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This would allow smaller players to step in and to start grinding some market shares of the big players. It would also turn the laptop market from a high margin

This would allow smaller players to step in and to start grinding some market shares of the big players. It would also turn the laptop market from a high margin market to a low margin one. Standardization is just not in the interest of any big player so it's probably never gonna happen. If you are a small player and want to go that direction you're probably gonna be bought out. The only way i see would be to somehow get pervasive open standards and libre schematics implementing them, and then cut out the big players and get several manufacturers to produce them. But that too is hardly gonna happen because of geopolitical problems: most of these manufacturers are domiciled in china and thus this move would cut to much income from western (and korean, japanese) countries. So for that to happen we would have to relocate some manufacturing industry and somehow not put them in the hands of any of our local big players. The problem here is not some problematic business decisions by companies, it's how we organized our economy. It would take radical changes in the economic/industrial policy to make that happen: much stronger anti-trust laws, which would keep companies smaller and force cooperation; public- instead of private-regulated prices so that you don't die to foreign companies' exportation when you start doing that; etc. This would drive cooperation up in all of the economy, take power away from multinationals, reduce waste, hinder "useless innovation". Long road ahead but i think that's what we need and that's what gonna happen at some point anyway: the capitalistic class may still be floating currently, but at some point the systemic crisis (financial instability, natural disasters, political instability, scarcity of energy and other basic resources) is gonna hit them too. What we have to make sure is that they don't get more out-of-sync with that than they currently are.

dd36 8y ago
It’s interesting how competition used to be encouraged in the U.S. and now it’s pretty much the opposite. It’s all about consolidation, oligopolies and monopolies. If standards lower margins and make entering easier, that’s what should be regulated for.
- lapinot 8y ago
  Adding more competition isn't an answer, because competition is about individual profit, thus monopoly. Neo-liberalism, global free market etc do encourage a world-wide competition: it's already the current trend. What you probably mean is some kind of "healthy/fair competition": the fact we need to add another adjective hints that this is about doing something to balance it. I argue this is about encouraging cooperation. A good balance between both leads to interdependence, which is exactly what we would like: a state where everyone has some possibility of moving around a bit, but where nobody is free to ignore what people they interact with have to say. A ref i really want to push: "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution" (1902, Kropotkine). There is a whole part mostly about the evolutionary analysis of altruism (the rest is about analyzing several human social orders throughout history: pre-medieval villages, medieval cities and 19c industrial cities).
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Lobbyists rule, and lobbyists are employed by large firms.

dd36 8y ago

It’s interesting how competition used to be encouraged in the U.S. and now it’s pretty much the opposite. It’s all about consolidation, oligopolies and monopolies. If standards lower margins and make entering easier, that’s what should be regulated for.

lapinot 8y ago
Adding more competition isn't an answer, because competition is about individual profit, thus monopoly. Neo-liberalism, global free market etc do encourage a world-wide competition: it's already the current trend. What you probably mean is some kind of "healthy/fair competition": the fact we need to add another adjective hints that this is about doing something to balance it. I argue this is about encouraging cooperation. A good balance between both leads to interdependence, which is exactly what we would like: a state where everyone has some possibility of moving around a bit, but where nobody is free to ignore what people they interact with have to say. A ref i really want to push: "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution" (1902, Kropotkine). There is a whole part mostly about the evolutionary analysis of altruism (the rest is about analyzing several human social orders throughout history: pre-medieval villages, medieval cities and 19c industrial cities).
jessaustin 8y ago
Lobbyists rule, and lobbyists are employed by large firms.