t to say that the end is near for these new giants — or even for Uber, whose business is, it says, still growing. Just that the golden age is over. The new era for them will be normal politics, normal regulation, with California senators deep in their pockets who fight for them as hard as Texans fight for oil, but with a deep bipartisan current flowing against them. What might happen if there's a strong bipartisan movement to regulate the new tech world?

QAPereo 9y ago
It will be regulated in that case... congress has very broad powers in this arena when they choose to exercise them.
tomjen3 9y ago
I don't buy the idea that they can't starve this of with money - what are the politicians going to do when images of their extra marital affairs ends up on every billboard in their districts? Images that were taken by private detectives and paid for by google and the other tech companies? Sure they might play the game like everybody else do, and just bribe the congress people. That would be stupid, but they can outspend most companies because they make so much money.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  If you think publicly threatening officials with information you are purloining off their accounts is going to end well for you...
Stranger43 9y ago
What have happened to other highly technical industries. A short list of regulations that might happen: Mandatory compliance with technical interoperability standards ie no proprietary facebook messenger or whatsapp protocols. Mandatory public 3rd party post incident reviews for security incidents or major bugs/outages on the template of the NTSB. Strictly enforced free-market regulation prohibiting exclusivity deals between tech companies and retail/content/service providers. A complete ban on default-on cross site tracking.(likely coming to Europe as a part of the cookie directory review the industry asked for) Heavy restrictions on what you can do in terms of using/selling the results of analysing user data.(partially already in effect across Europe)

guelo 9y ago

As a leftist I'm inclined to be pro-antitrust but Steve Bannon's interest has me reconsidering. Bannon is a powerful propagandist who uses deception and fraud. Since the government has given up on all responsibility to police political campaigns Bannon rightly sees tech companies as some of the last power centers that can slow down the spread of misinformation.

mnglkhn2 9y ago
> Bannon is a powerful propagandist who uses deception and fraud. Care to put some more meat on this statement? Do you think Bannon forced Charlie Rose to interview him? Or that he forced which questions to be asked? Out of curiosity, which points from Bannon's recent 60 Minutes sit-down, in your view, where inappropriate? Otherwise, please allow me to say that your statement is too broad and lacks enough specificity to make sense.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >Do you think Bannon forced Charlie Rose to interview him Those two really went at it. Whenever the topic turned to the media Charlie's (conscious or otherwise) bias was so glaringly obvious. It was like watching a debate between the president of a police union and and a the director of an inner city drug treatment program or an oil company exec and a university professor who researches climate change. Neither side could comprehend that their biases reinforced by the people they surround themselves with throughout their careers causes them to greatly over-estimate the validity of their side of the issue. It was some damn good TV.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Bannon existed long before those interviews happened. He has a long history.
ShabbosGoy 9y ago
> Since the government has given up on all responsibility to police political campaigns I believe that's known as freedom of assembly. I'm not going to address some of your bizarre points involving your dislike of Steve Bannon.

pascalxus 9y ago

The real villians are the ISPs: Comcast and At&t. This is what we should be going after. They spend billions to corrupt politicians and prevent competition. And use government to set up legislation that prevents competition.

basch 9y ago
The ISPs are more traditional monopolies. However, our frameworks for evaluating what is too big need to evolve to handle things that traditionally were viewed as acceptable. http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox http://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
ShabbosGoy 9y ago
"Villain" as a word evokes the image of a silent film tycoon malevolently twirling their moustache over bags of money. Rational might be the word you're after. AT&T and Comcast are acting as corporations to maximize shareholder returns. But it is true that money often corrupts. A completely unregulated market leads to negative externalities that the taxpayer is ultimately responsible for. A completely regulated market stifles innovation and kills growth. I'm not sure if regulation is a viable option at this point, mainly due to the sheer incompetence of regulatory bodies and government bureaucrats.
- pascalxus 9y ago
  It's true, they're just fulfilling their duties to shareholders. But, when corporations start using the government to stifle competition: this is a line that should not be crossed and deserves precisely the reaction that this article has mentioned. Google and Facebook have not crossed this line, at least not yet. They're actions are rational, only if they succeed. If there's enough political reaction that results in the breaking up of these monopolies, it may not be so rational afterall.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    Like in my neighborhood where Spectrum and AT&T are the only choices, w/ Spectrum being majority. I called to see if they had any packages cheaper than what I was grandfathered in under after the Time Warner merger. They said no, Spectrum has set the floor at $60/mo for 100 Mps and did away with Time Warner's cheaper tiers.

