4 ms·

Amazon (and most successful middlemen) employ this strategy too, so aggressively. Get all the data flowing through you, use that data to screw those who you can

Amazon (and most successful middlemen) employ this strategy too, so aggressively. Get all the data flowing through you, use that data to screw those who you can profit from replacing. Like the people who made sites with public holidays, clocks, converters, calculators that Google has stolen all traffic from for years. Gradually it expands to larger prey, and it feels like a good experience for consumers so it works. Amazon uses marketplace to access markets without risk or their own suppliers (making them a one stop shop in the process), then once they have the data, they start selling the stuff directly. I worked in a music instrument retailer, when Amazon was aggressively trying to capture that industry, and they did start selling through Amazon, and if course Amazon now sells most stuff themselves now. The problem as I see it is that these gradual monopolies pose huge risks to freedom and choice, as they lobby for themselves, and own bigger chunks of the world. Incentives change once you own entire markets, and it's naïve to think what started as a better experience for users will stay that way with less competition. Not sure what can be done though. Antitrust stuff is really the last resort, and it's not a guarantee that it will even happen. In the EU it probably will I guess. USA not do sure.

deleted 7y ago
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leppr 7y ago
> Not sure what can be done though. Antitrust stuff is really the last resort, and it's not a guarantee that it will even happen. In the EU it probably will I guess. USA not do sure. Most regulations seemingly aimed at taming monopolies only end up reinforcing them, because megacorps have the means to circumvent/malleate regulations, while small firms do not. The common-sense implicit mental model of the commercial playing field is a flat market with relatively fixed rules, with an enforcer of market rules (the state). Such a playing field would naturally disfavor unfair monopolies (i.e. those that aren't based on network effects, economies of scale, or superior talent). Obviously, reality is very different: the market rules can be rewritten, and the entity in charge of rewriting them is itself a monopoly. So to prevent unfair monopolies, we would have to make that common-sense mental model a reality, which entails reworking national governance itself.
- modo_mario 7y ago
  People need to stop putting the bar for anti-competitiveness at monopoly. It just creates an artificial ceiling Microsoft saved apple. AMD and Intel. Etc You get selfmaintained duopolies instead. And to grow they just go into other markets. Sure google doesn't have a search or add monopoly. Can't grow much anymore in those fields because of the rules? Use your dominance to crack other fields, every field. Microsoft was so close to being broken up for this long ago but now everyone does it...so why do we allow it?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

leppr 7y ago

> Not sure what can be done though. Antitrust stuff is really the last resort, and it's not a guarantee that it will even happen. In the EU it probably will I guess. USA not do sure. Most regulations seemingly aimed at taming monopolies only end up reinforcing them, because megacorps have the means to circumvent/malleate regulations, while small firms do not. The common-sense implicit mental model of the commercial playing field is a flat market with relatively fixed rules, with an enforcer of market rules (the state). Such a playing field would naturally disfavor unfair monopolies (i.e. those that aren't based on network effects, economies of scale, or superior talent). Obviously, reality is very different: the market rules can be rewritten, and the entity in charge of rewriting them is itself a monopoly. So to prevent unfair monopolies, we would have to make that common-sense mental model a reality, which entails reworking national governance itself.

modo_mario 7y ago
People need to stop putting the bar for anti-competitiveness at monopoly. It just creates an artificial ceiling Microsoft saved apple. AMD and Intel. Etc You get selfmaintained duopolies instead. And to grow they just go into other markets. Sure google doesn't have a search or add monopoly. Can't grow much anymore in those fields because of the rules? Use your dominance to crack other fields, every field. Microsoft was so close to being broken up for this long ago but now everyone does it...so why do we allow it?