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Why Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Need to Be Disrupted

134 points by ForHackernews 9y ago

ryandrake 9y ago
Article criticizing Facebook’s dominance has a link to share on Facebook. Be the change you want to see?
- rapnie 9y ago
  Still.. a great article :)
- neon_electro 9y ago
  The author has been repeating this point in more places than Esquire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ebKI4x_k8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ebKI4x_k8A
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > Article criticizing Facebook’s dominance has a link to share on Facebook. Be the change you want to see? I'm sure article-author Scott Galloway, NYU Professor of Marketing, has the authority to change Esquire's social media strategy, on account of writing an article for it.
- pmilot 9y ago
  Should they also prevent people on Google Chrome to even view the article? Sometimes you have to separate content from container.
maxxxxx 9y ago
I think there should be disincentives for any company to grow beyond a certain size. Huge companies provide a short-term benefit to the consumer but in the ling run they cause a lot of damage to innovation and the economy.
- BinaryIdiot 9y ago
  I think I like the spirit of your idea but I'm not so sure about the execution. What is the certain size? Who determines that? Will it be updated frequently enough to handle changing times / technology trends?
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    No idea :-). A progressive tax system for companies would possibly do the trick.
  - r0brodz 9y ago
    When a founder/CEO can save [1]$45 billion USD into a tax haven LLC, I think thats big enough. Step down and let another innovator get rich. [1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.amp.html&ved=2ahUKEwi9tsn8pJfZAhUBa60KHTfkB5kQFjAFegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw11AJJe4fN-vIf1eoZMnaYD&ampcf=1 https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-...
    - gizmo385 9y ago
      So you want to determine whether or not we break up a company based on whether or not the founder or CEO is making too much money? That seems like a great way to remove economic incentives from starting businesses.
- wpasc 9y ago
  This idea somewhat pre-empts the possibility of achieving certain economies of scale. If a large company can achieve great economies of scale and pass that on to a consumer, who benefits from the onerous regulation that costs the tax payer money to enforce as well as money to pay for the increased cost of the good? Anti-trust in the U.S. has not been super strongly enforced in recent decades (perhaps since the Ma Bell breakup and Glass Steagall before it was repealed?). But if the consumer is not being harmed, why get in the way of a company that has truly earned market dominance?
  - 9y ago
malvosenior 9y ago
The "big 4" should be disrupted by the market, not the government. Of those firms listed, only Amazon seems to be in a position of solid, lasting strength. Don't believe it? Remember Microsoft? They used to dominate our industry and crush innovation. Their tactics made Uber's seem soft and fuzzy. Sure the government gave them a knock but that didn't slow them down. Do you know what did? Apple and iOS. They missed the boat on mobile and now they're still valuable but not an existential threat to the industry. It's really hard for a tech company to dominate over the decades. Apple has been near death multiple times in the past and while they have a ton of money, they aren't exactly innovating anymore. It will happen again, it's in their DNA. Facebook is just Myspace 2.0 that was smart enough to snatch up Instagram (starting to show its age), and Whatsapp. Acquisitions != innovation. None of these companies are threats to technological progress in the long term. Something new will show up a that disrupts their entire model. It's happened with every boom cycle in tech history. The trick is to look for the next big thing and ride the wave and not look to the single most regressive institution in existence (the government) to come help you.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  The problem is that we move from one dominant behemoth to another. In the meantime small business gets crushed by either.
- my_usernam3 9y ago
  And google (.... or alphabet)? Between their domination of mobile OS and search engines, I think they have equal lasting strength as Amazon. Plus their communication tools aren't exactly uncommon either, albeit replaceable.
  - curious_fella1 9y ago
    Who says their domination of search engines is dominant? Isn't Bing starting to gain some serious market share?
    - nwsm 9y ago
wpasc 9y ago
Working in tech (not companies listed), I get somewhat irked at the recent barrage of "regulate/break them up" articles I keep seeing about tech companies. Not being a big fan of regulation in general, but if you're going to regulate, should these companies be at the top of your list? There are plenty of wrongs being committed by a variety of companies and industries right now. Not saying these companies are as holier than thou than they preach to be, but they are all innovative and good companies. While they have practices that merit examination, so do many other companies that have histories of being far less transparent and far less proactive about change. I don't mean to say the world of tech doesn't need a fair amount of reflection and self reflection, but this recent bandwagoning of "regulate tech!" seems reactionary and hype driven as opposed to more well intentioned. This guy was even mentioning his book... The media has covered tech in the last year in a "if it bleeds it leads" capacity that I think undercuts many of the valid points being raised. Idk, I could be wrong, but that's my two cents
- deleted 9y ago
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- r00fus 9y ago
  Exactly. Wouldn't say, Monsanto or BP be considered far more evil and manipulative? What about those opioids pharmas that have literally destroyed small-town America through outright fraud/malfeasance? Yeah, tech companies aint goody two-shoes, but there are bigger fish that need frying.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    And if you want tech, particularly in America there are ISPs and telcos in dire need of being broken up.