toss1 9y ago

The smart ones will start building significant large offices and headquarters outside of SV & Seattle. Amazon is already starting to location-shop for a second headquarters. They'll need to get more senators on their side than just the 4 from CA and WA.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

As I see it, the Yelp comment in the video is not wrong, Google needs to find ways to increase the monetization to compensate for falling CPCs. They do that by putting more and more sponsored content on the first page and pushing people to their own sites as much as they can. One of the things I find interesting are the 'one boxes'. These are insets in the search page which has extracted what Google thinks is the answer you are looking for, from some other web page. If they guess right, they get a non-obvious benefit, you don't click over to a non-google page that has ads on it. If those ads are from some other supplier, its a big win for Google, if they are from Google they now have to share revenue with the site owner. We know that 'facts' are not copyrightable and "fair use" doctrine allows for some limited copying to identify context, which means it is unclear if you can even stop them from doing this to your pages. Some subtle, some not so subtle, but when the choice is to start using your monopoly power to shore up the bottom line, or not. I have never seen a company that hasn't started taking "just a few" shots from that trough. The challenge, and I don't know if it will damage Google or not, is that path can lead to some really egregious behaviors. And big companies, IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Proctor and Gamble, who have gone before have always paid a higher price for taking that road than the benefit they received.

yellow_postit 9y ago
Those boxes also seem to map to the answers given from google assistant
MarkMc 9y ago
Well if I search "height eiffel tower" on Google I see the 'one box' but I don't see any ads. At least in this case Google seems to be placing user experience over (short term) bottom line.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  Good example. You won't click the top organic link (Wikipedia) because the answer is right there, and you'll miss the pop down banner ad from Wikipedia where they are asking for donations. Just below it, you see a bunch of questions related to the Eiffel tower that generally jump to ad filled pages, but only pages where the ads come from Google. And on the right you'll see a link to Google maps for the Eiffel tower where, if you click on the map link, you can find places that advertise on Google where you can eat or visit and some reviews of them, if you click on the Eiffel tower link you'll go to a web site that sets up tours. (and pays Google to be there) What you won't see are any Yelp recommendations or links for the Eiffel tour (you would if you searched 'height eiffel tower yelp' and got https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-tour-eiffel-paris-4 https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-tour-eiffel-paris-4 as the first link). Google has effectively wrapped your 'factoid' type search with pretty much any sort of commercial intent query you might have, around their content, so that if you were a restaurant you would much rather have a lot of Google reviews because you would rank higher in that map link, and if you were a tour operator you would want to bid on the link under the 'keyword'. And if you were a content site you would want to have your links up at the top of the page under likely queries you may not have thought of yet, but once you read them you go "There are two? Really? Lets check that out." Having operated a web search engine and seeing all the ways the product guys and gals could, and did, "tweak" things I look at that sort of page much more critically than the typical user.

danblick 9y ago

For those interested in this topic I might recommend Tim Wu's books "The Master Switch" or "The Attention Merchants". "The Master Switch" in particular is about the history of communications industries in the US and how the organization of those industries affected free speech. (Of particular interest: Bell had a government-supported monopoly for about 70 years, in part because people thought of monopoly differently in 1900 than in 1970.) I read that Tim is also responsible for coining the term "net neutrality".

