4 ms·
How about a company leveraging its monopoly on operating systems to illicitly gain an advantage in other markets, say ... webbrowsers? Should we nuke them?
by the-dude 6y ago
How about a company leveraging its monopoly on operating systems to illicitly gain an advantage in other markets, say ... webbrowsers?
Should we nuke them?
- eganist 6y agoWell, "nuke" might be the wrong word, but doesn't it depend on the end goal? The EU seems to be taking the "extract wealth" approach, and just as with destabilization, is there anything wrong with that? I'm not answering the question; I'm asking it. I guess my overarching question in the end is whether or not it should be left up to the free market to resolve an issue that's spawned from an entity operating "outside" of it, either literally (e.g. in China) or figuratively (e.g. antitrust violations).
- the-dude 6y agoFair enough. Bomb 'em.
- ensignavenger 6y agoIf you are referring to Microsoft, then yes, the US and Europe both prosecuted them and placed restrictions on them.
- FrankBooth 6y agoMicrosoft? It’s not the nineties. Try Google.
- philipov 6y agoI think you mean Alphabet, and yes. Nuke Facebook and Amazon while we're at it. Break up all the huge conglomerates.
- pb7 6y agoWhy? How small do the pieces have to be to satisfy you?
- philipov 6y agoAmazon should be forced to spin off AWS and release Twitch. Facebook should be forced to release Instagram and Whatsapp. Alphabet should be forced to release Youtube, Waymo, etc. That's about the right scale of antitrust required here.
- rudolph9 6y agoMaybe there is a better word than “Nuke” to describe this? Perhaps a word not so strongly associated with death and destruction, unless you truly mean the physical locations of these orgs should be hit with atomic weapons?
- philipov 6y agoThat's fair, let's not call it nuking. I think a starting point for discussion is to get past equating antitrust issues with monopoly status. In the previous century, these things went together coincidentally, but the scale of our economy has grown to a point where it is no longer necessary for the largest companies to have monopoly power in their market to engage in damaging anti-competitive practices. We instead see cartel-like cooperation between these companies instead of competition, such as apple-google wage fixing that was revealed years ago. Or their complete insulation from consumer feedback necessary for healthy capitalist markets to function, because their economies of scale insulate them by making consumer choices insignificant signals lost in the noise.
- lukevp 6y agoGoogle doesn’t have a monopoly on OSes though, which is what GP stated and seems like a reference to MS to me.
- 29083011397778 6y agoGoogle still owns Android - an OS the majority of the world uses, and is required to ship with Chrome (among other programs) pre-installed if the OEM also wants access to the Google Play Store.
- a1369209993 6y agoActually, Google is illicitly leveraging its monopoly on web search traffic, not operating systems.
- 29083011397778 6y agoIt can be both - Android and Google Search both push consumers towards Drive, Docs, GMail, and as GP mentioned, Chrome.
- ciarannolan 6y agoCompanies who make a web browser and a company that builds the hardware backbone of a nation's internet are not even comparable.
- eganist 6y agoTangential conversation, but I might actually disagree with you there. The modern web browser is the gateway to easily the vast majority of content consumption and creation tools currently in existence. They can be compared in terms of whether control of such can sway the balance of power in a grander scheme.
- Robotbeat 6y agoThe web browser is easier to replace than almost any of those things, though. I regularly use 2 or even 3 different web browsers on the same computer and another on my phone. If Chrome went away, there’d Be basically no impact on my life. Same not true for operating systems as it’s harder to switch.
- ardy42 6y ago> The web browser is easier to replace than almost any of those things, though. I regularly use 2 or even 3 different web browsers on the same computer and another on my phone. If Chrome went away, there’d Be basically no impact on my life. Same not true for operating systems as it’s harder to switch. I'm not so sure. Yeah you could fork Chromium or Firefox (the only two browsers left), but "web standards" have ballooned and gotten so bloated that you'd need a pretty significant engineering organization to manage to support it yourself.
- simlevesque 6y agoI'm not sure since so much of the internet is web browsing
- pb7 6y agoWhich company has a monopoly on operating systems?