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Amazon and Facebook should be next. Break them all up with extreme prejudice and put strict new anti-trust laws around acquisitions in place for the future. We

by noad 6y ago

Amazon and Facebook should be next. Break them all up with extreme prejudice and put strict new anti-trust laws around acquisitions in place for the future. We're going to do this and open technology back up to innovation and progress, or just watch the tech giants continue to grow in power and abusiveness year after year while new startups continue to decline.

ghastmaster 6y ago
Ever wonder why innovation takes place? Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Economic incentives for innovation and disruption are greater when a monopolistic entity is over charging for it's good or service. If they are not over charging then there is not as great an incentive to innovate or disrupt. If the latter is the case, why bust a monopoly that is providing a fair service?
- eshamukhamedov 6y ago
  > Economic incentives for innovation and disruption are greater when a monopolistic entity is over charging for it's good or service. Care to back that up, or are we supposed to take your, frankly, very unorthodox views at face value? Every industry I can think of with entrenched monopolies sees almost no innovation until things get so bad that they are finally disrupted: aerospace, energy, advertisement, telecommunications, and the list goes on and on.
  - SamReidHughes 6y ago
    Amazon doesn’t really “have” a monopoly. Walmart just can’t compete online, but it’s because they suck, not because of a structural force stopping them.
  - ghastmaster 6y ago
    > Every industry I can think of with entrenched monopolies sees almost no innovation until things get so bad that they are finally disrupted: aerospace, energy, advertisement, telecommunications, and the list goes on and on. Intel's virtual monopoly of microprocessors has led to AMD's recent advancements: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4247790-intel-vs-amd-battle-for-market-share https://seekingalpha.com/article/4247790-intel-vs-amd-battle... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-vs-intel-cpu-market-share-q4-2019-epyc-and-ryzen-growth-decelerate-mobile-ryzen-up https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-vs-intel-cpu-market-sh... Check out the historical market shares in the links. Markets have changed in time with respect to computing. People are opting for mobile devices which use arm processors(even breaking into server space). Unless the behemoths in the industry adapt, their industry may not exist in the future. That is innovation and disruption happening right now. Intel had in 2018 90.4% of the desktop/notebook/server market with 96.8% of the server market share. Maybe this is only Intel vs. AMD stats. Are servers run with other processors? Standard oil(Arguably the most notorious monopolistic company in the history of the United States) by comparison: "At one point, it was believe that they controlled somewhere between 88% to 91% of all the oil in the United States"
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  > Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Railroads still are. If you mean transport in general, it's because the government build a huge number of roads, waterways, and airports.
  - ghastmaster 6y ago
    Good point. I did mean for commercial goods transport, but did not make that apparent.
pb7 6y ago
Break them up into what?
- tombert 6y ago
  Well conceivably you could separate out the Facebook ad network and the Facebook social media, and possibly also maybe the IM systems (FB Chat/Whatsapp). I know virtually nothing about antitrust law, and I'm not a lawyer, so I'm speaking largely out of my behind, but those seem like logical-enough divisions.
  - pb7 6y ago
    How would Facebook social media exist on its own with the ad network paying for it?
    - jlbnjmn 6y ago
      The ad network is for ads on partner sites, not on Facebook itself. It's Facebook's version of Google's DoubleClick.
- walterbell 6y ago
  Some units are already separate companies below a holding company.
- lucio 6y ago
  Maybe just force all social apps to a standard data migration format, and an easy UI to move, so you can move you data freely
  - blululu 6y ago
    Consider that Facebook has 3 different messaging apps, and Google has an unknown number of messaging apps. Both companies have strong internal incentives to consolidate their own messaging apps and yet these efforts have never succeeded. I'm not sure if having a single universal protocol is the best idea.
nojito 6y ago
How so? Google is infinitely worse than Amazon and Facebook put together. They just so happen to be an advertising company so they internet doesn't know about it yet.
- snazz 6y ago
