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How the FTC Is Reshaping the Antitrust Argument Against Tech Giants

5 points by keleftheriou 5y ago

keleftheriou 5y ago
> Since mid-1980s Reagan-era reforms of antitrust law, the test for whether a company is a monopolist has been whether its dominance harms consumers—usually through higher prices or shoddy goods. It has been hard to make that charge stick against companies that offer many of their services free, like Google and Meta Platforms (née Facebook), or at (usually) competitive prices, like Amazon ; or that take a cut of what seems to be a big, competitive market, like Apple does with apps. > The FTC, under its Biden-appointed chairwoman, Lina Khan, has been shifting the terms of the argument, focusing less on harm to consumers or even rivals, and more on how the bigness of Big Tech harms companies that are, in essence, its partners. > To understand, we have to look at an unusual word the FTC has used of late: “monopsony.” If a monopoly is a market with one dominant seller, a monopsony is its inverse, a market where one buyer is pre-eminent. Monopolists can gouge consumers. A monopsonist has the same power over sellers. > Big tech’s platforms—the things that have made them so much money—effectively make them market-controlling middlemen, and the FTC is saying that the tech giants are abusing their positions as, in effect, the ultimate proxy buyers for all users of their platforms. > By this logic, Apple’s App Store is the dominant place that app sellers must go to sell their software and services, because globally, it rakes in twice the revenue of its next-biggest competitor, Google’s Play store. Amazon wields its power over companies that want to sell goods online. Google and Facebook lord theirs over the publishers selling ad space. https://archive.is/Ngx4U https://archive.is/Ngx4U
bediger4000 5y ago
If the USA didn't do much against Microsoft, and we didn't, we've got on excuse to do anything at all to Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon. I thought Microsoft should have been broken up in 1999-2000, but the court system thought otherwise. If we don't treat "tech giants" today equally, what is law and order anyway?
- verdverm 5y ago
  Is breaking up companies the only way to stop antitrust or monopolies?
  - bediger4000 5y ago
    Of course not, but in most cases, especially vertically integrated monopolies like Amazon or Apple or, classically, Standard Oil, it's the only remedy. I left off Microsoft because that's already been litigated.

5 points by keleftheriou 5y ago

> Since mid-1980s Reagan-era reforms of antitrust law, the test for whether a company is a monopolist has been whether its dominance harms consumers—usually through higher prices or shoddy goods. It has been hard to make that charge stick against companies that offer many of their services free, like Google and Meta Platforms (née Facebook), or at (usually) competitive prices, like Amazon ; or that take a cut of what seems to be a big, competitive market, like Apple does with apps. > The FTC, under its Biden-appointed chairwoman, Lina Khan, has been shifting the terms of the argument, focusing less on harm to consumers or even rivals, and more on how the bigness of Big Tech harms companies that are, in essence, its partners. > To understand, we have to look at an unusual word the FTC has used of late: “monopsony.” If a monopoly is a market with one dominant seller, a monopsony is its inverse, a market where one buyer is pre-eminent. Monopolists can gouge consumers. A monopsonist has the same power over sellers. > Big tech’s platforms—the things that have made them so much money—effectively make them market-controlling middlemen, and the FTC is saying that the tech giants are abusing their positions as, in effect, the ultimate proxy buyers for all users of their platforms. > By this logic, Apple’s App Store is the dominant place that app sellers must go to sell their software and services, because globally, it rakes in twice the revenue of its next-biggest competitor, Google’s Play store. Amazon wields its power over companies that want to sell goods online. Google and Facebook lord theirs over the publishers selling ad space. https://archive.is/Ngx4U https://archive.is/Ngx4U

bediger4000 5y ago

If the USA didn't do much against Microsoft, and we didn't, we've got on excuse to do anything at all to Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon. I thought Microsoft should have been broken up in 1999-2000, but the court system thought otherwise. If we don't treat "tech giants" today equally, what is law and order anyway?

verdverm 5y ago
Is breaking up companies the only way to stop antitrust or monopolies?
- bediger4000 5y ago
  Of course not, but in most cases, especially vertically integrated monopolies like Amazon or Apple or, classically, Standard Oil, it's the only remedy. I left off Microsoft because that's already been litigated.