4 ms·

ITT Americans don't care about companies (especially American ones) that abuse their positions as monopolies.

TheArcane 8y ago
It's scary how all top comments are essentially pointing out how unfair it is for Google. This is the tech version of people starting a $100M GoFundMe for Kylie Jenner to reach a net worth of $1B.
- dmix 8y ago
  > This is the tech version of people starting a $100M GoFundMe for Kylie Jenner to reach a net worth of $1B. This is our version of a satirical fundraising campaign by a comedian?
Veelox 8y ago
I do care about companies that abuse their position as a monopoly. I think its probably right that Google gets fined for not allowing companies to sell Android forks. What I have a problem with is that if a company is doing some standard business practice, like paying a different company to exclusively use their product, that is okay when they are a not a monopoly but that suddenly become not okay because they have been successful.
- ionised 8y ago
  Because a monopoly is a special status that infers special powers and special responsibilities. I'm not sure what is so hard to understand in that.
  - Veelox 8y ago
    >Because a monopoly is a special status that infers special powers and special responsibilities. In principal I have a problem with legally treating a company different if they have 85% market share as opposed to 30%. I am okay with making anti-competitive practices illegal but we should also enforce those on small companies.
    - jakebasile 8y ago
      The idea is that it is almost by definition more difficult or impossible for a small player to conduct anti-competitive practices, since there are other competitors to choose from.
  - Anagmate 8y ago
    if the practices used by the company were so bad and abusive, shouldn't the customers just move to another company? Voila, problem solved, the company no longer has monopoly.
- maym86 8y ago
  Yes, laws are in place to to protect customers from abuse of monopoly power. In this case specifically using that power to hurt competition unfairly. If the company is successful and doesn't abuse that success then no one gets fined. Using that success to unfairly hurt competition from a monopoly position needs to be prevented for a free market to function.
ionised 8y ago
They only care that their darling tech firms get to keep making money and 'making the world a better place'. Fuck the laws and regulations in the countries in which they do business apparently.
nemothekid 8y ago
You should understand that Americans have a very opinion on manufacturers & carriers than Europeans. I haven't owned a European handset but manufacturers & carriers before Google and Apple told them to fuck off were notorious for bundling crapware with their phones. For the simple fact that if I buy an "Android" phone I can be sure it comes with a baseline of decent software is seen as a good thing to most.
1of3isnotawhole 8y ago
More like they don't read the damn article...

It's scary how all top comments are essentially pointing out how unfair it is for Google. This is the tech version of people starting a $100M GoFundMe for Kylie Jenner to reach a net worth of $1B.

dmix 8y ago
> This is the tech version of people starting a $100M GoFundMe for Kylie Jenner to reach a net worth of $1B. This is our version of a satirical fundraising campaign by a comedian?

Veelox 8y ago

I do care about companies that abuse their position as a monopoly. I think its probably right that Google gets fined for not allowing companies to sell Android forks. What I have a problem with is that if a company is doing some standard business practice, like paying a different company to exclusively use their product, that is okay when they are a not a monopoly but that suddenly become not okay because they have been successful.

ionised 8y ago
Because a monopoly is a special status that infers special powers and special responsibilities. I'm not sure what is so hard to understand in that.
- Veelox 8y ago
  >Because a monopoly is a special status that infers special powers and special responsibilities. In principal I have a problem with legally treating a company different if they have 85% market share as opposed to 30%. I am okay with making anti-competitive practices illegal but we should also enforce those on small companies.
  - jakebasile 8y ago
    The idea is that it is almost by definition more difficult or impossible for a small player to conduct anti-competitive practices, since there are other competitors to choose from.
- Anagmate 8y ago
  if the practices used by the company were so bad and abusive, shouldn't the customers just move to another company? Voila, problem solved, the company no longer has monopoly.
maym86 8y ago
Yes, laws are in place to to protect customers from abuse of monopoly power. In this case specifically using that power to hurt competition unfairly. If the company is successful and doesn't abuse that success then no one gets fined. Using that success to unfairly hurt competition from a monopoly position needs to be prevented for a free market to function.

ionised 8y ago

They only care that their darling tech firms get to keep making money and 'making the world a better place'. Fuck the laws and regulations in the countries in which they do business apparently.

nemothekid 8y ago

You should understand that Americans have a very opinion on manufacturers & carriers than Europeans. I haven't owned a European handset but manufacturers & carriers before Google and Apple told them to fuck off were notorious for bundling crapware with their phones. For the simple fact that if I buy an "Android" phone I can be sure it comes with a baseline of decent software is seen as a good thing to most.

1of3isnotawhole 8y ago

More like they don't read the damn article...