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FB, Amazon and Google have to be split up. It is not in the interest of the society or safe to have such huge companies with such huge power. For Google at the

FB, Amazon and Google have to be split up. It is not in the interest of the society or safe to have such huge companies with such huge power. For Google at the very least the search engine has to become a separate independent entity with restrictions on how and what information is exchanges with the rest.

bigbugbag 9y ago
I would argue that they do not to be split up, but commercial advertising has to be banned from the internet. This would fix pretty much every issue we face now.
- malloreon 9y ago
  while we're doing things we'll never actually do, let's decide that money is not speech, ban all political contributions and publicly finance all election campaigns and fix every American problem for real.
- davidcbc 9y ago
  That would solve all the current problems because the internet as we know it would collapse overnight and the world economy would be devastated.
sabalaba 9y ago
Many of the valuable projects that we get from FB (AI Research), Amazon (Echo, Kindle, etc.), Google (Brain, Waymo, GMail, Android, etc.), are due to their strong market position and a product that throws off cash. They have this market position because they are the best at what they do. These companies don't have monopolies because of government mandate, they have them because they make the best products. It's frightening to think that there are people out there who want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs but comforting that they are nowhere near the majority opinion. I hope it stays that way. I would hate to see Google Brain, Waymo, and Deep Mind go the way of Bell Labs.
- pm90 9y ago
  The fraction of income that goes into research is not that large for the companies that you mention. Lets remember that these are not traditional monopolies, in the sense of Standard Oil. They are much worse, as they are so embedded in the lives of people today. Their status as monopolies will be tolerated by society only as far as they don't exhibit anti-competitive practices.
  - sib 9y ago
    Top spending by US companies on R&D (latest fiscal year): Amazon: $16.1B Alphabet: $13.9B Intel: $12.7B Microsoft: $12.3B Apple: $10.0B For most of these companies, they are spending more than their income on R&D (but less than revenue, of course.) (Recode/FactSet data)
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      Revenue numbers for comparison: Amazon: 136B Alphabet: 90B Intel: 60B Microsoft: 90B Apple: 214B ---------------- And Gross Income: Amazon: 58B Alphabet: 55B Intel: 36B Microsoft: 55B Apple: 83B
- snarf21 9y ago
  I generally agree with you that they are doing good things but the bigger question is what harm are they doing? We need to stop having these huge mergers. Think what a different landscape we'd have if Facebook didn't own Instagram and WhatsApp. Those companies had a choice, fight FB with limited money or cash out. (I'm not judging them...) Look at Snap. They've said no and so FB threw all their money at duplicating all their features in all their own properties. This is the downside of the products that just throw off cash. All the money and time in the world they can devote to squashing all competition. It reminds me of the same things that happened with the banks and Comcast. Most people who have Comcast got there because Comcast bought their provider and the investors wanted to cash out, not because people voted with their dollars. The banks got too big to fail, not because everyone rushed to switch all their money to bank X but because bank X bought up all the smaller players with money bet on the bubble. I think they do need broken up but I would argue all we really need to do is "unmerge" these acquisitions and spin them back out separate. Absolute power has always corrupted absolutely. To be fair, this isn't new. Gates did a lot of the same things but now their foundation is doing wonderful things. However, it is easy to be a philanthropist with spare billions. What I would love to see from one of these founders is to attack one of the world's biggest problems personally and with the same ruthlessness they did their main companies. Musk is the only one who really seems to be "walking the walk".

bigbugbag 9y ago

I would argue that they do not to be split up, but commercial advertising has to be banned from the internet. This would fix pretty much every issue we face now.

malloreon 9y ago
while we're doing things we'll never actually do, let's decide that money is not speech, ban all political contributions and publicly finance all election campaigns and fix every American problem for real.
davidcbc 9y ago
That would solve all the current problems because the internet as we know it would collapse overnight and the world economy would be devastated.

sabalaba 9y ago

Many of the valuable projects that we get from FB (AI Research), Amazon (Echo, Kindle, etc.), Google (Brain, Waymo, GMail, Android, etc.), are due to their strong market position and a product that throws off cash. They have this market position because they are the best at what they do. These companies don't have monopolies because of government mandate, they have them because they make the best products. It's frightening to think that there are people out there who want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs but comforting that they are nowhere near the majority opinion. I hope it stays that way. I would hate to see Google Brain, Waymo, and Deep Mind go the way of Bell Labs.

pm90 9y ago
The fraction of income that goes into research is not that large for the companies that you mention. Lets remember that these are not traditional monopolies, in the sense of Standard Oil. They are much worse, as they are so embedded in the lives of people today. Their status as monopolies will be tolerated by society only as far as they don't exhibit anti-competitive practices.
- sib 9y ago
  Top spending by US companies on R&D (latest fiscal year): Amazon: $16.1B Alphabet: $13.9B Intel: $12.7B Microsoft: $12.3B Apple: $10.0B For most of these companies, they are spending more than their income on R&D (but less than revenue, of course.) (Recode/FactSet data)
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    Revenue numbers for comparison: Amazon: 136B Alphabet: 90B Intel: 60B Microsoft: 90B Apple: 214B ---------------- And Gross Income: Amazon: 58B Alphabet: 55B Intel: 36B Microsoft: 55B Apple: 83B
snarf21 9y ago
I generally agree with you that they are doing good things but the bigger question is what harm are they doing? We need to stop having these huge mergers. Think what a different landscape we'd have if Facebook didn't own Instagram and WhatsApp. Those companies had a choice, fight FB with limited money or cash out. (I'm not judging them...) Look at Snap. They've said no and so FB threw all their money at duplicating all their features in all their own properties. This is the downside of the products that just throw off cash. All the money and time in the world they can devote to squashing all competition. It reminds me of the same things that happened with the banks and Comcast. Most people who have Comcast got there because Comcast bought their provider and the investors wanted to cash out, not because people voted with their dollars. The banks got too big to fail, not because everyone rushed to switch all their money to bank X but because bank X bought up all the smaller players with money bet on the bubble. I think they do need broken up but I would argue all we really need to do is "unmerge" these acquisitions and spin them back out separate. Absolute power has always corrupted absolutely. To be fair, this isn't new. Gates did a lot of the same things but now their foundation is doing wonderful things. However, it is easy to be a philanthropist with spare billions. What I would love to see from one of these founders is to attack one of the world's biggest problems personally and with the same ruthlessness they did their main companies. Musk is the only one who really seems to be "walking the walk".