    - EADGBE 9y ago
      Yeah. I used to think the same thing. Maybe I will again, but here's what changed my specific situation: I once had Time Warner. It was OK, I didn't need to deal with Customer Service and my cable never went out. No real issues other than a bill I thought was too high at times. Then Google Fiber came here. Literally across the street. I couldn't taste that sweet, sweet gigabit even if I wanted to. Time Warner, sitting on it's laurels didn't care. I was their only choice if I wanted something faster than 15Mb/s. Cue the Time Warner/Spectrum/Charter (Honestly, I don't know what order that was, but the billing took care of it) buyouts. Oh no! Things are going to be terrible. Except your old login still works with Spectrum/Charter. The QoS wasn't affected at all by the switching. Oh, and since Charter came out I get a free doubling of internet speed, because Google Fiber. Now I'm using Spectrum (I think). All of a sudden, the option for 940Mb/s is available for me. That's close enough for wireless devices to call it "gigabit" to me. Even though companies changed hands 2 or 3 times, I still have the same options (but better!) that I had before. It's easy for me to get behind the hatred that monopolies have for communications in theory, but when they literally make the transition seamless, still provide all the same options as before, and allow me to get a taste of that sweet sweet gigabit; I just don't care anymore. Especially when they maintain competitive pricing.
deleted 9y ago
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djrogers 9y ago
Every time I see an article about this, I look for something to explain why Apple is lumped in with Facebook and Google - something beyond 'they make the piece of glass you look at facebook or google on', and I can't really find it. This time around, the author points to an incorrect profit margin (he claims a profit margin of over 250% for an iPhone, which is nearly an order of magnitude too high), and one time that a Spotify update was rejected. Not exactly compelling...
- cptskippy 9y ago
  > he claims a profit margin of over 250% for an iPhone Maybe it takes into account the revenue generated from that user over the life of the phone?
  - redial 9y ago
    That would not be "profit margin".
- macintux 9y ago
  Agreed. One of these is definitely not like the others. As has been pointed out previously, the only thing Apple has ever held a monopoly on is taste.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    They have 50% of the US market, and control 75% of the app store spend. (iOS users spend 4x as much in aggregate), ergo, they are the gatekeepers of 75% of the mobile software economy, take a 30% cut, are using their closed ecosystem leverage to inflate an inferior music streaming competitor (Apple Music) vs Spotify, etc. I mean, there's lots of current market power abuse or potential market power abuse, and had it not been for Android, who knows how much of a monopoly they'd have. That said, I don't think they need to be broken up, nor do I think Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, or Google do. The problems of wage stagnation in the advanced economies have nothing to do with tech. The "whataboutism" this time is correct, because we're quit literally talking about spending political capital to break up these companies on mostly theoretical harm, with unknown consequences, while ignoring decades of much much nastier abuses by other corporations that have actually killed lots of people. You're not going to seriously get me triggered over Amazon blowing away Walmart, at the same time, you have chemical companies dumping toxic waste into streams. On the scale of needs, I'm worried about Amazon last. There's a tendency of #firstworldproblems, of people in cushy white collar desk jobs, to hyperbolize relatively minor effects on their own life, while they consume products from companies that ship misery abroad, overseas. You lose your shit when someone removes a feature from Snapchat because it affects you directly, but continue to enjoy your Sweatshop manufactured clothing, or your durable goods made with blood minerals because you don't see who it's hurting. No good deed goes unpunished it seems. Many of the tech companies have been at the forefront of corporate responsibility compared to old industries, have reliably contributed to progressive causes, have responded to publish criticism and pressure without needs to be sued into it, and yet, all of the focus is on them. I mean, good lord, Paul Manafort worked with defense contractors, right wing think ranks, and Congress and shipped small arms to a Angola, which was in the middle of a peace talks to end a civil war, and re-ignited a fight that got 100,000 people killed. Whataboutism in this case is justified, if you're going to spend your time lobbying for something, spend it on something that's going to help save people in actual danger.
deleted 9y ago
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lnino 9y ago
This article has a lot of economical misconceptions. To name just one of the most blatant: the author complains about wages not growing enough, but also that tech giants are "less efficient" in job creation, having more market value per employee, and requiring less employees to generate the same revenue and profit. How the heck is a company supposed to pay more it's employees without being able to make more money per employee? And if it's making more money per employee, then obviously they will have more market value per employee. This is not a company being inefficient at "creating jobs" but actually being efficient at creating high quality jobs with wages that keep growing over time. That's just basic math and economics, but seems to be beyond the understanding of the author. All the part about the economic impact of the big four is quite nonsensical, and reads like the proverbial rant of light bulb makers that they can't compete with a free source of light like the sun. As with most of the current zeitgeist the idea of the article seems to be that success is the problem. The problem with the big four is not that they exist, but why there aren't more of them? Why not the big 100 or 1000? What's hindering other companies from being as successful in generating profits and high-paying jobs? Maybe the big four are doing a lot of evil things to prevent others from joining the club. Maybe the government is also to blame. Maybe both big government and big companies are together in this (anyone knows the meaning of the word "lobbyist"?). If you keep asking the wrong questions and ignoring basic economic reality you'll never get to know the answer.