  > Google is infinitely worse than Amazon and Facebook put together. > They just so happen to be an advertising company so they internet doesn't know about it yet. Could you share your reasoning for coming to that conclusion?
  - nojito 6y ago
    Sharing and collecting data to share between business entities with no firewall between the two unlike Amazon and Facebook. Clandestine support of privacy researchers to publish favorable content.
- ianmobbs 6y ago
  Why do you say Google is worse than Amazon and Facebook put together?
  - nojito 6y ago
    The amount of data that Google has on you is immeasurable. The fact that there is no firewall between Google business entities in terms of data sharing is absolutely insane. They have normalized the concept of sharing your data to the internet and monetizing it. At least Facebook and Amazon are accountable for their actions.
- camccar 6y ago
  Amazon is pretty bad.
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
Dear lord, that's the tech equivalent of a Che Guevarra t-shirt.
yowlingcat 6y ago
Ah yes, tech is the industry with the most insidious monopolies, not oil, telecom, or defense. And surely, the current government will enthusiastically move forward with the actual /legwork/ (rather than saber rattling) of killing its goose that lays the golden egg. Let's be real here. None of these megacorps are getting broken up any time soon. We haven't had a trustbuster in office for a very long time. The megacorp/lobbyist/politico triopoly has ruthlessly, slickly snuffed out any perceived opposition for quite a long time.
- TheArcane 6y ago
  This is classical whataboutism
  - md_ 6y ago
    I’m not sure that’s inherently disqualifying. When it comes to questions of law and justice, it seems entirely reasonable to ask about similar cases, simply to investigate the equal and fair application of law, no? “Whatsboutism”, as I understand it, is a technique where one brings up ill-proven allegations that are unrelated to the matter at hand merely to distract. Here, the claim seems much more on point: it’s that this is a political case, as shown by the failure to pursue similar cases against other companies. (Is it? I don’t personally know. But it seems like a fair point to make.)
    - gfodor 6y ago
      Law especially at the federal DOJ level is as much about which cases to pursue as it is about what cases have merit. Either no monopolists should be prosecuted or a select subset worthy of the opportunity cost should be. How big the subset is a question, and the proper subset could be zero, but it's not a contradiction to see selective enforcement of anti-trust. The opposite, where many big, massive cases are opened on many fronts simultaneously is almost never the methodology of federal law enforcement afaict.
      - md_ 6y ago
a9entroy 6y ago
What will breaking up Google accomplish? I think the individual orgs inside Google already act as separate businesses. So they are already split internally.
- tyingq 6y ago
  As one example, Chrome might act differently if it were separate from Google the advertising/search giant.
  - mthoms 6y ago
    According to wiki, Google Shopping is now run entirely separate after a case in the EU (though it's not clear if that's just in Europe or not). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Google_Shopping_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Goog... I think it's a good start. All ancillary Google businesses outside of search/ads should be required to run at arms length IMHO.
- jm4 6y ago
  In my opinion, Microsoft became a much better company after their brush with antitrust. I don’t know how much had to do with the case and how much is just because of the quality leadership they have now, but I hope Google becomes a much better company in the future. They went from having great products to downright creepy and it’s difficult not to use any of their products or to be tracked by them. I’d like to see a different Google.
- riku_iki 6y ago
  If you split all datacenter operations into separate company (Alphabet Cloud), Search and Ads will not receive access to cheap resources on significant discount, but will pay fair market price, which is a big burden for other companies trying to enter the market.
throwaway4715 6y ago
What is Facebook a monopoly in?
ascotan 6y ago
Maybe I'm lost here but why is this a good thing? and what this is providing for the consumer. I am not harmed by Google price fixing (as far as I know) because I pay them exactly $0, nor do I want to see the days of the 90's again, when you needed a 'metacrawler' to search a bunch of search engines. Now if we were talking about my ISP, for which I have exactly 2 choices and both of them collude to increase my bill, then we'd be talking.
- jlbnjmn 6y ago
  > I am not harmed by Google price fixing (as far as I know) because I pay them exactly $0 You're not a Google customer. Advertisers are the customers. Your attention is the product. Again, anyone who does not get an invoice from Google every month is not a customer.