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
He also wrote this article which helped me put a finger on the difference between "monopoly" and "concentration." https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-oligopoly-problem https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-oligopoly-proble...

duderific 9y ago

I dunno, this makes for an interesting article, and clicks for Buzzfeed, but the reality is that unless the money is gotten out of politics at a large scale, money and lobbyists will continue to largely direct what happens in Washington. This is the same for the tech industry as any other large sectors of the economy. Additionally, with the current administration, they are looking to deregulate much more so than go the other direction. The only thing that could get the wind blowing the other way would be some kind of large scale scandal at Google/Facebook etc. that would make big headlines. But probably Congress would make some noise and nothing substantial in terms of policy or law would come of it.

Glyptodon 9y ago

I think the intractable problem is that it does very much make sense to have a unified marketplace for everything, but that it is also very much not ideal for it to be run by either a private for-profit monopoly or the government for different reasons. I think the same is true of a basket full of internet-based services. For example, I'm completely convinced that if Facebook is declared a Monopoly and taken apart it would only pave the way for a successor to become the new "Facebook Replacement"/"Monopoly." I think the same thing is roughly true for parts of Amazon. And of Google.

larkeith 9y ago
Something like Openbazaar or another P2P market might be the solution, if it gets large enough to eclipse other marketplaces. Whether Openbazaar itself has that potential I couldn't say, as I haven't yet used it.
pc2g4d 9y ago
Peer to peer commerce could take over???
slimshady94 9y ago
This is where the blockchain - a decentralized trustless database - comes in. The new Facebook will be an open protocol no one controls and everyone benefits from.

squozzer 9y ago

It's an apt metaphor, comparing politics to a shark (or pirahna) feeding frenzy. And while we congratulate ourselves for finally coming to our senses about "the SV", I offer the following counterpoint -- when people who normally disagree with each other are in sync on a topic, it's either an issue of mortal danger or a tawdry bit of extortion. And by my reckoning, the Four Horsemen aren't The Axis Powers or even The Axis of Evil. Which leaves extortion. To steal a meme: Gee, nice company you have there. It would be a shame if someone regulated it. BTW, I'm up for re-election.

Animats 9y ago

Eric Schmidt demanding the firing of antitrust researchers at the New America Foundation may go down in history as one of the worst decisions ever by a corporate officer. Nobody was paying much attention to antitrust papers from there. Now both Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon want Schmidt's head, and antitrust is coming back. The last time there was an unregulated industry with network effects this strong was when railroads had enormous power and used it to force high rates and favor companies they owned. This generated strong political opposition from businesses that needed to ship goods by rail, which was most businesses. Railroads were forced to become common carriers. Something like that might happen in network infrastructure.

ScottBurson 9y ago
Yes, the Streisand effect is alive and well.
tiggybear 9y ago
I mean Googlers tend to be highly socially conscious, independent-thinking, and financially secure employees, right? Seems like a perfect company to test some new tech collective bargaining attempts. What happens if 80% of googlers organize through an app, stand up and say we are all walking out the door if we don't start acting more socially responsible through A, B, and C initiatives. So many of them were ready to quit over a coworker with differing opinions, I would think many more would be willing to quit over a company having evil actions. After all, actions > opinions.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  I don't know if employees care enough to risk leaving a high-paying job with great benefits, even if they agree in principle. I empathize with the employees it's not like they have any control over Google's lobbying strategies any more than other large companies.
- guelo 9y ago

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

There have traditionally been two types of monopoly, exemplified by Standard Oil and AT&T. Standard Oil came about through mergers. This is the one where antitrust fits -- you break them up, problem solved. AT&T is a natural monopoly. Breaking them up doesn't fix it; the last mile has to be treated as a public utility because a local monopoly is still a monopoly and it's not practical to build fifteen independent last mile networks everywhere. But Facebook, despite being a monopoly or nearly so, isn't either of these. It makes no sense to speak of breaking Facebook up -- what does that even look like? Each if the Baby Books gets 1/20th of the users? But it's also not a natural monopoly because what makes Facebook a monopoly is a lack of interoperability. If "Facebook" was a federated system where anyone can set up their own social networking server and still communicate with anyone else on any provider, there would be no monopoly. Some people would use Google and some people would use Microsoft and some people would have their own server in their basement and they could all still talk to each other. Social networking is not a natural monopoly any more than email is -- unless you allow the largest player to refuse interoperability with competitors.

