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When we used to talk about "monopolies", we referred to specific private enterprises. But these companies aren't actually monopolies. Facebook doesn't have a mo
by wilsynet 6y ago
When we used to talk about "monopolies", we referred to specific private enterprises. But these companies aren't actually monopolies. Facebook doesn't have a monopoly on social networking, there's Twitter and TikTok and Snap too. AWS doesn't have a monopoly on cloud infra, there's GCP and Azure and Oracle and Digital Ocean too.
The author knows that these companies aren't actually monopolies, so he insinuates that the whole region (Silicon Valley) is a monopoly. And one of these companies (Amazon) it isn't even located in the Silicon Valley region; it's located in the state of Washington.
So really the author has expanded the target of the ire to a whole industry. That is to say, the tech industry has a monopoly on the tech industry.
- Miner49er 6y agoIf Amazon isn't a monopoly (or at least close) then why is Amazon facing action or under investigation for antitrust from Congress, the European Union, the DOJ and 3 states?
- wilsynet 6y agoThe European Commission is investigating Amazon based on "distorting competition in online retail markets" [1]. I don't see a claim by the commission that Amazon is a monopoly. You can be investigated and have antitrust related actions applied to you without actually being a monopoly [2]. Further, the investigation is related to Amazon's retail marketplace business, not Amazon as a provider of cloud infrastructure. What is congress investigating Amazon for? I think you need to be more specific. 1. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_2077 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law "In the United States, antitrust law is a collection of federal and state government laws that regulate the conduct and organization of business corporations and are generally intended to promote competition for the benefit of consumers."
- minhazm 6y agoIn what way could AWS possibly be a monopoly? They definitely don't have a monopoly on retail sales. They don't have a monopoly on cloud either. Now are they competitive? Maybe, but that's not the same thing as being a monopoly.
- three_seagrass 6y ago1) Antitrust accusations include participating in anti-competitive behavior, which may or may not be with a company who has as a monopoly. 2) Antitrust accusations are relatively low cost to make and sometimes used as cheap political tools to score points with a base, despite not having a chance to go anywhere.
- ehsankia 6y agoAll the investigation as far as I know is on the web store side of their business, with Amazon Basics specifically. The blog above is talking about AWS, which is a different side of their business.
- TomK32 6y agoAnd three doesn't make a monopoly but a oligopoly. Which doesn't sound catchy enough for a header-line.
- ehsankia 6y agoI very highly doubt that TikTok is "colluding" with Facebook to keep the market under control, which is what oligopoly implies.