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This is clearly needed, even if late, considering that antitrust laws are not a new thing. There is hope, we tend to forget after only a few generations, but i

This is clearly needed, even if late, considering that antitrust laws are not a new thing. There is hope, we tend to forget after only a few generations, but if politicians are moving now this is because the collective opinions about big tech progressively shifted during the last decade. I might be naïve, but I think that HN played a role. And of course this is not over yet.

dantheman 5y ago
This is clearly not needed. The citizens of the US are being harmed in education both primary and secondary, medicine, and in housing. These are heavily regulated industries that recieve large amounts of tax dollars - why are they not being addressed?
- mrDmrTmrJ 5y ago
  Strongly agree. We're seeing legislation target the sector of the economy with some of the highest productivity ever seen in human history. Congress needs to look at the sectors with the lowest productivity growth! Home construction, infrastructure, health care, and eduction. Here's a great place for congressional investigators to start: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-c... Though, in reality, many those industries are high cost because of congress
  - fmajid 5y ago
    The Tech monopolists are not the entire Tech sector, in fact they are a very small portion of tech employment (and thus productivity). Their rent-seeking behavior stifles innovation and competition, and they coast on the hard work of non-monopolists, e.g. Apple's outrageous 30% cut on app developer revenues.
    - LarryEt 5y ago
      IMO "monopoly" is possibly an outdated idea. The real problem here is the natural preferential attachment that emerges with tech companies at this scale. "A preferential attachment process is any of a class of processes in which some quantity, typically some form of wealth or credit, is distributed among a number of individuals or objects according to how much they already have, so that those who are already wealthy receive more than those who are not." I don't know how we deal with this in the modern world. IMO we need to at least start with network science on the table and realize we do not have the answers if using outdated ideas.
      - idiotsecant 5y ago
        You just defined what a monopoly is without using the word and proposed banning it after saying banning monopolies is outdated.
  - Workaccount2 5y ago
    I'm sticking my head out a bit here given that this is HN... But I largely attribute the high productivity of tech to the simple nature of software as opposed to the tech industry being comprised of the most productive workers and efficient management. The flexibility and efficiency of software is insane compared to even just the hardware side of it, much less medicine or home building.
    - eggsmediumrare 5y ago
      I agree. It's also "new," so there is more room to find opportunities to improve productivity.
    - bpodgursky 5y ago
      Sure, but what does it matter? The US played its cards right and got a thriving tech industry, whereas many other countries did not. Whether it came from individuals or regulation or the nature of software isn't super important. Being in the position of having dominant global tech conglomerates be American has immense value. Do we want to preserve that, or destroy it?
- oliwarner 5y ago
  Big Tech is in every pocket. They monitor and influence the 3-12 hours a day of screen time the average adult subjects themselves to. They can themselves, and can be paid to influence the way we think, shop and live, in ways we keep refusing to acknowledge or confront. Yes, other things are also broken! Let's fix those too.
- jdgoesmarching 5y ago
  Tech companies currently have more more influence over the mental and emotional education of our children than any school could. You seem to be misunderstanding the issue as “these businesses are doing poorly” instead of “extreme concentration of power in the industries that control huge swaths of people’s lives is bad.”
  - Nasrudith 5y ago
    So does Peppa Pig. That is a poor metric and worse yet very selectively applied by the power hungry.
ksec 5y ago
>collective opinions about big tech progressively shifted during the last decade Big Tech is still relatively speaking a very new thing. There are enough people who just had their first smartphone in 2015. So not really a decade. >I might be naïve, but I think that HN played a role. I wish that was true but it is not. Purely from US side of things, EPIC and DHH probably done more damage than anything else. Although Big Tech had all the problems sitting in front of them for years but they were not sensitive enough to view those as problems. Remember the biggest problem of anything is to first admit it is a problem. EPIC and DHH lit a fire and set on a chain reaction. Those who previously were too afraid to speak now wrote to congress for help. Those complains piled up, congress think of it as possibly a non-issue to reaching a certain threshold being a big issue. My personal opinion is the ban of Parler and silencing of Social Media was also another big thing, whether you agree or disagree with it. I mean it is pretty bad when EU hate Trump but also speak out for Trump about silencing him. It is a problem because Politics is Power, big tech decided to flex their muscles and show who is really in power. And you get bet this doesn't sit well not just with politics in US, but politician across the world. I think most people often forget, Republic, Democracy and Rule of Law, all of these were set up because of Power balance. And it is pretty clear Big Tech crossed the red line. And now there are enough political interest and business interest ( from small competitors ) to fuck them up. And it is also why all the discussions about monopoly are quite meaningless. It is about power, and AntiTrust is exactly about the abuse of power. I dont actually agree with breaking them up, but it is a good threat to use. And I also dont know how to go forward other than some form of regulation. But regulation are often good intention with bad consequences.

