3 ms·

Monopolizing one part of the value chain, enables you to leverage that monopoly into controlling the next. Owning the railroads enabled standard oil to price i

Monopolizing one part of the value chain, enables you to leverage that monopoly into controlling the next. Owning the railroads enabled standard oil to price it's competitors more, put them straits, and buy them up cheaply. Owning the OS, Microsoft can make sure they own the Office Product productivity. It's why the electrical grid needs to be separate from the energy makers (and regulated). Amazon and Google as the 'front of the internet' can just suck the surpluses out of every other business; sure, you can still sell 'cereal and gadgets' - but all of your surplus / profit margin will be sucked up by them. ... but I have a sneaking suspicion that something disruptive will come along before they entirely take over.

moate 8y ago
Regulations and oversight? Or anti-trust lawsuits? I have a feeling the only way to disrupt companies this large is with the force of a government busting up the monopolies. A scrappy start-up will just be pounded into submission and/or bought up.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Regulations where it's clean. But 'net neutrality' for example plays right into the hands of the FANGs. Networks can't make you 'pay per email' thereby allowing more of the surpluses to go to the FANGS. If there is 'network neutrality' - one might wonder if we also need 'search neutrality' i.e. if you're in the search business, you can't look at that data to infer anything about that person to sell them other kinds of services. The Office Suite monopoly seemed overwhelming just 15 years ago, but cloud services just got so much better it seems a lot less relevant these days. I haven't used 'MS Word' in forever. It's probably start time to think about maybe some regulations (specifically with regard to neutrality) in search, but beyond that I don't think there's quite a need to intervene yet.
  - moate 8y ago
    Well that's why I'm more in favor of big, ugly "bust them up" type moves and force them to split. It's probably harder now due to globalization but it's still got to be possible right? Amazon (and Alphabet and all that) would be easy enough to carve up into smaller businesses cut off from the large central cash reserves. They would still come together to fund lobbying efforts that benefit all of them, but that's a whole other issue that needs to be addressed separately. It's too bad Trump has made it so obvious that it's personal with Bezos, or he would be in the perfect position to take that sort of action. Obviously if he did that at this point, it would be worse than Nixon's "Enemies List".
enitihas 8y ago
When did standard oil own railroads? I thought Rockefeller had large disagreements with the railroads and they had to build oil pipelines, and that in sense contributed to downfall of certain railroads too reliant on the oil money.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Owned or controlled and colluded with them in illegal/shady ways. It was a major source of competitive advantage.

moate 8y ago

Regulations and oversight? Or anti-trust lawsuits? I have a feeling the only way to disrupt companies this large is with the force of a government busting up the monopolies. A scrappy start-up will just be pounded into submission and/or bought up.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Regulations where it's clean. But 'net neutrality' for example plays right into the hands of the FANGs. Networks can't make you 'pay per email' thereby allowing more of the surpluses to go to the FANGS. If there is 'network neutrality' - one might wonder if we also need 'search neutrality' i.e. if you're in the search business, you can't look at that data to infer anything about that person to sell them other kinds of services. The Office Suite monopoly seemed overwhelming just 15 years ago, but cloud services just got so much better it seems a lot less relevant these days. I haven't used 'MS Word' in forever. It's probably start time to think about maybe some regulations (specifically with regard to neutrality) in search, but beyond that I don't think there's quite a need to intervene yet.
- moate 8y ago
  Well that's why I'm more in favor of big, ugly "bust them up" type moves and force them to split. It's probably harder now due to globalization but it's still got to be possible right? Amazon (and Alphabet and all that) would be easy enough to carve up into smaller businesses cut off from the large central cash reserves. They would still come together to fund lobbying efforts that benefit all of them, but that's a whole other issue that needs to be addressed separately. It's too bad Trump has made it so obvious that it's personal with Bezos, or he would be in the perfect position to take that sort of action. Obviously if he did that at this point, it would be worse than Nixon's "Enemies List".

enitihas 8y ago

When did standard oil own railroads? I thought Rockefeller had large disagreements with the railroads and they had to build oil pipelines, and that in sense contributed to downfall of certain railroads too reliant on the oil money.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Owned or controlled and colluded with them in illegal/shady ways. It was a major source of competitive advantage.