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By harming do you mean on price? Big tech has the potential to harm through externalities (privacy, control of the media, etc.). A sufficiently free market - wi
by geofft 7y ago
By harming do you mean on price? Big tech has the potential to harm through externalities (privacy, control of the media, etc.). A sufficiently free market - with appropriate safeguards to ensure competition and prevent regulatory capture - tends to deal with price just fine, but not with externalities.
Warren's argument here is a straightforward free market one: free markets only work when there's a free flow of information. If Amazon both runs the market and participates in it, it's an inherently unfair playing field. Her argument is not that we should break up companies that we don't like or even those that hurt consumers; her argument is we should break up companies whose intact existence threatens the fundamental nature of free markets.
All that said, as it happens, she opposed Comcast's attempt to buy Fox https://thehill.com/policy/technology/396559-senate-dems-urge-justice-department-to-review-comcast-bid-for-fox https://thehill.com/policy/technology/396559-senate-dems-urg... and the T-Mobile / Sprint merger https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429618-dem-senators-urge-fcc-justice-department-to-reject-t-mobile-sprint-merger https://thehill.com/policy/technology/429618-dem-senators-ur... — opposing both on the grounds that they're anticompetitive.
- utopian3 7y agoTelco’s have harmed privacy by sharing location data tracking, and adding injections to web traffic
- jhanschoo 7y ago> adding injections to web traffic to substantiate this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15890551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15890551
- basch 7y agoThe Amazon argument is that they shouldnt be able to sell a store brand and rank it higher than a competing third party product. Should grocery stores and Wal-Mart not be able to sell store brands? Should Xbox Live and Playstation Network not be able to sell first and third party titles? I think the argument is stronger against hardware manufacturers locking down their devices to only first party app stores, than against regular shopping. If I buy a phone from Apple I can only run the apps they approve, and when they stop supporting the OS, the phone doesnt unlock and allow me to install my own OS. Apple can obsolete hardware by strongarming a lack of updates to crucial banking and communication apps.