4 ms·

Antitrust law has always been cynical and just a tool for those who lost to use favor to get something from those who won. Will the FTC go after the AMA and th

Antitrust law has always been cynical and just a tool for those who lost to use favor to get something from those who won. Will the FTC go after the AMA and the healthcare industry? The cable industry granted monopolies by local communities? Go after industries that are hated and bankrupt people? Or will it go after services people love, that are free, or that revolutionize industries?

Apocryphon 5y ago
Do people actually love these services at present, as opposed to five or ten years ago? The bipartisan move towards antitrust is undergirded by bipartisan grassroots discontent.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  There's a weird[1] dynamic where people dislike "big tech" but are wildly favorable towards individual big tech colonies: Google, Amazon, Apple all have favorability ratings in the 80s and 90s, while Facebook, Twitter, and Slack have much lower ratings. Interestingly enough, being a monopoly seems to be correlated with _higher_ favorability. Your assumption about the implications of bipartisan support seems a little Pollyanna-ish about the degree to which politicians represent their constituents on any given issue. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey-2020-trust-privacy-security-facebook-amazon-google-apple https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2... (I couldn't find individual company numbers for 2021) [1] I guess this isn't that weird, given that similar inconsistencies shows up in all sorts of polling.
- dodobirdlord 5y ago
  > The bipartisan move towards antitrust is undergirded by bipartisan grassroots discontent. Depends on which companies you're talking about. There's widespread discontent about social media companies, but the left and right wing of the political spectrum have opposite and incompatible discontents, so I don't think it's justifiable to call it "bipartisan grassroots discontent". The non-social-media "Big Tech" companies remain extremely popular and well-regarded in surveys of the general public. Google, Amazon, and Netflix were 3 of the top 5 most loved brands of 2020, losing out only to mail carriers (and Google took second place, ahead of UPS). Google and Amazon each have two of the top 10 spots (Google + YouTube, Amazon + Amazon Prime). The idea that there is roiling popular discontent about the activities of Google and Amazon is entirely a media fabrication. https://www.statista.com/statistics/995767/consumers-most-loved-brands-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/995767/consumers-most-lo...

Apocryphon 5y ago

Do people actually love these services at present, as opposed to five or ten years ago? The bipartisan move towards antitrust is undergirded by bipartisan grassroots discontent.

wutbrodo 5y ago
There's a weird[1] dynamic where people dislike "big tech" but are wildly favorable towards individual big tech colonies: Google, Amazon, Apple all have favorability ratings in the 80s and 90s, while Facebook, Twitter, and Slack have much lower ratings. Interestingly enough, being a monopoly seems to be correlated with _higher_ favorability. Your assumption about the implications of bipartisan support seems a little Pollyanna-ish about the degree to which politicians represent their constituents on any given issue. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-survey-2020-trust-privacy-security-facebook-amazon-google-apple https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2... (I couldn't find individual company numbers for 2021) [1] I guess this isn't that weird, given that similar inconsistencies shows up in all sorts of polling.
dodobirdlord 5y ago
> The bipartisan move towards antitrust is undergirded by bipartisan grassroots discontent. Depends on which companies you're talking about. There's widespread discontent about social media companies, but the left and right wing of the political spectrum have opposite and incompatible discontents, so I don't think it's justifiable to call it "bipartisan grassroots discontent". The non-social-media "Big Tech" companies remain extremely popular and well-regarded in surveys of the general public. Google, Amazon, and Netflix were 3 of the top 5 most loved brands of 2020, losing out only to mail carriers (and Google took second place, ahead of UPS). Google and Amazon each have two of the top 10 spots (Google + YouTube, Amazon + Amazon Prime). The idea that there is roiling popular discontent about the activities of Google and Amazon is entirely a media fabrication. https://www.statista.com/statistics/995767/consumers-most-loved-brands-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/995767/consumers-most-lo...