alexandercrohde 9y ago
I agree Facebook isn't a great example of a monopoly. But consider Google. As it stands google is very much a monopoly in the sense that Microsoft was. The power google has to do good/bad is tremendous. Consider your reliance on google: - search - email - maps/navigation - youtube, news, your browser - possibly your phone OS, contacts, calendar Google hasn't really done anything too overtly Orwellian (e.g. only promoting news that shows it in a good light). It even hasn't been too restrictive on interoperability (but neither was Microsoft, it just came pre-installed with IE). So I suppose the question becomes "Should power be broken up preemptively?" Or, perhaps politicians are rightly scared as they understand that they are losing political control to a technological system (they don't control) that increasingly has the power to shift public opinion (now that TV is dead).
- foolinaround 9y ago
  > Google hasn't really done anything too overtly Orwellian (e.g. only promoting news that shows it in a good light). Well, they already are... https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/09/11/report-google-bias-against-leading-conservative-websites-is-real/ https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/09/11/report-google-bias-...

robg 9y ago

Can someone explain to me how any of these companies could ever be considered monopolies? Competitive products are available at the same or lower costs and widely so.

face_mcgace 9y ago
Let's say I own a railroad and you own a soap company. For years to get your product to consumers you pay me money and I transport it to stores to be sold. Now, I see how lucrative your soap company is, so I decide to get into the soap making business. However, I raise prices on how much it costs to ship your soap while lowering my prices. I also ship all my soap first, cause delays in shipping your soap, etc. People can buy my lower quality soap cheaper and stores make bigger profits so I ship continually more soap than you. Keep in mind your soap is what consumers want but they can't access it anymore (since stores stock less / supply is always limited / etc) so they have to by my lower quality soap. Now replace "railroad" with "search engine" and "soap company" with "reviews" and you have the same situation with Google vs. Yelp or Google Shopping or Google Maps. Essentially you're just stifling competition at this point and preventing the market from choosing products.
- tomjen3 9y ago
  In that scenario would your railroad company not make even more money but just charging higher freight rates?

jondubois 9y ago

Yes. These big tech companies have to be nationalized. I hate what they've done to society.

gbacon 9y ago

When companies fall short in the marketplace, they seek to outmaneuver their competitors in courtrooms and legislative lobbies.

djyaz1200 9y ago

Why is anyone surprised these big tech companies become monopolies? They are explicitly granted that power through patents. Amazon and Google have been granted long monopolies by key patents they hold for things like one click buying and bidding on search results respectively. 17 years is too long for a patent in tech IMO. Something more like 6/7 years seems more appropriate. The patent office (run until recently by a Google alum) basically stopped issuing new meaningful software patents. The judicial system makes it very expensive to enforce patents and the media has labeled rights holders trolls (in fairness some are bad actors). The aggregate of these forces... making patents last too long, making them expensive/difficult to enforce and rarely issuing defensible/valuable new IP is DRAMATICALLY favoring the interests of big tech giants. Therefore, a key step in limiting monopoly power is thoughtful patent reform. Let small startups secure IP faster/easier and defend it without labeling them trolls. Make patents expire faster so companies can have a head start but not own a market for nearly a generation. Those changes would provide a steady stream of new challengers the opportunity regularly try to come "kill the kings". That's how to limit the otherwise inevitable aggregation of money/power that comes with entrenched/unchallenged success.

talmand 9y ago
To me it's not the length of the patents, but the granting of patents that shouldn't have been done in the first place. Like the countless patents that follow the "take Patent A and add 'with computer' on it to create Patent B" formula.
- djyaz1200 9y ago
  It's not binary. There are some questionable patents out there for sure, but that doesn't mean that innovators shouldn't be able to get reasonable patents to incentivize risk taking. It's a complicated problem.
  - talmand 9y ago
    I see a difference between reasonable and obvious.

darepublic 9y ago

Too many nods to Yelp in this article