- pedro_hab 9y ago
  On the math part, I see a lot of complaints on the rich, in these case the big four are indeed huge, but compared to what? Last time I check none of these had reach $ 1T value, compared to the US government that expends $ 3T a year. No one of those same people seem to be concerned with the harms of the a government expending so much money.
  - lnino 9y ago
    People think the government is their fairy godmother.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  Not so. The author praises economic efficiency, but understands its downsides and thinks some of the transition costs could be paid by four companies that are actually evading taxes other companies pay. There aren't more of them for the reasons given in the article - they've been allowed to extend their monopolies so freely that now investors won't touch possible competitors 'cause they know they're already crushed. Extending a monopoly (actually, it's market power, not monopoly that matters) is illegal. But the U.S. decided these were their thugs, so they wouldn't touch them - just let them extinguish a competitive marketplace in area after area as they metastasized. That's how the U.S. has violated the principles of free trade and abused its economic partners, for decades. Now, the domestic cost to the U.S. itself is becoming clearer.
siliconviking 9y ago
You knpw the saying "can't beat something with nothing"? Don't regulate! Come up with something better.
- vernie 9y ago
  No, I don't know that saying.
devit 9y ago
The big issue is that the companies have absolute power over facilities that should be mankind's possession and thus managed with explicit laws and a justice-like system offering due process. Google is managing mankind's search engine with a secret algorithm and they can arbitrarily decide your site's presence or position in search queries with no recourse (granted, it's hard to define a fair way to do this, but still). Facebook is managing mankind's person-to-person communication system and you have no recourse if you are banned, if your content is removed, or if you are trying to publicize some content and the newsfeed algorithms are unfavorable to you. Amazon is managing mankind's delivery system and you have no recourse if they refuse to carry your products. [Apple is less of a problem because they are merely monopolizing iOS devices, and there's an easy fix in terms of forcing them to open source iOS and license any related patents, so that iOS apps can be made to run on Android devices] Reddit is another huge problem as they manage (and especially allow random moderators to manage) mankind's discussion forums with no regard to free speech, with arbitrary bans and no enforced transparency. One option is to enforce competition: this could be done for Google by only allowing them to operate their search engine for up to a few consecutive hours per day, can be done for Amazon by allowing them to operate only a few days per month, for Facebook by forcing them to federate their social graph, so that people can host their accounts on any service and still have the same interaction and for Reddit to also federate their forums like Usenet is federated. The other option is to be force them to manage all these facilities in the public interest, with explicit and published rules of operation (e.g. Google and Facebook must publish their ranking algorithms) and with all protections like free speech applying, according to well-defined rules and providing due process for any decisions that are adverse to anyone. Obviously these should be as much as possible be general laws, like extending free speech to apply private spaces as well, forcing to put any software that can generate lock-in (e.g. because it implements a proprietary widely used API or manages a proprietary widely used file format) in the public domain and forcing to federate any service that benefits from network effects.
stevenicr 9y ago
Google is the worst of these right now IMO, only because fbook has agreed to change some things recently. I am looking for a group of people to start a competing search portal to take about 20% of the google search and do it better. I've been watching the big G slide into more and more censorship and it's looking like it's going the direction of "wacky safe". If anyone can help make a more mature portal for search, please contact me. The time is right for this disruption. The disruption of fbook is so easy that I'm not too worried about it, when it happens it will be swift. Eventually google will just be the new yellow pages, with a bunch of unregulated tv channels (unless youtube is split off from it)
- pythonaut_16 9y ago
  Do you think Google is willingly sliding into censorship with their core search product? The reality is, Google is in a tough place legally with certain content. How will your proposed search disruptor handle these same legal and ethical issues differently from Google?
  - stevenicr 9y ago
