4 ms·

How though? It's trivially simple to change the default search engine. Just because a product is dominant doesn't mean it got that way nefariously. I'm sure if

How though? It's trivially simple to change the default search engine. Just because a product is dominant doesn't mean it got that way nefariously. I'm sure if you added up all the R&D over the years in search, especially considering the lead time in market, Google's numbers dwarf others (I don't have a citation on that, but it stands to reason). Parallels could be drawn with Amazon and AWS's dominance.

aspenmayer 6y ago
Why is nefarious intent necessary? The rules for monopoly and abuse of market power don’t presuppose such negative motivations, just negative market outcomes.
- pb7 6y ago
  Why is Microsoft not fined and/or broken up for failing to maintain an appropriate search market share with Bing?
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >The rules for monopoly and abuse of market power don’t presuppose such negative motivations, just negative market outcomes. Yes they do. The reason MS got put on the chopping block was because they began telling vendors that they would charge them more if they bundled Netscape or Java. Intel got slapped with a similar suite when they began telling vendors that they would charge more for their chips if they sold any configuration with AMD chips. Similarly Standard Oil did the same thing - once they began telling suppliers they would squeeze them out if they worked with any competitors they got broken up. It's simply not enough to have a dominant position - you have to abuse it to get slapped with an anti trust suite.
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    I agree that negative intent from a monopoly power is actionable. I merely point out that negative intent is not necessary prior to regulatory action against or upon a monopoly power. I refer to another comment on this post for further info. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198343 "Market Power" ‘Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.’ https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
  - int_19h 6y ago
    These rules have changed before, and they can change again. Look up the history of anti-trust and the major shift that happened after judge Bork authored his paper. There's a popular argument that things went downhill from there, and we should reverse that decision. Since it was all about how the courts interpret legislation, this change can be reverted in the same way it was originally carried out.
scarface74 6y ago
AWS is not that dominant. Azure is half its size and GCP is a serious competitor. Not only that, there are plenty of companies you can go to if you don’t want managed services and just want VPSs. Besides that, Amazon itself admits that only 5% of Enterprise workloads are on any cloud platform. Any company - or heck most tech nerds - can build our infrastructure to suit their needs without going to managed services. Whether they should is based on their business model. Before anyone tries to “educate me” about what AWS offers, I know the ins and outs of AWS.

aspenmayer 6y ago

Why is nefarious intent necessary? The rules for monopoly and abuse of market power don’t presuppose such negative motivations, just negative market outcomes.

pb7 6y ago
Why is Microsoft not fined and/or broken up for failing to maintain an appropriate search market share with Bing?
nemothekid 6y ago
>The rules for monopoly and abuse of market power don’t presuppose such negative motivations, just negative market outcomes. Yes they do. The reason MS got put on the chopping block was because they began telling vendors that they would charge them more if they bundled Netscape or Java. Intel got slapped with a similar suite when they began telling vendors that they would charge more for their chips if they sold any configuration with AMD chips. Similarly Standard Oil did the same thing - once they began telling suppliers they would squeeze them out if they worked with any competitors they got broken up. It's simply not enough to have a dominant position - you have to abuse it to get slapped with an anti trust suite.
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  I agree that negative intent from a monopoly power is actionable. I merely point out that negative intent is not necessary prior to regulatory action against or upon a monopoly power. I refer to another comment on this post for further info. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23198343 "Market Power" ‘Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.’ https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/single-firm-conduct/monopolization-defined https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...
- int_19h 6y ago
  These rules have changed before, and they can change again. Look up the history of anti-trust and the major shift that happened after judge Bork authored his paper. There's a popular argument that things went downhill from there, and we should reverse that decision. Since it was all about how the courts interpret legislation, this change can be reverted in the same way it was originally carried out.

scarface74 6y ago

AWS is not that dominant. Azure is half its size and GCP is a serious competitor. Not only that, there are plenty of companies you can go to if you don’t want managed services and just want VPSs. Besides that, Amazon itself admits that only 5% of Enterprise workloads are on any cloud platform. Any company - or heck most tech nerds - can build our infrastructure to suit their needs without going to managed services. Whether they should is based on their business model. Before anyone tries to “educate me” about what AWS offers, I know the ins and outs of AWS.