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It's a literary conceit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceit ergo fictional addresses have been used, and madey-uppy cor

It's a literary conceit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceit ergo fictional addresses have been used, and madey-uppy corporate name referencing key idea from economist Adam Smith. edit: Well, I liked it. I don't think it grossly oversimplified the issues. Clearly big tech operates monopolies. Probably Google/Alphabet should never have been allowed top buy DoubleClick. Facebook definitely should not have been allowed to buy Instagram and WhatsApp. Microsoft still has a desktop monopoly. As the article says Amazon controls 40% of online commerce (in the US). Imagine controlling 40% of bricks and mortar trade. The mind boggles. Apple has competition in every area but they lock their users in to their ecosystem in a way that is not seen in other markets. Imagine if you bought a car and then you had to keep buying cars from that manufacturer because switching brands was too much of a hassle. Or banks. Or whatever. Netflix has competition so they're fine. It's not a crime to have huge valuations. It should make people sit up and take notice. I don't think FAAAM will reform themselves. If it wasn't for open source and Linux things would be way way worse. If the regulators don't do their job it'll be up to people like us to build open source products to neuter these companies. Probably we should be doing that anyway.

kkarakk 8y ago
lots of people do exactly that do. brand loyalty has some element of perception of difficulty in switching built in. you buy an iPhone coz you think finding all the apps you use will be too difficult. you buy a Toyota coz you think buying anything else would be a waste of money. you stick with a bank coz the thought of re-doing the documentation and talking to customer care is repulsive companies spend a lot of time and money on enforcing that perception sometimes even acquiring other companies to do so.

kkarakk 8y ago

lots of people do exactly that do. brand loyalty has some element of perception of difficulty in switching built in. you buy an iPhone coz you think finding all the apps you use will be too difficult. you buy a Toyota coz you think buying anything else would be a waste of money. you stick with a bank coz the thought of re-doing the documentation and talking to customer care is repulsive companies spend a lot of time and money on enforcing that perception sometimes even acquiring other companies to do so.