4 ms·
Does that make it any better? "Oh, hey, here's this absolutely horrible law, but don't worry, it only applies if you're successful."
by EarlKing 4y ago
Does that make it any better? "Oh, hey, here's this absolutely horrible law, but don't worry, it only applies if you're successful."
- ethbr0 4y agoYes, if the intent is to regulate monopolies. You know what you call a small cap monopoly? Not a monopoly.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoLet's say I make a miracle drug for people with a rare disease, patent it, and it costs $0.01 to produce, and I'll watch people die unless they pay me >$1M. Am I a monopoly since I only have a few million in revenue?
- ethbr0 4y agoNot in the sense that we're worried about here. I feel like I shouldn't have to spell this out, but we're using "monopoly" in the sense of "monopolistic abuse specifically enabled by large revenue and/or platform gatekeeping." Whether you think other kinds of monopolies are a problem or not is immaterial, because we're talking about a specific type of monopoly, that a number of us do have a problem with.
- uhuruity 4y agoI have several friends who work in antitrust consulting. My understanding from listening to them talk is that monopolists are defined with respect to a market, and defining the relevant market is a task in itself. Surely the defining characteristic of a monopolist is that it has a high proportion of the market share for a given market, and it is not required that the market in question be large? You can have a monopoly over a small market.
- ethbr0 4y agoAfaik, that's the (modern, post-1918, [0]) definition of a monopoly under Sherman Antitrust Act (of 1890). And specifically, that a monopoly's nature and actions "[must] suppress or even destroy competition." Think duck typing. Unfortunately, US vs ATT was never decided, as ATT volunteered to be broken up in 1982. But the broader approach seems to have been that small monopolies are not harmful to the public good, as they face the potential of competitors (sometimes, larger ones) expanding from unrelated fields into their business. It's only when a successful company leverages its success into a size (and dominance) that makes competition impossible that it becomes a legally actionable monopoly (by restricting even the possibility of competition). [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Board_of_Trade_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Board_of_Trade_v._Un...
- uhuruity 4y agoOoh, I didn't know this. I will go to the next discussion with my antitrust friends armed with my new info. Thanks for sharing this!
- Kranar 4y agoUnder WTO rules, pharmaceutical patents are subject to compulsory licensing meaning a competitor would be allowed to use your patent whether you like it or not. Yes you would be entitled to a royalty but the rate is unlikely to be as egregious as 1 million dollars per unit.
- HWR_14 4y agoIf you create such a miracle drug why on earth would we want a policy that lets people die?
- judge2020 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli#Daraprim_price-hike_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli#Daraprim_price-...
- HWR_14 4y agoIt seems like the system in fact pushed back on Martin's pricing
- judge2020 4y agoHe only got reprimanded because of how braizen we was, accepting news interviews and showing no remorse for the insane price increase. Without the news focus he probably would've avoided jail time (he was just released last month serving over 4 years of his 7 year sentence).
- takeda 4y agoehh... the whole idea for this bill is to prevent use of advantages gained from monopoly to create additional monopolies.