    I think in some areas google is being pressured by various govts. However in many areas they are self censoring for different reasons by different people and groups of people within the G sphere. Both are bad and are going to far IMO. I understand the reality you speak of, I've read a lot of news regarding this for years. My proposed search disruptor idea is to have it vary the top results on various verticals and the results as a whole based upon region, even state by state, city by city. Some of this due the regulatory pressures that exist, some due to the community standards that exist and vary town by town, state by sate, country by country.. but also as a wise business move.. as getting the accepted content to those in city X and ads that city X is likely to enjoy is a win win, and keeps the san fran ads from freaking out the small town groups on the other side of the state will bring less pressure.. So yes it's possible to do this much better. I know big G could do it - but they are thinking on a bigger more scale-able and move on issues, so a niche nimble engine can do this better.. There also appears to be groups at G that want to censor more and more things that are not illegal, what was the term for the last ceo? Make them grow up and adult or need a babysitter or something? Anyhow, they are censoring a LOT of results based on negative push down factors from their hatred of SEO from years back - and that is making the engine server a lot less of what people are looking for as well - no pressure from and regulatory there - just a moby dick thing where they are cutting their nose off despite their adwords.. There is money on the table, it's a problem that could use fixing, and we can do it better than they can. It will only effectively target 20% of G's searches.. and we'd probably only get about 8% of the adwords type money that G is getting.. but I think a nimble search portal could provide a decent living for a group of coders and investors on that kind of money for a while.
jmull 9y ago
This is so dumb. If you haven't already but are feeling tempted, save yourself some time and don't bother reading this article. It's pure unthinking big-company-hate without any substance. Well, I guess the gimmick -- that each of these large tech companies corresponds to a bodily region and appeals to us for a related reason -- is nice, but even that doesn't really make much sense. I don't want to begrudge Scott Galloway his living... If this is what it takes to get a publication like Esquire to pay then I guess this is what it takes. I just seems like the guy should be able to make a living in some non-embarrassing way.
preordained 9y ago
An e-commerce site, glossy UIs, friend connector, and a searching utility...honestly our tech "giants" are just the the last guys standing from the Internet boom of the nineties
dalbasal 9y ago
I think our "anti-trust" principles are due a major reform, booth theoretical and legal. There is more to take into account than "trusts" or (in most cases) monopolies. We're not dealing with trains and resource transport anymore. Barriers to entry and societally harmful consequences of scale work totally differently. Google & FB have absolute control of online advertising (in most markets), and significant control of online media. Their decisions vis-a-vis surveilance deterrmine the level of privacy most people have. If Youtube demonetizes certain content (for immodesty, politcal views, etc.), then these are the standards of the internet. If Google and FB agree that an article is important (via whatever employees, users, algorithims or combination make the "decision"), then it is. If they agree a position is propogandist or dangerous & should be silenced, then it is. Youtube's fair use implementation is what fair use is in normative practice. That is just a lot of power. It's unchecked, and IMO scary. This is not about good and evil. It's not a trial of Alphabet & FB. I'm not accusing them of wanting to censor media^. Not accusing them of being worse than others. Their size itself is a problem, ^Ad-surveilance though, that is probably worth $100bn pa to them, maybe more. Here their interests are pathological, imo. Completely at odds with their users' interests Meanwhile, These companies (again particularly Google & FB) just take up a lot of "space," and are not always gret custodians of the territory they occupy. Lets play what-if. What if Tinder dissappeared today. I see a decent chance that something will take its place by tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if it's something better. Tinder isn't hard to make. What's hard to do is draw the network, which is where the value of Tinder is. Full credit to Tinder for the concept and implementation but that does not guarantee that they are the best custodians of that space. Giants have more moat than Tinder. FB have over half the population logging in daily and subscribed to IMs/notifications. . Google controls my phone, my browser, my TV... It controls the network of advertisers, the eyeballs, the app store, the user profiling data.... Good luck competing with youtube. Youtube is important. It is online video, which may be the most important media channel in the world. The WWW (culturally and technically) gives users a platform to be their own media, have their own show, expand and free and democratize media. IMO, podcasting is an interesting space. It's very decentralized and free, running on bare metal protocols, more or less. They negotiate directly with advertisers and deliver directly to users. The stuff that succeeds seems to be much better quality. Spam doesn't exist. Clickbait is minimal. Video though.. video goes through Google & FB. If FB decide that 30s videos are the s--t, that's what people see. If youtube decides that original content is less valuable than random mashups of content (bordering on spam, imo), then they are. If youtube's comment section sucks, then online discussions of videos suck. If Google decides that the platform/content revenue split is 50-50, then it is. If they think science is boring, it is. (Personally, I think Youtube is mismanaged, and that is a big let down. You can probably tell.) But if Youtube disappears tomorrow... We'd still have online video. New platforms would appear. Competition would (for a time) take place. The internet would be better off. I've got no idea how these (half baked) ideas sould be implmented into regulation, to pre-empt the comment. Obviously, it's tricky. But, I don't think this can be improved via the normal antitrust concepts. the problem isn't price fixing or "artificial" barriers to entry. The problem is a lack creative destruction and an accumulation of power.
neo4sure 9y ago
The articles have such misplaced attitudes. Healthcare is eating up GDP and no articles about disrupting pharmaceutical companies. Global warming is threatening the entire world no articles about disrupting the energy industry. Give me break.

