5 ms·
Figma was a huge threat to Adobe's dominance
- emrah 4y agoPerhaps one company buying another shouldn't be allowed, no matter how big or small. It shrinks the competitive landscape and is ultimately bad for the customers
- de6u99er 4y agoMicrosoft wouldn't exist in this case.
- emrah 4y agoIt would, it just would look different and it wouldn't be able to create a monopoly stifling creativity and competition in the market
- libraryatnight 4y agoBold statement on this particular community ;)
- emrah 4y agoYes it was a thought experiment. People should allow crazy ideas to at least enter their brains. I know this community is sometimes narrow minded and I lost some points but it's ok :)
- cercatrova 4y agoNot being incentivized to start companies due to less likelihood of payout also shrinks the competitive landscape.
- emrah 4y agoThere are other ways to get pay out (e.g. Tinyseed)
- troon-lover 4y ago
- LegitShady 4y agoI think thats too draconian. It make sense to say, restrict acquiring a company if it has an effect on the competitive landscape, but not necessarily restrict buying companies totally. Lets say I have a company and want to develop some capacity - I could start from scratch, or I could buy a company that already does it well. If everyone starts from scratch that would be a whole lot of society's resources spent doing repeat work, but it also represents an opportunity to learn new things and try new strategies. hard to say if its a net good or bad. but restricting companies purchasing companies probably wont happen.
- emrah 4y agoIt was a thought experiment. I agree, instead of disallowing purchases altogether, lowering the threshold might be good enough. There is already anti-conpetitive checks when huge mergers are attempted. I think I'm really trying to suggest that the bar should be a lot lower to trigger those checks, or outright disallow them. IOW mergers/acquistions don't have to be "huge" to be anti-competitive
- scyzoryk_xyz 4y agoThe second sentence is why antitrust law exists. The tools and mechanisms are still right there in front of us. We just haven't used them properly very much since the 80's. The first sentence, I agree with the general sentiment, but it's just not realistic. It would have to apply to everything; from small business owners all the way up to corporations. Buying and selling companies is why free-market capitalism has continued to deliver results. Nothing needs to be changed about that. The problem we have is a government antitrust regulation problem. We would not be here if antitrust law were implemented diligently these past few decades. Adobe would be incentivized to compete fair and square.
- emrah 4y agoI agree with your assessment. It was a thought experiment on my part. A more practical suggestion is lowering the bar for blocking M&A's
- addicted 4y agoI don’t see how that’s enforceable. For example, how do you stop a company from buying publicly traded shares, which is basically buying a company. And if you do stop companies from buying publicly traded shares, the entire stock market collapses. Individual buyers buying shares from their personal accounts form a vanishingly small percentage of stock trades. I suspect even a lot of the individual purchases are done through corporate entities for tax, liability, and bankruptcy protection reasons.
- warinukraine 4y ago> For example, how do you stop a company from buying publicly traded shares, which is basically buying a company What do you mean, how do you stop? All this is regulated. Just make it a regulation can a company can't buy shares. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but the notion that it couldn't be done is nonsense.
- sealeck 4y agoWell they didn't buy it for US$20 billion for fun.
- preommr 4y agoWell, no shit. The point is that adobe is so incompetent that they couldn't build their own product in their own industry. So wildly incompetent that they went and overpaid by quite a lot to make sure the deal went through.
- llanowarelves 4y agoYep, I keep saying this. Adobe is a tragedy because what they could be, given their market position. Instead, they choose to be slumlords.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cyanydeez 4y agoMeh, _capitalism_ is like the peter principle. They get large enough till they're incompetent. Adobe, Oracle are just the best examples