3 ms·

Breaking the internet? No. Breaking huge near-monopolies into smaller companies - I'd love to see it happen, but it never will.

vertexFarm 9y ago
It happened, but they conglomerated back together. And they captured all the regulatory bodies this time. We are going to have to get creative or settle in and prepare for an eternal reaming.
- s2g 9y ago
  yeah, they learned from Microsoft's mistakes. You have to pay the bribes.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I don't remember Microsoft being broken up.
    - adventured 9y ago
      They got lucky. Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the company broken up. The Bush Administration is plausibly the only reason Microsoft remained one company. June 7th, 2000: "A federal judge today ordered Microsoft Corp. split into two companies, prescribing the biggest corporate breakup since AT&T while harshly rebuking the software giant for stifling computer-age competition. " http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000607/aponline170641_000.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000607/aponl... Then Microsoft and the DOJ made a deal on November 2nd 2001. Bush won the Presidency November 7th 2001. It's very likely the Clinton DOJ made a deal to ensure all of their hard work - indeed their victory - couldn't be easily reversed by the dramatically more business friendly Bush Administration if he were to win. http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/ http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/
baxtr 9y ago
That’s what I meant, but I think it won’t happen through regulation but through new companies
- Retra 9y ago
  New companies that will threaten established ones without being bought out by them?
robotresearcher 9y ago
Yahoo has already broken itself into smaller companies. It was a giant* not so long ago. (*at the time, when the sector was much smaller)
- kakwa_ 9y ago
  In truth they broke themselves into smaller companies due to the concurrence of an even bigger monopoly: Google. This was a bit of an accident really. Maybe one day big companies with monopolistic tendencies will be broken-up. But it will be a long and hard process. Look at the Standard Oil monopoly of the late XIXe/early XXe century, it took decades to break it up, even with laws against it. When the break-up will happen, I see two ways this could happen: * either break by activity (separate AWS and Amazon, Gmail, Youtube and Search in Google, etc) * break each service in a way to form a distributed system shared by several companies For example, split Google Search with part of the search index and engine distributed across several companies, and each companies having their own offer in term of UI design, data privacy, additional functionalities, plugged on this shared index.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    Grandparent said "it will never happen". You and I agree that it will happen. We both presented examples.

vertexFarm 9y ago

It happened, but they conglomerated back together. And they captured all the regulatory bodies this time. We are going to have to get creative or settle in and prepare for an eternal reaming.

s2g 9y ago
yeah, they learned from Microsoft's mistakes. You have to pay the bribes.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I don't remember Microsoft being broken up.
  - adventured 9y ago
    They got lucky. Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the company broken up. The Bush Administration is plausibly the only reason Microsoft remained one company. June 7th, 2000: "A federal judge today ordered Microsoft Corp. split into two companies, prescribing the biggest corporate breakup since AT&T while harshly rebuking the software giant for stifling computer-age competition. " http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000607/aponline170641_000.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000607/aponl... Then Microsoft and the DOJ made a deal on November 2nd 2001. Bush won the Presidency November 7th 2001. It's very likely the Clinton DOJ made a deal to ensure all of their hard work - indeed their victory - couldn't be easily reversed by the dramatically more business friendly Bush Administration if he were to win. http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/ http://time.com/3553242/microsoft-monopoly/

baxtr 9y ago

That’s what I meant, but I think it won’t happen through regulation but through new companies

Retra 9y ago
New companies that will threaten established ones without being bought out by them?

robotresearcher 9y ago

Yahoo has already broken itself into smaller companies. It was a giant* not so long ago. (*at the time, when the sector was much smaller)

kakwa_ 9y ago
In truth they broke themselves into smaller companies due to the concurrence of an even bigger monopoly: Google. This was a bit of an accident really. Maybe one day big companies with monopolistic tendencies will be broken-up. But it will be a long and hard process. Look at the Standard Oil monopoly of the late XIXe/early XXe century, it took decades to break it up, even with laws against it. When the break-up will happen, I see two ways this could happen: * either break by activity (separate AWS and Amazon, Gmail, Youtube and Search in Google, etc) * break each service in a way to form a distributed system shared by several companies For example, split Google Search with part of the search index and engine distributed across several companies, and each companies having their own offer in term of UI design, data privacy, additional functionalities, plugged on this shared index.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  Grandparent said "it will never happen". You and I agree that it will happen. We both presented examples.