134 points by ForHackernews 9y ago

ryandrake 9y ago

Article criticizing Facebook’s dominance has a link to share on Facebook. Be the change you want to see?

rapnie 9y ago
Still.. a great article :)
neon_electro 9y ago
The author has been repeating this point in more places than Esquire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ebKI4x_k8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ebKI4x_k8A
Slansitartop 9y ago
> Article criticizing Facebook’s dominance has a link to share on Facebook. Be the change you want to see? I'm sure article-author Scott Galloway, NYU Professor of Marketing, has the authority to change Esquire's social media strategy, on account of writing an article for it.
pmilot 9y ago
Should they also prevent people on Google Chrome to even view the article? Sometimes you have to separate content from container.

maxxxxx 9y ago

I think there should be disincentives for any company to grow beyond a certain size. Huge companies provide a short-term benefit to the consumer but in the ling run they cause a lot of damage to innovation and the economy.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago
I think I like the spirit of your idea but I'm not so sure about the execution. What is the certain size? Who determines that? Will it be updated frequently enough to handle changing times / technology trends?
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  No idea :-). A progressive tax system for companies would possibly do the trick.
- r0brodz 9y ago
  When a founder/CEO can save [1]$45 billion USD into a tax haven LLC, I think thats big enough. Step down and let another innovator get rich. [1] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.amp.html&ved=2ahUKEwi9tsn8pJfZAhUBa60KHTfkB5kQFjAFegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw11AJJe4fN-vIf1eoZMnaYD&ampcf=1 https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-...
  - gizmo385 9y ago
    So you want to determine whether or not we break up a company based on whether or not the founder or CEO is making too much money? That seems like a great way to remove economic incentives from starting businesses.
wpasc 9y ago
This idea somewhat pre-empts the possibility of achieving certain economies of scale. If a large company can achieve great economies of scale and pass that on to a consumer, who benefits from the onerous regulation that costs the tax payer money to enforce as well as money to pay for the increased cost of the good? Anti-trust in the U.S. has not been super strongly enforced in recent decades (perhaps since the Ma Bell breakup and Glass Steagall before it was repealed?). But if the consumer is not being harmed, why get in the way of a company that has truly earned market dominance?
- 9y ago

malvosenior 9y ago

The "big 4" should be disrupted by the market, not the government. Of those firms listed, only Amazon seems to be in a position of solid, lasting strength. Don't believe it? Remember Microsoft? They used to dominate our industry and crush innovation. Their tactics made Uber's seem soft and fuzzy. Sure the government gave them a knock but that didn't slow them down. Do you know what did? Apple and iOS. They missed the boat on mobile and now they're still valuable but not an existential threat to the industry. It's really hard for a tech company to dominate over the decades. Apple has been near death multiple times in the past and while they have a ton of money, they aren't exactly innovating anymore. It will happen again, it's in their DNA. Facebook is just Myspace 2.0 that was smart enough to snatch up Instagram (starting to show its age), and Whatsapp. Acquisitions != innovation. None of these companies are threats to technological progress in the long term. Something new will show up a that disrupts their entire model. It's happened with every boom cycle in tech history. The trick is to look for the next big thing and ride the wave and not look to the single most regressive institution in existence (the government) to come help you.

maxxxxx 9y ago
The problem is that we move from one dominant behemoth to another. In the meantime small business gets crushed by either.
my_usernam3 9y ago
And google (.... or alphabet)? Between their domination of mobile OS and search engines, I think they have equal lasting strength as Amazon. Plus their communication tools aren't exactly uncommon either, albeit replaceable.
- curious_fella1 9y ago
  Who says their domination of search engines is dominant? Isn't Bing starting to gain some serious market share?
  - nwsm 9y ago

wpasc 9y ago

Working in tech (not companies listed), I get somewhat irked at the recent barrage of "regulate/break them up" articles I keep seeing about tech companies. Not being a big fan of regulation in general, but if you're going to regulate, should these companies be at the top of your list? There are plenty of wrongs being committed by a variety of companies and industries right now. Not saying these companies are as holier than thou than they preach to be, but they are all innovative and good companies. While they have practices that merit examination, so do many other companies that have histories of being far less transparent and far less proactive about change. I don't mean to say the world of tech doesn't need a fair amount of reflection and self reflection, but this recent bandwagoning of "regulate tech!" seems reactionary and hype driven as opposed to more well intentioned. This guy was even mentioning his book... The media has covered tech in the last year in a "if it bleeds it leads" capacity that I think undercuts many of the valid points being raised. Idk, I could be wrong, but that's my two cents

