4 ms·

That was a lot of words for very little content. I still don't really know what this breakthrough idea is but I do know way more than I need to know about Lina

by mrep 8y ago

That was a lot of words for very little content. I still don't really know what this breakthrough idea is but I do know way more than I need to know about Lina Khan. The only 2 paragraphs that allude to it are: In Ms. Khan’s view, a company like Amazon — one that sells things, competes against others selling things, and owns the platform where the deals are done — has an inherent advantage that undermines fair competition. From Amazon’s point of view, however, it is a problem indeed that Ms. Khan concludes in the Yale paper that regulating parts of the company like a utility “could make sense.” She also said it “could make sense” to treat Amazon’s e-commerce operation like a bridge, highway, port, power grid or telephone network — all of which are required to allow access to their infrastructure on a nondiscriminatory basis.

IBM 8y ago
This is a profile of a person who has sparked a revival of antitrust in America. If you want to read the actual paper she wrote, which is linked to in the article, you should do that. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
- mrep 8y ago
  Well then they should have titled it something like "Lina Khan, Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist" and not "Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea". I expected to actually read and learn about her ideas.
  - dchichkov 8y ago
    If you want to learn about the breakthrough idea, you can read the actual paper she wrote, which is linked to the article.
    - prepend 8y ago
      Isn’t the purpose of journalism to inform on these ideas. I assume there is no idea if the Times did an in depth piece without describing the idea. This is because the Times is well resourced and basically competent enough to not fuck up the point of a story. If I read the paper and find the great idea not in the article then that makes me think the author of the article is not so good.
    - mrep 8y ago
      I feel like we are talking past each other. I'm fine with life story articles/books. I've even read the full steve jobs and elon musk books. However, the title is "Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea". That alludes that it is about the ideas of the person and not a life story of "Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist". I spent like 10 minutes reading through this long article trying to figure out what these ideas were until I finally realized it is not actually about this person's ideas and just a life story which is not what the title suggests and what I am mad about. It is not that it is a bad article, it is just that it has a completely misleading title based on the actual content of the article.
rogerbinns 8y ago
> I still don't really know what this breakthrough idea is .. As far as I can tell it is the European monopoly model. (My info all comes from Stratechery's coverage - errors are all mine.) Monopoly regulators look at consumer harm, with US regulators focusing on price. Increasing prices are seen as monopoly power, and that is what they coordinate around. That for example (as the article notes) is why Facebook, Google etc are not seen as monopolies because they charge consumers zero. Conversely the EU approach is looking at supply - eg can there be new entrants? The Google shopping stuff was an issue because it is way harder to be a new entrant if Google (where many find the sites) demotes or hides the new comer. Facebook is an issue because it is impractical to start a new social network. A new network has to get users to re-do their social graph - they can't just get a copy from Facebook. GDPR making more sense now? With the "supply" view on, you can see how network effects keep making Amazon more and more efficient (economies of scale) while also making it increasingly difficult for there to be competitors. Their size also lets them impose their own policies (eg see ebooks over the years).
- IBM 8y ago
  The focus of antitrust on prices is the direct result of Bork's influence on the Supreme Court, as this excellent article makes clear [1]: >And so Bork argued that federal judges must resolve the “paradox” by declaring that the only legitimate purpose of antitrust law was to promote “consumer welfare,” basically meaning lower prices. And the only way to promote consumer welfare was to promote efficiency, because efficiency meant more production, which meant cheaper products. Any other purpose would interfere with efficiency and must therefore be ignored. >To see how radical this was, just consider one example of something not captured by consumer welfare: employee welfare. In a town dominated by a single employer, workers may be forced to submit to poverty wages and abusive work conditions. Coal miners know this all too well—so do Walmart employees. (See Alec MacGillis, “What J. D. Vance Doesn’t Get About Appalachia.”) But to Bork, that could never justify antitrust enforcement so long as the product stayed cheap. >The Antitrust Paradox makes for remarkable reading today. Like a caricature of a Chicago School economist, Bork explicitly warned against learning from experience. Rather, all business practices should be judged based on what “simple” (his word) economic models predict. “Only theory can separate the competitive from the anticompetitive,” he wrote. And theory says consolidation is good, because it means strong firms are crushing weak ones. [1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember-2017/the-democrats-confront-monopoly/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember-2017...
dchichkov 8y ago
There is a link in it, to Yale Law Journal article. It's a lengthy read, but that just reflects the underlying complexity: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
lithos 8y ago
There is quite a bit there, you're just missing it because it's written to cause someone not interested in people to tune it out (the stereotype of a tech bro). While being very interesting to someone interested in people. Complete with Khan's current work, her past work, other people she's working with now, examples of her reputation (almost a ninth district clerk), previous examples where her reasoning was used, and the outcomes of the examples. All very interesting to someone who is writing policy (or the stereotype of a hyper social ladder climbing politician). The examples used are actually pretty brilliant if you want to take Amazon down a peg. The worst case Rockefeller example (which was nightmarish), and a grocery store that slowly failed after it was regulated (and let's be honest grocery stores are an industry where every company eventually fails, since even small decisions can change which side of red/black you're on). Biased, but stills fill the requisite we showed two sided of the story slot.

