3 ms·

A lot of this just looks like punishing success to me. Or rather success combined with a lack of political involvement aka donation. If it cares about monopoli

A lot of this just looks like punishing success to me. Or rather success combined with a lack of political involvement aka donation. If it cares about monopolies go look at comcast or Disney or big chunks of agriculture or Boeing etc. If the house really cares about privacy, it should look at the patriot act. If it cares about workers, go look at Walmart.

capableweb 6y ago
> A lot of this just looks like punishing success to me I guess if you think "success" means companies ending up as monopolies, I guess you're right. In general, capitalism gravitates to a "winner takes it all" situations as with more capital, you can also capture more of the market. But we also generally prefer to have many players in the market so competition still exists. All this work here is trying to prevent monopolies from forming, because currently the US is very much lacking in any tooling to prevent monopolies, as we see in a lot of industries, not just technology. A step in the right direction it seems to me.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  The standard in most places (US included) is that monopolies (and duopolies etc) are allowed. But they are not allowed to abuse their positions. That leaves us with 2 issues I think: 1. If people want competitive markets, that's fine but that's a new policy, and big tech is a bad place to start because it's much more competitive than many many other markets. You can pick 1001 other stores than amazon, but you will be paying with Visa or Mastercard... 2. We need to regulate a lot of new utilities. Are you sure you want the FCC deciding what innovations are allowed in search or social media? Aren't there massive free speech issues there?
swebs 6y ago
What market is Disney a monopoly in?
- thrav 6y ago
  Soon to expire copyright material (stories, characters, etc.) that they then block from ever entering the public domain. https://nyunews.com/opinion/2019/10/01/disney-public-domain-copyright/ https://nyunews.com/opinion/2019/10/01/disney-public-domain-...
  - Mindwipe 6y ago
    Disney owns considerably less than 1% of soon to expire copyright material, so no.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    I'm not sure there's any chance that the US government comes down on the side of "You know this monopoly power we (the US government) explicitly grant and protect by default? You can't have it any more"
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Disney took 45% of the US box office in 2019. Much more if if you narrow it to kids media. There are few competitors in either market so it's an oligopoly. You can see the effect in spiraling prices. Amazon only managed 35% of ecommerce. There are a lot of other companies trying to eat their market (Ebay, Shopify, Ali). Hence prices there stay low.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    There’s also a much lower barrier to entry in online retail. Technically, the barrier to kids’ media is low too, and there’s tons of it, for free even, but it’s mostly garbage. What Disney has is a curated, higher quality (according to the market) product.
- briandear 6y ago
  They own the Disney Theme Park Market. Vendors have to get approved to sell in Disney parks, a commissions gets paid to Disney for each sale, and Disney doesn’t allow Universal Studios products in any of the Disney park stores.

capableweb 6y ago

> A lot of this just looks like punishing success to me I guess if you think "success" means companies ending up as monopolies, I guess you're right. In general, capitalism gravitates to a "winner takes it all" situations as with more capital, you can also capture more of the market. But we also generally prefer to have many players in the market so competition still exists. All this work here is trying to prevent monopolies from forming, because currently the US is very much lacking in any tooling to prevent monopolies, as we see in a lot of industries, not just technology. A step in the right direction it seems to me.

LatteLazy 6y ago
The standard in most places (US included) is that monopolies (and duopolies etc) are allowed. But they are not allowed to abuse their positions. That leaves us with 2 issues I think: 1. If people want competitive markets, that's fine but that's a new policy, and big tech is a bad place to start because it's much more competitive than many many other markets. You can pick 1001 other stores than amazon, but you will be paying with Visa or Mastercard... 2. We need to regulate a lot of new utilities. Are you sure you want the FCC deciding what innovations are allowed in search or social media? Aren't there massive free speech issues there?

swebs 6y ago

What market is Disney a monopoly in?

thrav 6y ago
Soon to expire copyright material (stories, characters, etc.) that they then block from ever entering the public domain. https://nyunews.com/opinion/2019/10/01/disney-public-domain-copyright/ https://nyunews.com/opinion/2019/10/01/disney-public-domain-...
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  Disney owns considerably less than 1% of soon to expire copyright material, so no.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  I'm not sure there's any chance that the US government comes down on the side of "You know this monopoly power we (the US government) explicitly grant and protect by default? You can't have it any more"
LatteLazy 6y ago
Disney took 45% of the US box office in 2019. Much more if if you narrow it to kids media. There are few competitors in either market so it's an oligopoly. You can see the effect in spiraling prices. Amazon only managed 35% of ecommerce. There are a lot of other companies trying to eat their market (Ebay, Shopify, Ali). Hence prices there stay low.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  There’s also a much lower barrier to entry in online retail. Technically, the barrier to kids’ media is low too, and there’s tons of it, for free even, but it’s mostly garbage. What Disney has is a curated, higher quality (according to the market) product.
briandear 6y ago
They own the Disney Theme Park Market. Vendors have to get approved to sell in Disney parks, a commissions gets paid to Disney for each sale, and Disney doesn’t allow Universal Studios products in any of the Disney park stores.