9 ms·

I'm not so sure we should be heralding the fact that a single company has not captured all of commerce as a win for competition.

scarface74 8y ago
And it “captured it” because of the incompetence of the previous incumbents in retail - Barnes and Noble, Toys R Us, Tower Records, Walmart, etc. Why should the government punish companies because they were able to disrupt incumbents? Should we also punish Apple because RIM and Palm couldn’t compete?
- cgriswald 8y ago
  You seem to be arguing for a winner-take-all approach to the market. Should future competitors to [monopolistic entity] be punished because [previous competitors] were unable to effectively compete? In any case, I don't think punishment is really an apt metaphor for breaking apart a monopoly.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? Every company I named was once dominant. Even Spotify came out of nowhere and made the once dominance iTunes Music Store basically irrelevant without government intervention. It wasn’t government intervention that caused the once The Beleaguered Computer Company that was about to be crushed by MS what it is today.
    - cgriswald 8y ago
      > So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? > It wasn’t government intervention that caused the once The Beleaguered Computer Company that was about to be crushed by MS what it is today. The criticisms of Microsoft weren't that it was preventing Apple from selling computers; but that it was using it's monopoly in the operating system to prevent competition against its other software. > Even Spotify came out of nowhere and made the once dominance iTunes Music Store basically irrelevant without government intervention. And if Apple decided Spotify could not be on the App Store, how would Spotify do then? (Nevermind we're ignoring the "Apple tax".)
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Spotify doesn’t pay an “Apple Tax”. You can’t subscribe to Spotify within the App store.
        cgriswald 8y ago
        > Spotify doesn’t pay an “Apple Tax”. You can’t subscribe to Spotify within the App store. Spotfy is an example. Plenty of Apps do pay the "Apple tax." I'd get into the complexity of how the "Apple tax" affects Spotify even though it doesn't pay it, but you seem to have already made up your mind about all this regardless of the facts.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You mean companies have to pay to be a part of a marketplace? Software distributors use to pay retailers 60% of the retail price to be sold in stores. It was 70% to be distributed in online app stores like the ones that Verizon use to run to distribute J2ME apps. And you act as if most revenue from online stores is not coming from in app purchases of consumable goods.
        AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > Software distributors use to pay retailers 60% of the retail price to be sold in stores. Because retail stores have to provide shelf space with real estate cost, unsold inventory cost, etc. How much is that cost to Apple? > It was 70% to be distributed in online app stores like the ones that Verizon use to run to distribute J2ME apps. And it costs 0% to be distributed in a Linux package manager. Possibly something to do with Verizon having the same sort of app monopoly over its device customers that Apple does.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You could download J2ME apps from anywhere. Honestly I used Verizon as an example but thinking back, Sprint’s store was a better example. I think Verizon used something different. Because retail stores have to provide shelf space with real estate cost, unsold inventory cost, etc. How much is that cost to Apple? So now the government should also decide what is a “fair” amount of markup? And it costs 0% to be distributed in a Linux package manager. And seeing how little money you can make from Linux users, the value add for distributing packages on Linux makes the price about right....
    - pixl97 8y ago
      >So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? Microsoft is a goddamed convicted monopolist. The conviction significantly changed their internal processes and they were much more careful after that point.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        And how did them “being careful” affect the rise of Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Google? They tried to compete in both the media player, digital music, and phone market and failed. They are still trying to compete in search.
        pixl97 8y ago
        >They tried to compete in both the media player, digital music, and phone market and failed. Yes, they tried to compete, not just buy whoever they could and abuse the rest of the market which means the conviction had the intended effect.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You mean they didn’t spend $7.6 billion on Nokia and before that $500 million on Danger? They tried to buy Yahoo.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? They were convicted of antitrust violations, sanctions were imposed, and they weren't dominant forever. Since a key part of Warren's criticism of the past that has led us to the current state of internet giants is that it results from a complete failure to enforce antitrust laws along the way, there is implicitly a contrast with Microsoft where, even if it was fairly light touch in the US due to timely election of an MS-friendly administration, there was enforcement and sanctions.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        How did these “sanctions” help foster competition and create the players that are dominant today? Microsoft is still just as dominant in the PC operating system market and the desktop productivity market as it was in 1999.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Microsoft is still just as dominant in the PC operating system market and the desktop productivity market as it was in 1999. The sanctions were on the way they illegally leveraged that (legally attained) monopoly to monopolize other markets. Something which they've been decidedly less prone to do since. Well, at least for a while, they are now pretty much following the lead of the companies Warren is complaining about and, to the extent the latter are benefitting from lax enforcement, so are they.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You really think they didn’t set out to dominate mobile, search, the gaming market, etc? You really think they had a strategy meeting and said that their strategy was going to be to always be a strong second?
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > You really think they didn’t set out to dominate mobile, search, the gaming market, etc? No, I think they were, at a minimum, more restrained in unlawfully leveraging their existing monopolies to do that thsn they were in the 1990s with the browser, not that they didn't try to dominate those markets.
    - ivalm 8y ago
      Windows still has 75% market share for desktops (the thing they were a monopoly in)...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - hjk05 8y ago
    Amazon is not a monopoly... monopoly does not mean “successfull company I son’t like”
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  It wasn’t only that. Amazon also avoided sales tax for the longest time, while all those brick and mortar stores had to pass that fee to the customer, immediately making it appear less price competitive on top of the added cost of running a physical store.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    The brick and mortar stores could have easily started another company that was only online. But as far as being uncompetitive because of a previous business model is the entire premise of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”. It’s not the governments responsibility to protect old business models.

