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I think we’re in a real low point right now. Gmail, AMP, Chrome, Android. So many peoples internet experience is from one place. With Amazon dominating retail,
by mnd999 6y ago
I think we’re in a real low point right now. Gmail, AMP, Chrome, Android. So many peoples internet experience is from one place.
With Amazon dominating retail, and Facebook under its various brands dominating social media, there isn’t much scope for other players.
I don’t see another option than breaking theses companies up at this point.
- mattacular 6y agoDon't forget that Amazon dominates a lot more than just retail on the internet. With AWS they effectively run large portions of it as well.
- thdrdt 6y agoDon't underestimate how Google is becomming the storefront of all retail on internet. Google can now dictate which webshop is shown first in search results on a product level. I know retailers are sick of this. They need Google to be found on the web but they don't like how Google is destroying retail.
- threatofrain 6y agoThere isn't really a strong narrative that Google Shopping is any kind of threat to Amazon or Walmart. Nobody knows if it's going to catch momentum, or if Google will just kill in a few years.
- alangibson 6y agoThere's a huge opportunity for Shopify to launch a slick shopping service that puts a (much nicer looking) Amazon-style interface in front of all the various shops. Combine that with Etsy's marketplace and you'd really have a contender.
- andromeduck 6y agoThey already do that.
- alangibson 6y agoNot well. I've never seen it and I spend way too much with Amazon (meaning I'm an ideal customer).
- jdietrich 6y agoIndependent aggregators are staging a minor comeback, thanks in part to the dismal failure of Google Shopping. I only ever buy PC components through PCPartPicker, I only buy games through IsThereAnyDeal. Third parties can offer real value in this space.
- andai 6y agoIsn't that kinda like saying that the electric companies do the same thing, though?
- alangibson 6y agoThey kind of do, which is why alot of big tech should be highly regulated like utilities.
- Spivak 6y agoI feel like saying that AWS should be regulated like a utility because lots of businesses use their products is a little sill. They have heavy competition in basically all of their markets, their moat is their breadth of services and they’re constantly at risk of being unbundled by a competitor that has more time to devote to a single product segment. They have persistent natural competition with colo-ing that keeps their prices from straying too far from commodity hardware and an ops person. Like if you’re looking to regulate a market this seems like one of the last you’d peg as not being healthy.
- huffmsa 6y agoThere are tons of niche hosts that have sprung up recently, a lot for developing and serving AI/ML applications. Amazon was there first, but it's getting cheaper by the day to buy a bunch of hardware, stick it in an increasingly cheaply electrified building, run a bunch of fiber to it and slap some virtualization software on it.
- alangibson 6y agoAWS wouldn't be my first choice to regulate, but at this point they can turn any competing business into a feature of AWS without breaking a sweat. I know for sure this stifles innovation because I've watched people abandon promising ideas because of that fact.
- leetrout 6y agoI’m under the impression there is more regulation because they are a utility company.
- walrus01 6y agoThey run large portions of it as essentially a gargantuan hosting company, in data centers in a few fixed locations. They buy a lot of dark fiber, and IRUs, and wavelength services from carrier-of-carrier type big ISPs, but by no means do they control the internet. But they are not in the same business of long distance OSI layer 1 ISP operations as CenturyLink/level3, zayo or Verizon are. Where I would be really worried is if I saw amazon making a serious bid to acquire a company similar to Zayo, NTT, KT, France telecom/opentransit, or Telia.
- JPLeRouzic 6y agoIt's a good time for Amazon or Google to buy a Telco, Telcos valuations have lost between 25 to 45% since the beginning of 2020 [0] I guess that a state owned company would willingly be sold by its owner because states urgently need money. For example Orange sa (ex France telecom) is owned at 25% by the French state and French state just had passed a budget which is financed at half by debt (2021). Selling a company for $b30 would provide some relief in 2021 budget. [0] https://www.infrontanalytics.com/fe-en/FR0000133308/Orange-SA/market-valuation https://www.infrontanalytics.com/fe-en/FR0000133308/Orange-S...
- harpratap 6y agoThere's no point in buying a Teleco today, with 5G any of the FAANGs can create one with the money they have. Infact Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have proven experience in web scale, so 5G will be right up their alley
- JPLeRouzic 6y agoThat's true in principle, they could buy directly at Telecom manufacturers, rent antenna space and use subcontractors to install base stations, but there are counter examples showing they are not so good at this business. For example Google has tried to provide free Wi-Fi, at the time some people were afraid it would be some rehearsal for a Wimax deployment, it never happened. 8 years ago, Google made a lot of noise with their high altitude platforms (their so called balloons). They met some Telcos, but it went nowhere. Long time ago Google had also a project to provide phone calls with interesting fees. It was a MVNO in practice but it never got traction even if Google had access to an incredible number of Android users.