dantheman 5y ago

This is clearly not needed. The citizens of the US are being harmed in education both primary and secondary, medicine, and in housing. These are heavily regulated industries that recieve large amounts of tax dollars - why are they not being addressed?

mrDmrTmrJ 5y ago
Strongly agree. We're seeing legislation target the sector of the economy with some of the highest productivity ever seen in human history. Congress needs to look at the sectors with the lowest productivity growth! Home construction, infrastructure, health care, and eduction. Here's a great place for congressional investigators to start: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-c... Though, in reality, many those industries are high cost because of congress
- fmajid 5y ago
  The Tech monopolists are not the entire Tech sector, in fact they are a very small portion of tech employment (and thus productivity). Their rent-seeking behavior stifles innovation and competition, and they coast on the hard work of non-monopolists, e.g. Apple's outrageous 30% cut on app developer revenues.
  - LarryEt 5y ago
    IMO "monopoly" is possibly an outdated idea. The real problem here is the natural preferential attachment that emerges with tech companies at this scale. "A preferential attachment process is any of a class of processes in which some quantity, typically some form of wealth or credit, is distributed among a number of individuals or objects according to how much they already have, so that those who are already wealthy receive more than those who are not." I don't know how we deal with this in the modern world. IMO we need to at least start with network science on the table and realize we do not have the answers if using outdated ideas.
    - idiotsecant 5y ago
      You just defined what a monopoly is without using the word and proposed banning it after saying banning monopolies is outdated.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  I'm sticking my head out a bit here given that this is HN... But I largely attribute the high productivity of tech to the simple nature of software as opposed to the tech industry being comprised of the most productive workers and efficient management. The flexibility and efficiency of software is insane compared to even just the hardware side of it, much less medicine or home building.
  - eggsmediumrare 5y ago
    I agree. It's also "new," so there is more room to find opportunities to improve productivity.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Sure, but what does it matter? The US played its cards right and got a thriving tech industry, whereas many other countries did not. Whether it came from individuals or regulation or the nature of software isn't super important. Being in the position of having dominant global tech conglomerates be American has immense value. Do we want to preserve that, or destroy it?
oliwarner 5y ago
Big Tech is in every pocket. They monitor and influence the 3-12 hours a day of screen time the average adult subjects themselves to. They can themselves, and can be paid to influence the way we think, shop and live, in ways we keep refusing to acknowledge or confront. Yes, other things are also broken! Let's fix those too.
jdgoesmarching 5y ago
Tech companies currently have more more influence over the mental and emotional education of our children than any school could. You seem to be misunderstanding the issue as “these businesses are doing poorly” instead of “extreme concentration of power in the industries that control huge swaths of people’s lives is bad.”
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  So does Peppa Pig. That is a poor metric and worse yet very selectively applied by the power hungry.

ksec 5y ago

>collective opinions about big tech progressively shifted during the last decade Big Tech is still relatively speaking a very new thing. There are enough people who just had their first smartphone in 2015. So not really a decade. >I might be naïve, but I think that HN played a role. I wish that was true but it is not. Purely from US side of things, EPIC and DHH probably done more damage than anything else. Although Big Tech had all the problems sitting in front of them for years but they were not sensitive enough to view those as problems. Remember the biggest problem of anything is to first admit it is a problem. EPIC and DHH lit a fire and set on a chain reaction. Those who previously were too afraid to speak now wrote to congress for help. Those complains piled up, congress think of it as possibly a non-issue to reaching a certain threshold being a big issue. My personal opinion is the ban of Parler and silencing of Social Media was also another big thing, whether you agree or disagree with it. I mean it is pretty bad when EU hate Trump but also speak out for Trump about silencing him. It is a problem because Politics is Power, big tech decided to flex their muscles and show who is really in power. And you get bet this doesn't sit well not just with politics in US, but politician across the world. I think most people often forget, Republic, Democracy and Rule of Law, all of these were set up because of Power balance. And it is pretty clear Big Tech crossed the red line. And now there are enough political interest and business interest ( from small competitors ) to fuck them up. And it is also why all the discussions about monopoly are quite meaningless. It is about power, and AntiTrust is exactly about the abuse of power. I dont actually agree with breaking them up, but it is a good threat to use. And I also dont know how to go forward other than some form of regulation. But regulation are often good intention with bad consequences.