scarface74 8y ago

And it “captured it” because of the incompetence of the previous incumbents in retail - Barnes and Noble, Toys R Us, Tower Records, Walmart, etc. Why should the government punish companies because they were able to disrupt incumbents? Should we also punish Apple because RIM and Palm couldn’t compete?

cgriswald 8y ago
You seem to be arguing for a winner-take-all approach to the market. Should future competitors to [monopolistic entity] be punished because [previous competitors] were unable to effectively compete? In any case, I don't think punishment is really an apt metaphor for breaking apart a monopoly.
- scarface74 8y ago
  So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? Every company I named was once dominant. Even Spotify came out of nowhere and made the once dominance iTunes Music Store basically irrelevant without government intervention. It wasn’t government intervention that caused the once The Beleaguered Computer Company that was about to be crushed by MS what it is today.
  - cgriswald 8y ago
    > So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? > It wasn’t government intervention that caused the once The Beleaguered Computer Company that was about to be crushed by MS what it is today. The criticisms of Microsoft weren't that it was preventing Apple from selling computers; but that it was using it's monopoly in the operating system to prevent competition against its other software. > Even Spotify came out of nowhere and made the once dominance iTunes Music Store basically irrelevant without government intervention. And if Apple decided Spotify could not be on the App Store, how would Spotify do then? (Nevermind we're ignoring the "Apple tax".)
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Spotify doesn’t pay an “Apple Tax”. You can’t subscribe to Spotify within the App store.
      - cgriswald 8y ago
        > Spotify doesn’t pay an “Apple Tax”. You can’t subscribe to Spotify within the App store. Spotfy is an example. Plenty of Apps do pay the "Apple tax." I'd get into the complexity of how the "Apple tax" affects Spotify even though it doesn't pay it, but you seem to have already made up your mind about all this regardless of the facts.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You mean companies have to pay to be a part of a marketplace? Software distributors use to pay retailers 60% of the retail price to be sold in stores. It was 70% to be distributed in online app stores like the ones that Verizon use to run to distribute J2ME apps. And you act as if most revenue from online stores is not coming from in app purchases of consumable goods.
        AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > Software distributors use to pay retailers 60% of the retail price to be sold in stores. Because retail stores have to provide shelf space with real estate cost, unsold inventory cost, etc. How much is that cost to Apple? > It was 70% to be distributed in online app stores like the ones that Verizon use to run to distribute J2ME apps. And it costs 0% to be distributed in a Linux package manager. Possibly something to do with Verizon having the same sort of app monopoly over its device customers that Apple does.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You could download J2ME apps from anywhere. Honestly I used Verizon as an example but thinking back, Sprint’s store was a better example. I think Verizon used something different. Because retail stores have to provide shelf space with real estate cost, unsold inventory cost, etc. How much is that cost to Apple? So now the government should also decide what is a “fair” amount of markup? And it costs 0% to be distributed in a Linux package manager. And seeing how little money you can make from Linux users, the value add for distributing packages on Linux makes the price about right....
  - pixl97 8y ago
    >So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? Microsoft is a goddamed convicted monopolist. The conviction significantly changed their internal processes and they were much more careful after that point.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      And how did them “being careful” affect the rise of Facebook, Apple, Amazon or Google? They tried to compete in both the media player, digital music, and phone market and failed. They are still trying to compete in search.
      - pixl97 8y ago
        >They tried to compete in both the media player, digital music, and phone market and failed. Yes, they tried to compete, not just buy whoever they could and abuse the rest of the market which means the conviction had the intended effect.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You mean they didn’t spend $7.6 billion on Nokia and before that $500 million on Danger? They tried to buy Yahoo.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > So back in 1999 people thought that Microsoft would be dominant forever - how did that work out? They were convicted of antitrust violations, sanctions were imposed, and they weren't dominant forever. Since a key part of Warren's criticism of the past that has led us to the current state of internet giants is that it results from a complete failure to enforce antitrust laws along the way, there is implicitly a contrast with Microsoft where, even if it was fairly light touch in the US due to timely election of an MS-friendly administration, there was enforcement and sanctions.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      How did these “sanctions” help foster competition and create the players that are dominant today? Microsoft is still just as dominant in the PC operating system market and the desktop productivity market as it was in 1999.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Microsoft is still just as dominant in the PC operating system market and the desktop productivity market as it was in 1999. The sanctions were on the way they illegally leveraged that (legally attained) monopoly to monopolize other markets. Something which they've been decidedly less prone to do since. Well, at least for a while, they are now pretty much following the lead of the companies Warren is complaining about and, to the extent the latter are benefitting from lax enforcement, so are they.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You really think they didn’t set out to dominate mobile, search, the gaming market, etc? You really think they had a strategy meeting and said that their strategy was going to be to always be a strong second?
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > You really think they didn’t set out to dominate mobile, search, the gaming market, etc? No, I think they were, at a minimum, more restrained in unlawfully leveraging their existing monopolies to do that thsn they were in the 1990s with the browser, not that they didn't try to dominate those markets.
  - ivalm 8y ago
    Windows still has 75% market share for desktops (the thing they were a monopoly in)...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- hjk05 8y ago
  Amazon is not a monopoly... monopoly does not mean “successfull company I son’t like”
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
It wasn’t only that. Amazon also avoided sales tax for the longest time, while all those brick and mortar stores had to pass that fee to the customer, immediately making it appear less price competitive on top of the added cost of running a physical store.
- scarface74 8y ago
  The brick and mortar stores could have easily started another company that was only online. But as far as being uncompetitive because of a previous business model is the entire premise of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”. It’s not the governments responsibility to protect old business models.