deleted 9y ago
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r00fus 9y ago
Exactly. Wouldn't say, Monsanto or BP be considered far more evil and manipulative? What about those opioids pharmas that have literally destroyed small-town America through outright fraud/malfeasance? Yeah, tech companies aint goody two-shoes, but there are bigger fish that need frying.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  And if you want tech, particularly in America there are ISPs and telcos in dire need of being broken up.
  - EADGBE 9y ago
    Yeah. I used to think the same thing. Maybe I will again, but here's what changed my specific situation: I once had Time Warner. It was OK, I didn't need to deal with Customer Service and my cable never went out. No real issues other than a bill I thought was too high at times. Then Google Fiber came here. Literally across the street. I couldn't taste that sweet, sweet gigabit even if I wanted to. Time Warner, sitting on it's laurels didn't care. I was their only choice if I wanted something faster than 15Mb/s. Cue the Time Warner/Spectrum/Charter (Honestly, I don't know what order that was, but the billing took care of it) buyouts. Oh no! Things are going to be terrible. Except your old login still works with Spectrum/Charter. The QoS wasn't affected at all by the switching. Oh, and since Charter came out I get a free doubling of internet speed, because Google Fiber. Now I'm using Spectrum (I think). All of a sudden, the option for 940Mb/s is available for me. That's close enough for wireless devices to call it "gigabit" to me. Even though companies changed hands 2 or 3 times, I still have the same options (but better!) that I had before. It's easy for me to get behind the hatred that monopolies have for communications in theory, but when they literally make the transition seamless, still provide all the same options as before, and allow me to get a taste of that sweet sweet gigabit; I just don't care anymore. Especially when they maintain competitive pricing.

deleted 9y ago

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djrogers 9y ago

Every time I see an article about this, I look for something to explain why Apple is lumped in with Facebook and Google - something beyond 'they make the piece of glass you look at facebook or google on', and I can't really find it. This time around, the author points to an incorrect profit margin (he claims a profit margin of over 250% for an iPhone, which is nearly an order of magnitude too high), and one time that a Spotify update was rejected. Not exactly compelling...

cptskippy 9y ago
> he claims a profit margin of over 250% for an iPhone Maybe it takes into account the revenue generated from that user over the life of the phone?
- redial 9y ago
  That would not be "profit margin".
macintux 9y ago
Agreed. One of these is definitely not like the others. As has been pointed out previously, the only thing Apple has ever held a monopoly on is taste.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  They have 50% of the US market, and control 75% of the app store spend. (iOS users spend 4x as much in aggregate), ergo, they are the gatekeepers of 75% of the mobile software economy, take a 30% cut, are using their closed ecosystem leverage to inflate an inferior music streaming competitor (Apple Music) vs Spotify, etc. I mean, there's lots of current market power abuse or potential market power abuse, and had it not been for Android, who knows how much of a monopoly they'd have. That said, I don't think they need to be broken up, nor do I think Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, or Google do. The problems of wage stagnation in the advanced economies have nothing to do with tech. The "whataboutism" this time is correct, because we're quit literally talking about spending political capital to break up these companies on mostly theoretical harm, with unknown consequences, while ignoring decades of much much nastier abuses by other corporations that have actually killed lots of people. You're not going to seriously get me triggered over Amazon blowing away Walmart, at the same time, you have chemical companies dumping toxic waste into streams. On the scale of needs, I'm worried about Amazon last. There's a tendency of #firstworldproblems, of people in cushy white collar desk jobs, to hyperbolize relatively minor effects on their own life, while they consume products from companies that ship misery abroad, overseas. You lose your shit when someone removes a feature from Snapchat because it affects you directly, but continue to enjoy your Sweatshop manufactured clothing, or your durable goods made with blood minerals because you don't see who it's hurting. No good deed goes unpunished it seems. Many of the tech companies have been at the forefront of corporate responsibility compared to old industries, have reliably contributed to progressive causes, have responded to publish criticism and pressure without needs to be sued into it, and yet, all of the focus is on them. I mean, good lord, Paul Manafort worked with defense contractors, right wing think ranks, and Congress and shipped small arms to a Angola, which was in the middle of a peace talks to end a civil war, and re-ignited a fight that got 100,000 people killed. Whataboutism in this case is justified, if you're going to spend your time lobbying for something, spend it on something that's going to help save people in actual danger.

deleted 9y ago

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lnino 9y ago

This article has a lot of economical misconceptions. To name just one of the most blatant: the author complains about wages not growing enough, but also that tech giants are "less efficient" in job creation, having more market value per employee, and requiring less employees to generate the same revenue and profit. How the heck is a company supposed to pay more it's employees without being able to make more money per employee? And if it's making more money per employee, then obviously they will have more market value per employee. This is not a company being inefficient at "creating jobs" but actually being efficient at creating high quality jobs with wages that keep growing over time. That's just basic math and economics, but seems to be beyond the understanding of the author. All the part about the economic impact of the big four is quite nonsensical, and reads like the proverbial rant of light bulb makers that they can't compete with a free source of light like the sun. As with most of the current zeitgeist the idea of the article seems to be that success is the problem. The problem with the big four is not that they exist, but why there aren't more of them? Why not the big 100 or 1000? What's hindering other companies from being as successful in generating profits and high-paying jobs? Maybe the big four are doing a lot of evil things to prevent others from joining the club. Maybe the government is also to blame. Maybe both big government and big companies are together in this (anyone knows the meaning of the word "lobbyist"?). If you keep asking the wrong questions and ignoring basic economic reality you'll never get to know the answer.

