4 ms·

House committee approves bill that could break up Amazon, Apple, and Google

44 points by samizdis 5y ago

LatteLazy 5y ago
Something must be done, and this is something.
- airhead969 5y ago
  Let's hold a committee to propose which harsh words we shall scream at the Googleplex. I vote for "bastards."
ilaksh 5y ago
The ownership of the platform itself is the problem. We now have the tools to build platforms that are not dependent on individual companies.
- airhead969 5y ago
  Yep. It's reform-washing. The problem is the symbiotic corruption of government, media, and extremely rich individuals who are acceleratingly-enriched by ownership of corporations as cash extraction leviathans. The problem Aaron Swartz identified to Larry Lessig cannot be "solved" by half-measures when powerful people can buy their ways out-of, around, and through any attempts to impose limits on their effectively-absolute power. The billionaires' money is the source of their power, as are the ruthless, callous, greed of the individuals themselves. If you want a just civilization, end the billionaires, one way or another because we're only facing a conflagration of several existential crises and billions of people put-upon with unnatural stress and misery.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  I’m curious how would this work for products like apple? One would argue it’s only as good as it is because they control their platform fully.
dd444fgdfg 5y ago
very unpopular opinion here, but I think we need to retain the mega-corps to be able to compete with the mega-corps from China in the future. In 20 years China is going to have dozens of state sized companies and if we're breaking up companies because they get too big, we're not going to be able to play their game.
- unstatusthequo 5y ago
  Not unpopular to the non socialists on HN. I agree with you.
  - msisdead 5y ago
    Definitely not a socialist but big companies hurt consumers as individuals and other businesses and society as a whole. Not by default, eg MS of today but due to their tendencies.
    - bennysomething 5y ago
      The thing is, it used to be "government has to intervene in monopolies" now it's "governments need to intervene if company's get too big". Seems like the usa is about to disincentivise companies being number one in anything.
      - voakbasda 5y ago
        The problem is that “too big” becomes synonymous with monopolistic behavior. It’s the nature of our system that drives them to that end. Winner takes all.
      - kbenson 5y ago
        The thing governments try to intervene to stop is anticompetitive behavior. Monopolies easily lead to this, so we single those out and stop them early, but that's just one situation that leads to anticompetitive behavior. There are many aspects of megacorps that also can and do lead to anticompetitive behavior, all that remains is to determine if additional categories of behavior that are more common today also rise to the level that we want them specifically singles out and regulated as well. Monopolies aren't inherently bad, they're regulated because they incentivize anticompetitive behavior that hurts consumers and the economy in the long run (you have to assume companies will act against their best interests for them to not cause problems). Megacorps aren't inherently bad, but we may want to regulate them because they may incentivize anticompetitive behavior that hurts consumers and the economy in the long run.
stevenalowe 5y ago
What a great idea! Remember how well that worked with AT&T?
- Shikadi 5y ago
  Worked well until every administration let them re-merge back together
  - aejnsn 5y ago
    I think that’s the point.
naveen99 5y ago
You get better price discovery, but lose on internal transactions becoming taxable. maybe if they removed business to business sales tax…

44 points by samizdis 5y ago

LatteLazy 5y ago

Something must be done, and this is something.

airhead969 5y ago
Let's hold a committee to propose which harsh words we shall scream at the Googleplex. I vote for "bastards."

ilaksh 5y ago

The ownership of the platform itself is the problem. We now have the tools to build platforms that are not dependent on individual companies.

airhead969 5y ago
Yep. It's reform-washing. The problem is the symbiotic corruption of government, media, and extremely rich individuals who are acceleratingly-enriched by ownership of corporations as cash extraction leviathans. The problem Aaron Swartz identified to Larry Lessig cannot be "solved" by half-measures when powerful people can buy their ways out-of, around, and through any attempts to impose limits on their effectively-absolute power. The billionaires' money is the source of their power, as are the ruthless, callous, greed of the individuals themselves. If you want a just civilization, end the billionaires, one way or another because we're only facing a conflagration of several existential crises and billions of people put-upon with unnatural stress and misery.
Jcowell 5y ago
I’m curious how would this work for products like apple? One would argue it’s only as good as it is because they control their platform fully.

dd444fgdfg 5y ago

very unpopular opinion here, but I think we need to retain the mega-corps to be able to compete with the mega-corps from China in the future. In 20 years China is going to have dozens of state sized companies and if we're breaking up companies because they get too big, we're not going to be able to play their game.

unstatusthequo 5y ago
Not unpopular to the non socialists on HN. I agree with you.
- msisdead 5y ago
  Definitely not a socialist but big companies hurt consumers as individuals and other businesses and society as a whole. Not by default, eg MS of today but due to their tendencies.
  - bennysomething 5y ago
    The thing is, it used to be "government has to intervene in monopolies" now it's "governments need to intervene if company's get too big". Seems like the usa is about to disincentivise companies being number one in anything.
    - voakbasda 5y ago
      The problem is that “too big” becomes synonymous with monopolistic behavior. It’s the nature of our system that drives them to that end. Winner takes all.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      The thing governments try to intervene to stop is anticompetitive behavior. Monopolies easily lead to this, so we single those out and stop them early, but that's just one situation that leads to anticompetitive behavior. There are many aspects of megacorps that also can and do lead to anticompetitive behavior, all that remains is to determine if additional categories of behavior that are more common today also rise to the level that we want them specifically singles out and regulated as well. Monopolies aren't inherently bad, they're regulated because they incentivize anticompetitive behavior that hurts consumers and the economy in the long run (you have to assume companies will act against their best interests for them to not cause problems). Megacorps aren't inherently bad, but we may want to regulate them because they may incentivize anticompetitive behavior that hurts consumers and the economy in the long run.

stevenalowe 5y ago

What a great idea! Remember how well that worked with AT&T?

Shikadi 5y ago
Worked well until every administration let them re-merge back together
- aejnsn 5y ago
  I think that’s the point.

naveen99 5y ago

You get better price discovery, but lose on internal transactions becoming taxable. maybe if they removed business to business sales tax…