by noad 6y ago

ghastmaster 6y ago

Ever wonder why innovation takes place? Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Economic incentives for innovation and disruption are greater when a monopolistic entity is over charging for it's good or service. If they are not over charging then there is not as great an incentive to innovate or disrupt. If the latter is the case, why bust a monopoly that is providing a fair service?

eshamukhamedov 6y ago
> Economic incentives for innovation and disruption are greater when a monopolistic entity is over charging for it's good or service. Care to back that up, or are we supposed to take your, frankly, very unorthodox views at face value? Every industry I can think of with entrenched monopolies sees almost no innovation until things get so bad that they are finally disrupted: aerospace, energy, advertisement, telecommunications, and the list goes on and on.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  Amazon doesn’t really “have” a monopoly. Walmart just can’t compete online, but it’s because they suck, not because of a structural force stopping them.
- ghastmaster 6y ago
  > Every industry I can think of with entrenched monopolies sees almost no innovation until things get so bad that they are finally disrupted: aerospace, energy, advertisement, telecommunications, and the list goes on and on. Intel's virtual monopoly of microprocessors has led to AMD's recent advancements: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4247790-intel-vs-amd-battle-for-market-share https://seekingalpha.com/article/4247790-intel-vs-amd-battle... https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-vs-intel-cpu-market-share-q4-2019-epyc-and-ryzen-growth-decelerate-mobile-ryzen-up https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-vs-intel-cpu-market-sh... Check out the historical market shares in the links. Markets have changed in time with respect to computing. People are opting for mobile devices which use arm processors(even breaking into server space). Unless the behemoths in the industry adapt, their industry may not exist in the future. That is innovation and disruption happening right now. Intel had in 2018 90.4% of the desktop/notebook/server market with 96.8% of the server market share. Maybe this is only Intel vs. AMD stats. Are servers run with other processors? Standard oil(Arguably the most notorious monopolistic company in the history of the United States) by comparison: "At one point, it was believe that they controlled somewhere between 88% to 91% of all the oil in the United States"
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
> Wonder why we are not still reliant on locomotives for transportation? Railroads still are. If you mean transport in general, it's because the government build a huge number of roads, waterways, and airports.
- ghastmaster 6y ago
  Good point. I did mean for commercial goods transport, but did not make that apparent.

pb7 6y ago

Break them up into what?

tombert 6y ago
Well conceivably you could separate out the Facebook ad network and the Facebook social media, and possibly also maybe the IM systems (FB Chat/Whatsapp). I know virtually nothing about antitrust law, and I'm not a lawyer, so I'm speaking largely out of my behind, but those seem like logical-enough divisions.
- pb7 6y ago
  How would Facebook social media exist on its own with the ad network paying for it?
  - jlbnjmn 6y ago
    The ad network is for ads on partner sites, not on Facebook itself. It's Facebook's version of Google's DoubleClick.
walterbell 6y ago
Some units are already separate companies below a holding company.
lucio 6y ago
Maybe just force all social apps to a standard data migration format, and an easy UI to move, so you can move you data freely
- blululu 6y ago
  Consider that Facebook has 3 different messaging apps, and Google has an unknown number of messaging apps. Both companies have strong internal incentives to consolidate their own messaging apps and yet these efforts have never succeeded. I'm not sure if having a single universal protocol is the best idea.

nojito 6y ago

How so? Google is infinitely worse than Amazon and Facebook put together. They just so happen to be an advertising company so they internet doesn't know about it yet.

snazz 6y ago
> Google is infinitely worse than Amazon and Facebook put together. > They just so happen to be an advertising company so they internet doesn't know about it yet. Could you share your reasoning for coming to that conclusion?
- nojito 6y ago
  Sharing and collecting data to share between business entities with no firewall between the two unlike Amazon and Facebook. Clandestine support of privacy researchers to publish favorable content.
ianmobbs 6y ago
Why do you say Google is worse than Amazon and Facebook put together?
- nojito 6y ago
  The amount of data that Google has on you is immeasurable. The fact that there is no firewall between Google business entities in terms of data sharing is absolutely insane. They have normalized the concept of sharing your data to the internet and monetizing it. At least Facebook and Amazon are accountable for their actions.
camccar 6y ago
Amazon is pretty bad.