pedro_hab 9y ago
On the math part, I see a lot of complaints on the rich, in these case the big four are indeed huge, but compared to what? Last time I check none of these had reach $ 1T value, compared to the US government that expends $ 3T a year. No one of those same people seem to be concerned with the harms of the a government expending so much money.
- lnino 9y ago
  People think the government is their fairy godmother.
Nomentatus 9y ago
Not so. The author praises economic efficiency, but understands its downsides and thinks some of the transition costs could be paid by four companies that are actually evading taxes other companies pay. There aren't more of them for the reasons given in the article - they've been allowed to extend their monopolies so freely that now investors won't touch possible competitors 'cause they know they're already crushed. Extending a monopoly (actually, it's market power, not monopoly that matters) is illegal. But the U.S. decided these were their thugs, so they wouldn't touch them - just let them extinguish a competitive marketplace in area after area as they metastasized. That's how the U.S. has violated the principles of free trade and abused its economic partners, for decades. Now, the domestic cost to the U.S. itself is becoming clearer.

siliconviking 9y ago

You knpw the saying "can't beat something with nothing"? Don't regulate! Come up with something better.

vernie 9y ago
No, I don't know that saying.

devit 9y ago

The big issue is that the companies have absolute power over facilities that should be mankind's possession and thus managed with explicit laws and a justice-like system offering due process. Google is managing mankind's search engine with a secret algorithm and they can arbitrarily decide your site's presence or position in search queries with no recourse (granted, it's hard to define a fair way to do this, but still). Facebook is managing mankind's person-to-person communication system and you have no recourse if you are banned, if your content is removed, or if you are trying to publicize some content and the newsfeed algorithms are unfavorable to you. Amazon is managing mankind's delivery system and you have no recourse if they refuse to carry your products. [Apple is less of a problem because they are merely monopolizing iOS devices, and there's an easy fix in terms of forcing them to open source iOS and license any related patents, so that iOS apps can be made to run on Android devices] Reddit is another huge problem as they manage (and especially allow random moderators to manage) mankind's discussion forums with no regard to free speech, with arbitrary bans and no enforced transparency. One option is to enforce competition: this could be done for Google by only allowing them to operate their search engine for up to a few consecutive hours per day, can be done for Amazon by allowing them to operate only a few days per month, for Facebook by forcing them to federate their social graph, so that people can host their accounts on any service and still have the same interaction and for Reddit to also federate their forums like Usenet is federated. The other option is to be force them to manage all these facilities in the public interest, with explicit and published rules of operation (e.g. Google and Facebook must publish their ranking algorithms) and with all protections like free speech applying, according to well-defined rules and providing due process for any decisions that are adverse to anyone. Obviously these should be as much as possible be general laws, like extending free speech to apply private spaces as well, forcing to put any software that can generate lock-in (e.g. because it implements a proprietary widely used API or manages a proprietary widely used file format) in the public domain and forcing to federate any service that benefits from network effects.

stevenicr 9y ago

Google is the worst of these right now IMO, only because fbook has agreed to change some things recently. I am looking for a group of people to start a competing search portal to take about 20% of the google search and do it better. I've been watching the big G slide into more and more censorship and it's looking like it's going the direction of "wacky safe". If anyone can help make a more mature portal for search, please contact me. The time is right for this disruption. The disruption of fbook is so easy that I'm not too worried about it, when it happens it will be swift. Eventually google will just be the new yellow pages, with a bunch of unregulated tv channels (unless youtube is split off from it)

