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Agree 95%, but one point he uses to crticize Warren seems wrong: Where Warren says "America’s big tech companies have achieved their level of dominance in part

Agree 95%, but one point he uses to crticize Warren seems wrong: Where Warren says "America’s big tech companies have achieved their level of dominance in part based on two strategies: using Mergers to Limit Competition,..." he argues that they achieved dominance by making good products and were already dominant when they started making major mergers, and that Warren doesn't understand this. It sounds like he's missing the whole point here: google, amazon, and apple of course did achieve dominance by making a good product, but then they leveraged that dominance over one product to dominance over the whole tech sector with a combination of more good products and anticompetitive moves. Warren does not argue that companies that make good products shouldn't be allowed to get big - just that they should be scrutinized and not allowed to make anticompetitive moves. Indeed, all of the tech companies she has proposed breaking up would still be huge companies with "dominating" products (including control over their respective platforms - search, app store, amazon store); but hopefully the ecosystem on those platforms can flourish without competition from the platform companies.

mtgx 8y ago
Yeah, it seems almost like a naive/purposeful misunderstanding of what Warren means. Of course that's what Warren meant - the whole point of even talking about antitrust is that you believe a company used its dominant position to destroy the competition in a way that's less than fair/legal.
Shivetya 8y ago
Sorry, but the idea that Apple needs to be separated from the App store is ludicrous. If you don't like the App store don't buy Apple products. There are hundreds of other phones to choose from and some get equal or better reviews. It would be one thing if Apple was the only cell phone maker in existence but that is so far from the truth. Amazon and online purchases, again, there are so many choices that you never ever have to visit Amazon to buy anything. If they were preventing resellers from selling elsewhere then we would have an issue. Like when Intel was trying to force Dell not to sell AMD. Amazon is in truth their own worst enemy now with so many bad products that venturing off known brands is a risk. She is doing what politicians do best, using resentment, jealousy, and more, to gain more power and money. Not just at the voting booth but by intimidating companies into contributing more the PACs and political campaigns. We see this all the time and sadly people buy into it because using market tested phrases has become standard operating procedure for politicians. They pay to find out how to divide people. An example of why PACs are truly bad is a recent political office run revealed that one candidate, who could not see fit to pay their taxes on time, nor their school loans, had been on the part time pay roll of a PAC for nearly 200k a year. Seriously, you want to see how politicians roll in the money look how the shake down really pays them.
- patrec 8y ago
  There are just two phone makers in existence: Google and Apple. If you care about privacy and security, there is just a single phone maker: Apple. The only difference between different brands of Google phones is how much additional insecurity and crap the notional manufacturer adds on top. Amazon has complete dominance over books in the US and are on their way to abolishing book ownership outright.
  - everdrive 8y ago
    >are on their way to abolishing book ownership outright. This is hyperbolic. There has been a resurgence in small bookstores, and Amazon sells quite a few physical books themselves.
    - patrec 8y ago
      It's not in the least hyperbolic. Physical books are going away. You can't buy ebooks on amazon. They have close to 90% of the us ebook market already.
  - buzzerbetrayed 8y ago
    If apple is the only phone maker to offer privacy and security, why would we break them up? Amazon is abolishing book ownership because they invented a better way to read books (kindle and audible). How is breaking them up going to make people want to own books again? The only way that would happen is if you make kindle and audible worse. How would that help society?
    - briandear 8y ago
      People also seem to forget that the Apple Bookstore is still a thing. Certainly not as big as Amazon but certainly big enough to matter. Apple also has audiobooks as well. So there is competition.
      - patrec 8y ago
quest88 8y ago
Which anti-competitive moves?
scarface74 8y ago
There is no world besides maybe Beats where any of the acquisitions that Apple made would have ever ended up being competitors. The entire reason for almost any investor backed company to exist is to be acquired. You don’t have to look any further than YC. In its entire history only one company that it has invested in has ever gone public.
dkrich 8y ago
I think his point though is that the premise that these companies achieved their success through domination and monopolistic powers is inaccurate because they rose to prominence while not being dominate or possessing any monopolistic powers. Facebook beat out MySpace by making a better product at a time when MySpace had a huge lead. So through innovation and creating a better product alone a company can theoretically compete as the examples she cites did at one point. In fairness, he does go on to say that they have now reached a critical mass such that in the ad space nobody can compete because they throw off so much cash that they can deploy that into acquisitions or developing free products just to maintain their leads and steal share from up and coming companies. It's a complex issue. One thing I didn't get about Warren's comment was her assertion that if you provide the store for others to sell in you aren't allowed to sell because you have access to data and product placement that gives you an unfair advantage. Okay according to that line of reasoning Wal-Mart and all major grocery chains should be broken up because they all sell private label merchandise. Or none of them should be allowed to sell private label merchandise because they can give it the best placement and know which products are best to make. Obviously that argument quickly falls apart because a consumer who goes to a grocery store is quickly going to become frustrated and go elsewhere if all they can find are the store's own versions of products that they are shopping for. Amazon and Google have demonstrated a very clear understanding of this since they started, knowing that giving the customer what they want quickly and conveniently is the most important thing. If it happens to be Amazon's own brand of duffel bag or Google's own restaurant reviews based on the search then so be it. But I seriously doubt Google is withholding Yelp results to be anticompetitive. The far more likely explanation in my mind is that a searcher would rather see a Google Map with all of the restaurants and pictures and reviews quickly and reliably and Google knows that. That they might profit by it is a happy accident not because they control the means of search. Sooner or later the better product experience is going to win out regardless of whether it is made by Google or somebody else. Google has tried for a decade to compete in social and has failed despite having far greater resources for most of that time. In short, I think "monopoly!" is a convenient scapegoat for the Yelp's of the world so they don't have to admit that Google simply built a better product experience than they did.

mtgx 8y ago

Yeah, it seems almost like a naive/purposeful misunderstanding of what Warren means. Of course that's what Warren meant - the whole point of even talking about antitrust is that you believe a company used its dominant position to destroy the competition in a way that's less than fair/legal.