Florin_Andrei 6y ago

Dear lord, that's the tech equivalent of a Che Guevarra t-shirt.

yowlingcat 6y ago

Ah yes, tech is the industry with the most insidious monopolies, not oil, telecom, or defense. And surely, the current government will enthusiastically move forward with the actual /legwork/ (rather than saber rattling) of killing its goose that lays the golden egg. Let's be real here. None of these megacorps are getting broken up any time soon. We haven't had a trustbuster in office for a very long time. The megacorp/lobbyist/politico triopoly has ruthlessly, slickly snuffed out any perceived opposition for quite a long time.

TheArcane 6y ago
This is classical whataboutism
- md_ 6y ago
  I’m not sure that’s inherently disqualifying. When it comes to questions of law and justice, it seems entirely reasonable to ask about similar cases, simply to investigate the equal and fair application of law, no? “Whatsboutism”, as I understand it, is a technique where one brings up ill-proven allegations that are unrelated to the matter at hand merely to distract. Here, the claim seems much more on point: it’s that this is a political case, as shown by the failure to pursue similar cases against other companies. (Is it? I don’t personally know. But it seems like a fair point to make.)
  - gfodor 6y ago
    Law especially at the federal DOJ level is as much about which cases to pursue as it is about what cases have merit. Either no monopolists should be prosecuted or a select subset worthy of the opportunity cost should be. How big the subset is a question, and the proper subset could be zero, but it's not a contradiction to see selective enforcement of anti-trust. The opposite, where many big, massive cases are opened on many fronts simultaneously is almost never the methodology of federal law enforcement afaict.
    - md_ 6y ago

a9entroy 6y ago

What will breaking up Google accomplish? I think the individual orgs inside Google already act as separate businesses. So they are already split internally.

tyingq 6y ago
As one example, Chrome might act differently if it were separate from Google the advertising/search giant.
- mthoms 6y ago
  According to wiki, Google Shopping is now run entirely separate after a case in the EU (though it's not clear if that's just in Europe or not). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Google_Shopping_charges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_vs._Google#Goog... I think it's a good start. All ancillary Google businesses outside of search/ads should be required to run at arms length IMHO.
jm4 6y ago
In my opinion, Microsoft became a much better company after their brush with antitrust. I don’t know how much had to do with the case and how much is just because of the quality leadership they have now, but I hope Google becomes a much better company in the future. They went from having great products to downright creepy and it’s difficult not to use any of their products or to be tracked by them. I’d like to see a different Google.
riku_iki 6y ago
If you split all datacenter operations into separate company (Alphabet Cloud), Search and Ads will not receive access to cheap resources on significant discount, but will pay fair market price, which is a big burden for other companies trying to enter the market.

throwaway4715 6y ago

What is Facebook a monopoly in?

ascotan 6y ago

Maybe I'm lost here but why is this a good thing? and what this is providing for the consumer. I am not harmed by Google price fixing (as far as I know) because I pay them exactly $0, nor do I want to see the days of the 90's again, when you needed a 'metacrawler' to search a bunch of search engines. Now if we were talking about my ISP, for which I have exactly 2 choices and both of them collude to increase my bill, then we'd be talking.

jlbnjmn 6y ago
> I am not harmed by Google price fixing (as far as I know) because I pay them exactly $0 You're not a Google customer. Advertisers are the customers. Your attention is the product. Again, anyone who does not get an invoice from Google every month is not a customer.