pythonaut_16 9y ago
Do you think Google is willingly sliding into censorship with their core search product? The reality is, Google is in a tough place legally with certain content. How will your proposed search disruptor handle these same legal and ethical issues differently from Google?
- stevenicr 9y ago
  I think in some areas google is being pressured by various govts. However in many areas they are self censoring for different reasons by different people and groups of people within the G sphere. Both are bad and are going to far IMO. I understand the reality you speak of, I've read a lot of news regarding this for years. My proposed search disruptor idea is to have it vary the top results on various verticals and the results as a whole based upon region, even state by state, city by city. Some of this due the regulatory pressures that exist, some due to the community standards that exist and vary town by town, state by sate, country by country.. but also as a wise business move.. as getting the accepted content to those in city X and ads that city X is likely to enjoy is a win win, and keeps the san fran ads from freaking out the small town groups on the other side of the state will bring less pressure.. So yes it's possible to do this much better. I know big G could do it - but they are thinking on a bigger more scale-able and move on issues, so a niche nimble engine can do this better.. There also appears to be groups at G that want to censor more and more things that are not illegal, what was the term for the last ceo? Make them grow up and adult or need a babysitter or something? Anyhow, they are censoring a LOT of results based on negative push down factors from their hatred of SEO from years back - and that is making the engine server a lot less of what people are looking for as well - no pressure from and regulatory there - just a moby dick thing where they are cutting their nose off despite their adwords.. There is money on the table, it's a problem that could use fixing, and we can do it better than they can. It will only effectively target 20% of G's searches.. and we'd probably only get about 8% of the adwords type money that G is getting.. but I think a nimble search portal could provide a decent living for a group of coders and investors on that kind of money for a while.

jmull 9y ago

This is so dumb. If you haven't already but are feeling tempted, save yourself some time and don't bother reading this article. It's pure unthinking big-company-hate without any substance. Well, I guess the gimmick -- that each of these large tech companies corresponds to a bodily region and appeals to us for a related reason -- is nice, but even that doesn't really make much sense. I don't want to begrudge Scott Galloway his living... If this is what it takes to get a publication like Esquire to pay then I guess this is what it takes. I just seems like the guy should be able to make a living in some non-embarrassing way.

preordained 9y ago

An e-commerce site, glossy UIs, friend connector, and a searching utility...honestly our tech "giants" are just the the last guys standing from the Internet boom of the nineties

dalbasal 9y ago

I think our "anti-trust" principles are due a major reform, booth theoretical and legal. There is more to take into account than "trusts" or (in most cases) monopolies. We're not dealing with trains and resource transport anymore. Barriers to entry and societally harmful consequences of scale work totally differently. Google & FB have absolute control of online advertising (in most markets), and significant control of online media. Their decisions vis-a-vis surveilance deterrmine the level of privacy most people have. If Youtube demonetizes certain content (for immodesty, politcal views, etc.), then these are the standards of the internet. If Google and FB agree that an article is important (via whatever employees, users, algorithims or combination make the "decision"), then it is. If they agree a position is propogandist or dangerous & should be silenced, then it is. Youtube's fair use implementation is what fair use is in normative practice. That is just a lot of power. It's unchecked, and IMO scary. This is not about good and evil. It's not a trial of Alphabet & FB. I'm not accusing them of wanting to censor media^. Not accusing them of being worse than others. Their size itself is a problem, ^Ad-surveilance though, that is probably worth $100bn pa to them, maybe more. Here their interests are pathological, imo. Completely at odds with their users' interests Meanwhile, These companies (again particularly Google & FB) just take up a lot of "space," and are not always gret custodians of the territory they occupy. Lets play what-if. What if Tinder dissappeared today. I see a decent chance that something will take its place by tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if it's something better. Tinder isn't hard to make. What's hard to do is draw the network, which is where the value of Tinder is. Full credit to Tinder for the concept and implementation but that does not guarantee that they are the best custodians of that space. Giants have more moat than Tinder. FB have over half the population logging in daily and subscribed to IMs/notifications. . Google controls my phone, my browser, my TV... It controls the network of advertisers, the eyeballs, the app store, the user profiling data.... Good luck competing with youtube. Youtube is important. It is online video, which may be the most important media channel in the world. The WWW (culturally and technically) gives users a platform to be their own media, have their own show, expand and free and democratize media. IMO, podcasting is an interesting space. It's very decentralized and free, running on bare metal protocols, more or less. They negotiate directly with advertisers and deliver directly to users. The stuff that succeeds seems to be much better quality. Spam doesn't exist. Clickbait is minimal. Video though.. video goes through Google & FB. If FB decide that 30s videos are the s--t, that's what people see. If youtube decides that original content is less valuable than random mashups of content (bordering on spam, imo), then they are. If youtube's comment section sucks, then online discussions of videos suck. If Google decides that the platform/content revenue split is 50-50, then it is. If they think science is boring, it is. (Personally, I think Youtube is mismanaged, and that is a big let down. You can probably tell.) But if Youtube disappears tomorrow... We'd still have online video. New platforms would appear. Competition would (for a time) take place. The internet would be better off. I've got no idea how these (half baked) ideas sould be implmented into regulation, to pre-empt the comment. Obviously, it's tricky. But, I don't think this can be improved via the normal antitrust concepts. the problem isn't price fixing or "artificial" barriers to entry. The problem is a lack creative destruction and an accumulation of power.

neo4sure 9y ago

The articles have such misplaced attitudes. Healthcare is eating up GDP and no articles about disrupting pharmaceutical companies. Global warming is threatening the entire world no articles about disrupting the energy industry. Give me break.