Shivetya 8y ago

Sorry, but the idea that Apple needs to be separated from the App store is ludicrous. If you don't like the App store don't buy Apple products. There are hundreds of other phones to choose from and some get equal or better reviews. It would be one thing if Apple was the only cell phone maker in existence but that is so far from the truth. Amazon and online purchases, again, there are so many choices that you never ever have to visit Amazon to buy anything. If they were preventing resellers from selling elsewhere then we would have an issue. Like when Intel was trying to force Dell not to sell AMD. Amazon is in truth their own worst enemy now with so many bad products that venturing off known brands is a risk. She is doing what politicians do best, using resentment, jealousy, and more, to gain more power and money. Not just at the voting booth but by intimidating companies into contributing more the PACs and political campaigns. We see this all the time and sadly people buy into it because using market tested phrases has become standard operating procedure for politicians. They pay to find out how to divide people. An example of why PACs are truly bad is a recent political office run revealed that one candidate, who could not see fit to pay their taxes on time, nor their school loans, had been on the part time pay roll of a PAC for nearly 200k a year. Seriously, you want to see how politicians roll in the money look how the shake down really pays them.

patrec 8y ago
There are just two phone makers in existence: Google and Apple. If you care about privacy and security, there is just a single phone maker: Apple. The only difference between different brands of Google phones is how much additional insecurity and crap the notional manufacturer adds on top. Amazon has complete dominance over books in the US and are on their way to abolishing book ownership outright.
- everdrive 8y ago
  >are on their way to abolishing book ownership outright. This is hyperbolic. There has been a resurgence in small bookstores, and Amazon sells quite a few physical books themselves.
  - patrec 8y ago
    It's not in the least hyperbolic. Physical books are going away. You can't buy ebooks on amazon. They have close to 90% of the us ebook market already.
- buzzerbetrayed 8y ago
  If apple is the only phone maker to offer privacy and security, why would we break them up? Amazon is abolishing book ownership because they invented a better way to read books (kindle and audible). How is breaking them up going to make people want to own books again? The only way that would happen is if you make kindle and audible worse. How would that help society?
  - briandear 8y ago
    People also seem to forget that the Apple Bookstore is still a thing. Certainly not as big as Amazon but certainly big enough to matter. Apple also has audiobooks as well. So there is competition.
    - patrec 8y ago

quest88 8y ago

Which anti-competitive moves?

scarface74 8y ago

There is no world besides maybe Beats where any of the acquisitions that Apple made would have ever ended up being competitors. The entire reason for almost any investor backed company to exist is to be acquired. You don’t have to look any further than YC. In its entire history only one company that it has invested in has ever gone public.

dkrich 8y ago

I think his point though is that the premise that these companies achieved their success through domination and monopolistic powers is inaccurate because they rose to prominence while not being dominate or possessing any monopolistic powers. Facebook beat out MySpace by making a better product at a time when MySpace had a huge lead. So through innovation and creating a better product alone a company can theoretically compete as the examples she cites did at one point. In fairness, he does go on to say that they have now reached a critical mass such that in the ad space nobody can compete because they throw off so much cash that they can deploy that into acquisitions or developing free products just to maintain their leads and steal share from up and coming companies. It's a complex issue. One thing I didn't get about Warren's comment was her assertion that if you provide the store for others to sell in you aren't allowed to sell because you have access to data and product placement that gives you an unfair advantage. Okay according to that line of reasoning Wal-Mart and all major grocery chains should be broken up because they all sell private label merchandise. Or none of them should be allowed to sell private label merchandise because they can give it the best placement and know which products are best to make. Obviously that argument quickly falls apart because a consumer who goes to a grocery store is quickly going to become frustrated and go elsewhere if all they can find are the store's own versions of products that they are shopping for. Amazon and Google have demonstrated a very clear understanding of this since they started, knowing that giving the customer what they want quickly and conveniently is the most important thing. If it happens to be Amazon's own brand of duffel bag or Google's own restaurant reviews based on the search then so be it. But I seriously doubt Google is withholding Yelp results to be anticompetitive. The far more likely explanation in my mind is that a searcher would rather see a Google Map with all of the restaurants and pictures and reviews quickly and reliably and Google knows that. That they might profit by it is a happy accident not because they control the means of search. Sooner or later the better product experience is going to win out regardless of whether it is made by Google or somebody else. Google has tried for a decade to compete in social and has failed despite having far greater resources for most of that time. In short, I think "monopoly!" is a convenient scapegoat for the Yelp's of the world so they don't have to admit that Google simply built a better product experience than they did.