by mrep 8y ago

IBM 8y ago

This is a profile of a person who has sparked a revival of antitrust in America. If you want to read the actual paper she wrote, which is linked to in the article, you should do that. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...

mrep 8y ago
Well then they should have titled it something like "Lina Khan, Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist" and not "Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea". I expected to actually read and learn about her ideas.
- dchichkov 8y ago
  If you want to learn about the breakthrough idea, you can read the actual paper she wrote, which is linked to the article.
  - prepend 8y ago
    Isn’t the purpose of journalism to inform on these ideas. I assume there is no idea if the Times did an in depth piece without describing the idea. This is because the Times is well resourced and basically competent enough to not fuck up the point of a story. If I read the paper and find the great idea not in the article then that makes me think the author of the article is not so good.
  - mrep 8y ago
    I feel like we are talking past each other. I'm fine with life story articles/books. I've even read the full steve jobs and elon musk books. However, the title is "Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea". That alludes that it is about the ideas of the person and not a life story of "Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist". I spent like 10 minutes reading through this long article trying to figure out what these ideas were until I finally realized it is not actually about this person's ideas and just a life story which is not what the title suggests and what I am mad about. It is not that it is a bad article, it is just that it has a completely misleading title based on the actual content of the article.

rogerbinns 8y ago

> I still don't really know what this breakthrough idea is .. As far as I can tell it is the European monopoly model. (My info all comes from Stratechery's coverage - errors are all mine.) Monopoly regulators look at consumer harm, with US regulators focusing on price. Increasing prices are seen as monopoly power, and that is what they coordinate around. That for example (as the article notes) is why Facebook, Google etc are not seen as monopolies because they charge consumers zero. Conversely the EU approach is looking at supply - eg can there be new entrants? The Google shopping stuff was an issue because it is way harder to be a new entrant if Google (where many find the sites) demotes or hides the new comer. Facebook is an issue because it is impractical to start a new social network. A new network has to get users to re-do their social graph - they can't just get a copy from Facebook. GDPR making more sense now? With the "supply" view on, you can see how network effects keep making Amazon more and more efficient (economies of scale) while also making it increasingly difficult for there to be competitors. Their size also lets them impose their own policies (eg see ebooks over the years).

IBM 8y ago
The focus of antitrust on prices is the direct result of Bork's influence on the Supreme Court, as this excellent article makes clear [1]: >And so Bork argued that federal judges must resolve the “paradox” by declaring that the only legitimate purpose of antitrust law was to promote “consumer welfare,” basically meaning lower prices. And the only way to promote consumer welfare was to promote efficiency, because efficiency meant more production, which meant cheaper products. Any other purpose would interfere with efficiency and must therefore be ignored. >To see how radical this was, just consider one example of something not captured by consumer welfare: employee welfare. In a town dominated by a single employer, workers may be forced to submit to poverty wages and abusive work conditions. Coal miners know this all too well—so do Walmart employees. (See Alec MacGillis, “What J. D. Vance Doesn’t Get About Appalachia.”) But to Bork, that could never justify antitrust enforcement so long as the product stayed cheap. >The Antitrust Paradox makes for remarkable reading today. Like a caricature of a Chicago School economist, Bork explicitly warned against learning from experience. Rather, all business practices should be judged based on what “simple” (his word) economic models predict. “Only theory can separate the competitive from the anticompetitive,” he wrote. And theory says consolidation is good, because it means strong firms are crushing weak ones. [1] https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember-2017/the-democrats-confront-monopoly/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/novemberdecember-2017...

dchichkov 8y ago

There is a link in it, to Yale Law Journal article. It's a lengthy read, but that just reflects the underlying complexity: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...

lithos 8y ago

There is quite a bit there, you're just missing it because it's written to cause someone not interested in people to tune it out (the stereotype of a tech bro). While being very interesting to someone interested in people. Complete with Khan's current work, her past work, other people she's working with now, examples of her reputation (almost a ninth district clerk), previous examples where her reasoning was used, and the outcomes of the examples. All very interesting to someone who is writing policy (or the stereotype of a hyper social ladder climbing politician). The examples used are actually pretty brilliant if you want to take Amazon down a peg. The worst case Rockefeller example (which was nightmarish), and a grocery store that slowly failed after it was regulated (and let's be honest grocery stores are an industry where every company eventually fails, since even small decisions can change which side of red/black you're on). Biased, but stills fill the requisite we showed two sided of the story slot.