- acdha 6y agoThat’s different, though, in that they have significant competition and the users don’t care at all. They have a lot more ability to affect prices on retail sales.
- liveoneggs 6y agoQUIC/HTTP3
- liveoneggs 6y agohttps://pki.goog https://pki.goog https://domains.google/ https://domains.google/ gmail..
- wwwwwwwww 6y agoFAG are America's new Hollywood. Hollywood was an important leg to establish worldwide cultural hegemony for the US during the 20th century. With the internet taking over to shaping culture, the US had to adapt. And it did, and again controls most of the important channels that influence culture worldwide.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- headmelted 6y agoPoor choice of acronym. Please change it, there’s a reason no-one else has used it.
- wwwwwwwww 6y agoWhat about it?
- Zetaphor 6y agoIn case you're not a native English speaker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(slang) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(slang)
- speedgoose 6y agoIt's homophobic.
- wwwwwwwww 6y agoNo, it is not.
- randomdata 6y ago> there’s a reason no-one else has used it. To not confuse with the bearing manufacturer of the same name?
- crispyporkbites 6y agoI don’t think breaking them up is the only option- we need to continue to create innovative companies that defeat the incumbents. Its hard to see right now but history tells us it will come and they will fall, every incumbent always gets complacent and stops innovating and someone comes and cleans up. For example YT hasn’t fundamentally changed in a decade, and the user experience is starting to feel a little off (sponsored content, a gamed recommendation algorithm etc. are all degrading the experience). I don’t know how / where we’ll consume the bulk of our video in 2030, but there’s a significant chance it won’t be YouTube.
- judge2020 6y agoThe absolute scale YouTube runs at makes me thing nobody else could foot the bill for it other than whoever the current biggest Advertisement giant is.
- harpratap 6y agoIf the last electrical/electronics boom is any indicator, it will take a century for these giants to die. Sony is ~75 years old and still going strong. Hitachi, Panasonic, Samsung are all more than 100 years old.
- crispyporkbites 6y agoThey are diversified across a bazillion revenue streams though. And they operate more like 20-30 separate companies under one big brand name. Panasonic can fail at entire industry and succeed elsewhere to survive- if Google search goes away Google would die
- huffmsa 6y agoAmazon is only 4% of the US retail sector though. I wouldn't call that dominant.
- duncanawoods 6y agoDo cars and houses count in that measure?
- huffmsa 6y agoHonestly not sure. Walmart is still 2x the size of Amazon in terms of revenue, and like Bezos said in his congressional briefing, it's easier and cheaper to build and online platform than it is to build out Walmart's existing physical retail presence.
- chrisco255 6y agoReally, then why are there plausible competitors for Wal-Mart (Target, Costco, etc) but no other Amazons for general purpose online shopping?
- andromeduck 6y agoWhat is Shopify, Instacart, Walmart and the thousand other businesses you can buy from directly.
- chrisco255 6y agoIf you want to find a thing to purchase online, you know almost certainly that Amazon will have it. This is not the case with any other e-commerce site. No one has the breadth of products that Amazon has. No one comes close. Yes, I can buy things on walmart.com that are commonly carried in Walmart, but they only have a tiny fraction of the overall selection of Amazon. It's not even a contest.
- huffmsa 6y agoI can order online from all of those stores, and get it faster than if I ordered from Amazon because they all have better last mile infrastructure. Walmart supports 3rd parties as well I think.
- x87678r 6y agoTikTok gonna change the world.
- kilroy123 6y agoI'm skeptical of this under Microsoft's control and stewardship.
- briandear 6y agoHow is TikTok any different than Vine or Meerkat or periscope or any other video/SnapFaceTwitter toy? Do people really have that short of a memory?
- cheph 6y ago> Do people really have that short of a memory? Yes
- keenmaster 6y agoThere's a cultural difference and a technological difference. The cultural difference is that TikTok is a more aspirational platform. It isn't just for short gags. People use TikTok hoping to get famous for their singalongs or whatever else they use the platform for. Even if they don't really believe they'll become famous, there's something thrilling about the performance to them (this enhances the voyeuristic experience for the target audience). Vine was not as performative. It was like a short format America's Funniest Home Videos. The technological difference, which may be underappreciated, is the AI/ML enabled discovery feed. TikTok learns what you like very quickly as you mindlessly scroll through infinite reels of content.
- jhoechtl 6y agoIsn't Google much bigger than Bell ever was before it got broken up into North and South? I think Yandex and Alibaba are the international safeguards of Google preventing the split.