5 ms·
Sometimes, yes. Selling something for below cost with the intent to drive your competitors out of business is called "dumping" and has been illegal since the 18
by galdosdi 4y ago
Sometimes, yes. Selling something for below cost with the intent to drive your competitors out of business is called "dumping" and has been illegal since the 1800s.
Because selling a product below cost is fundamentally unsustainable, there is no logical reason to sell a product for less than cost besides doing so temporarily with the hopes of being able to later recoup the loss with higher, above cost prices. This is anticompetitive because an inferior product can win out if it is backed by bigger pockets that can afford to stay unprofitable longer than the company making the superior product.
This is basic economics, not really something that needs to be thought out and debated from scratch by HN over and over everytime it comes up, so it really would be helpful if everyone who is thinking about commenting on economic issues like this tries to at some point spend a couple hours reading an AP Microeconomics text. If a high school kid or college kid can do it in a semester, and intelligent adult can cover the high points in a weekend.
- monocasa 4y agoLike most calls to just understand econ 101, the real life applications are significantly more complex. > Because selling a product below cost is fundamentally unsustainable, there is no logical reason to sell a product for less than cost besides doing so temporarily with the hopes of being able to later recoup the loss with higher, above cost prices. There are plenty of other reasons. The one applicable here is "commoditize your complement". Zero cost to consumer codecs mean more eyeballs on youtube videos, which means more ad revenue for Google. That thought process doesn't lead to later ramping up consumer costs. And if it's truly an open standard, how are they going increase costs when anyone can simply release a free implementation?
- scarface74 4y agoAnyone can release a “free version” of a phone that runs Android. How successful of an effort will that be without proprietary Google Play Services?
- monocasa 4y agoWhich wouldn't be an issue if play services was an open standard.
- arbitrage 4y agoHow much demand is there for phones that run Android without Google Play Services?
- scarface74 4y agoIn the US - none. That’s the point, Google used open source and gave software away for free to crush competitors and then used its market dominance and slowly made more of Android closed. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...