4 ms·

Could you make the argument that because it’s nearly impossible to compete with their free offerings, no other company has a chance in that space?

by reidjs 6y ago

jeffreyrogers 6y ago
From what I've read, this is the direction some anti-trust lawyers want the interpretation of the law to go in.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  For Facebook, but Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok are all counterexamples of this.
  - jeffreyrogers 6y ago
    Yes, but usually you start to get the legal theory developed before decisions start changing. They have to come up with new arguments for why to interpret anti-trust law differently before the courts will agree with them. Also, public sentiment obviously has a big impact on the courts, as the Obergefell ruling demonstrates.
nl 6y ago
Hopefully this doesn't work. That will cause enormous harm to consumers, particularly as compute and bandwidth costs continue to fall. Free to consumers is generally a net good, since it gives them access to things they wouldn't otherwise have.
- foxhop 6y ago
  Google isn't going to give up their free services, that's how they get eye balls (attention which equals ad revenue) the have a Monopolistic advantage. A fly wheel to make money.
- qball 6y ago
  >Free to consumers is generally a net good, since it gives them access to things they wouldn't otherwise have. Unless "access to things they wouldn't otherwise have" is free and fair market competition. There's a very good reason that anti-dumping laws exist in almost every nation in the context of international trade, and the one and only reason reason a company dumps a product (selling it below 'normal' price) is to kill any local competition that might arise. YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own. The laws of trade just haven't caught up to this yet; of course, there's nothing stopping countries from updating their laws and banning YouTube and similar sites- unfortunately for them, banning services "sold" in this way would end up causing massive civil unrest, since its citizens now have a bunch of time to deal with the government who took their primary source of entertainment away and aren't as concerned about what the local tech industry might look like in 10 years without unfair competitive practices. Also, the US would take a very dim view of countries that modernize their trade law in a way that restricts how its most valuable companies make their money.
  - nl 6y ago
    > YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own. This an big misconception that I've seen before of HN. I don't know why that is. Youtube standalone revenue is $15B/year[1]. Netflix is around $20B/year, but Netflix spends about $15B/year producing professional content and yet still produces around $1B/quarter in profit[2]. There's nothing at all to indicate that Youtube isn't actually highly profitable. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/20/heres-why-netflix-shares-are-off-after-reporting-earnings/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/20/heres-why-netflix-shares-a...
astrange 6y ago
The current legal theory for monopolies is that they're only bad if they increase consumer prices. Tech companies who give out products for free don't seem to do this.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > Having reached its monopoly position, Google now uses its immense market power to extract a very high tax of [redacted] percent of the ad dollars otherwise flowing to the countless online publishers and content producers like online newspapers, cooking websites, and blogs who survive by selling advertisements on their websites and apps. These costs invariably are passed onto the advertisers themselves and then to American consumers

Could you make the argument that because it’s nearly impossible to compete with their free offerings, no other company has a chance in that space?

by reidjs 6y ago

Could you make the argument that because it’s nearly impossible to compete with their free offerings, no other company has a chance in that space?

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

From what I've read, this is the direction some anti-trust lawyers want the interpretation of the law to go in.

three_seagrass 6y ago
For Facebook, but Snapchat, Twitter, TikTok are all counterexamples of this.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  Yes, but usually you start to get the legal theory developed before decisions start changing. They have to come up with new arguments for why to interpret anti-trust law differently before the courts will agree with them. Also, public sentiment obviously has a big impact on the courts, as the Obergefell ruling demonstrates.

nl 6y ago

Hopefully this doesn't work. That will cause enormous harm to consumers, particularly as compute and bandwidth costs continue to fall. Free to consumers is generally a net good, since it gives them access to things they wouldn't otherwise have.

foxhop 6y ago
Google isn't going to give up their free services, that's how they get eye balls (attention which equals ad revenue) the have a Monopolistic advantage. A fly wheel to make money.
qball 6y ago
>Free to consumers is generally a net good, since it gives them access to things they wouldn't otherwise have. Unless "access to things they wouldn't otherwise have" is free and fair market competition. There's a very good reason that anti-dumping laws exist in almost every nation in the context of international trade, and the one and only reason reason a company dumps a product (selling it below 'normal' price) is to kill any local competition that might arise. YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own. The laws of trade just haven't caught up to this yet; of course, there's nothing stopping countries from updating their laws and banning YouTube and similar sites- unfortunately for them, banning services "sold" in this way would end up causing massive civil unrest, since its citizens now have a bunch of time to deal with the government who took their primary source of entertainment away and aren't as concerned about what the local tech industry might look like in 10 years without unfair competitive practices. Also, the US would take a very dim view of countries that modernize their trade law in a way that restricts how its most valuable companies make their money.
- nl 6y ago
  > YouTube, as far as I'm aware, is offered at a price that doesn't meet its full cost of production, and as such should constitute illegal dumping in any country that has or wants to have a tech industry of its own. This an big misconception that I've seen before of HN. I don't know why that is. Youtube standalone revenue is $15B/year[1]. Netflix is around $20B/year, but Netflix spends about $15B/year producing professional content and yet still produces around $1B/quarter in profit[2]. There's nothing at all to indicate that Youtube isn't actually highly profitable. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/20/heres-why-netflix-shares-are-off-after-reporting-earnings/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/20/heres-why-netflix-shares-a...

astrange 6y ago

The current legal theory for monopolies is that they're only bad if they increase consumer prices. Tech companies who give out products for free don't seem to do this.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> Having reached its monopoly position, Google now uses its immense market power to extract a very high tax of [redacted] percent of the ad dollars otherwise flowing to the countless online publishers and content producers like online newspapers, cooking websites, and blogs who survive by selling advertisements on their websites and apps. These costs invariably are passed onto the advertisers themselves and then to American consumers