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> the next generation of great American tech companies can flourish. To do that, we need to stop this generation of big tech companies from throwing around thei

> the next generation of great American tech companies can flourish. To do that, we need to stop this generation of big tech companies from throwing around their political power to shape the rules in their favor and throwing around their economic power to snuff out or buy up every potential competitor. This is part I find interesting. If there is a difference between the titans of now vs old, its that they behave like Kronos, swallowing any potential threat for fear someone may disrupt them as they themselves had done to the original mammoths, not brushing off the threat they know is there, no matter how small. But, on a separate note, I think that the current anti-trust philosophy isn't equipped to deal with companies whose business isn't driven by physical products, or behaves a certain way in highly competitive markets (i.e. Apple). Matt Levine often talks about how practically, modern anti-trust in the US isn't there to regulate bigness, but protect consumers via promoting price competition. I can see that they have a lot of power, and some of the effects that power can have, I just struggle to see how potentially impacting the way these businesses operate leads to better outcomes for consumers and citizens as customers.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Its even uglier when the price these companies charge is "free"... But in actuality you pay with your data. And I know of no human who would be able to accurately price access to parts or all of their data. "Its just data. How much am I really worth?", is a common refrain. And then, well, its freeeeee....
- sdenton4 8y ago
  Nah, you pay with your eyeballs on the ads. The data just helps choose the ad, and doesn't need to be terribly accurate. So no, your data isn't really worth much: it's the aggregates that you've done a tiny tiny part in building that's worth a lot.
sdenton4 8y ago
The arguments are about stifled competition, rather than direct consumer impact. There's less funding for early startups because it's hard to compete with the Giants, and the Giants walk where they want to. As a result, no one gets a chance to do better than the Giants are currently doing... Even if consumers are kinda ok with how things currently are. (Now, it's also pretty easy to imagine breakups going horribly horribly wrong for consumers, precisely because consumers are pretty happy with the state of play. I would hate paying for a calendar app at this point in history, and I would also hate having to comparison shop for one that didn't suck...)
- WaltPurvis 8y ago
  >it's hard to compete with the Giants, and the Giants walk where they want to. As a result, no one gets a chance to do better than the Giants are currently doing... I'm old enough to remember when Michael Dell said Apple could never compete with giants like Dell and should just dissolve itself and disburse whatever money it had left to shareholders, and almost every business pundit in the world agreed. (I'm sure Michael Dell could tell stories about pundits who said he could never compete against the giant among giants, IBM.) I'm also old enough to remember when pundits said Amazon would never be able to compete with giants like Barnes & Noble and Borders (Borders is a company that doesn't exist anymore, but twenty years ago it was a giant — look it up). I also remember when tiny little Google was nothing more than a feature (search, how boring) that giant Yahoo would obviously just buy or duplicate. And I remember when Netflix's stock price was so depressed you could have bought the entire company for less than the production cost of one summer blockbuster, and everyone was sure it could never survive competing against Blockbuster.com. (Blockbuster is a company that doesn't exist anymore, but fifteen years ago it was a giant – look it up.) It's obviously hard to compete with entrenched giants, but I'm skeptical of any notion that it's any different now than in the past (if anything, it's probably slightly easier these days).

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

Its even uglier when the price these companies charge is "free"... But in actuality you pay with your data. And I know of no human who would be able to accurately price access to parts or all of their data. "Its just data. How much am I really worth?", is a common refrain. And then, well, its freeeeee....

sdenton4 8y ago
Nah, you pay with your eyeballs on the ads. The data just helps choose the ad, and doesn't need to be terribly accurate. So no, your data isn't really worth much: it's the aggregates that you've done a tiny tiny part in building that's worth a lot.

sdenton4 8y ago

The arguments are about stifled competition, rather than direct consumer impact. There's less funding for early startups because it's hard to compete with the Giants, and the Giants walk where they want to. As a result, no one gets a chance to do better than the Giants are currently doing... Even if consumers are kinda ok with how things currently are. (Now, it's also pretty easy to imagine breakups going horribly horribly wrong for consumers, precisely because consumers are pretty happy with the state of play. I would hate paying for a calendar app at this point in history, and I would also hate having to comparison shop for one that didn't suck...)

WaltPurvis 8y ago
>it's hard to compete with the Giants, and the Giants walk where they want to. As a result, no one gets a chance to do better than the Giants are currently doing... I'm old enough to remember when Michael Dell said Apple could never compete with giants like Dell and should just dissolve itself and disburse whatever money it had left to shareholders, and almost every business pundit in the world agreed. (I'm sure Michael Dell could tell stories about pundits who said he could never compete against the giant among giants, IBM.) I'm also old enough to remember when pundits said Amazon would never be able to compete with giants like Barnes & Noble and Borders (Borders is a company that doesn't exist anymore, but twenty years ago it was a giant — look it up). I also remember when tiny little Google was nothing more than a feature (search, how boring) that giant Yahoo would obviously just buy or duplicate. And I remember when Netflix's stock price was so depressed you could have bought the entire company for less than the production cost of one summer blockbuster, and everyone was sure it could never survive competing against Blockbuster.com. (Blockbuster is a company that doesn't exist anymore, but fifteen years ago it was a giant – look it up.) It's obviously hard to compete with entrenched giants, but I'm skeptical of any notion that it's any different now than in the past (if anything, it's probably slightly easier these days).