4 ms·

The main and most important mono/oligopolies to break are in finance, medical education and law. These are the primary gatekeepers preventing value to reach con

The main and most important mono/oligopolies to break are in finance, medical education and law. These are the primary gatekeepers preventing value to reach consumer, these are rent-seeking vampires. Tech is interesting example, of course, but it's like a tempest in the bowl right now. We should permit to innovate everywhere, not just in web search space and e-commerce.

Semaphor 4y ago
I think a big difference might be that in tech, you often have a global monopoly, while finance, medical, and law are more national ones.
lwhi 4y ago
I'd argue that tech stands to eventually swallow the companies in the domains you talk about. The truly difficult thing about monopolies is that their power and strength in the marketplace grows exponentially.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
echelon 4y ago
The main and most important monopolies are, in this order, 1. Apple 2. Google 3. Amazon > finance, medical education and law Each of the above companies reaches deep into finance. Google and Apple capture real world payments on their devices, take 30% on top of any app software, limit or own the web, etc. They're each trying to break into medical, with big medical endeavors underway right now. Forget textbooks. Look at the fight between Google and Apple for the classroom. These companies have their own film studios, for goodness sake. How the hell did we let that happen? Lord of the Rings is Amazon -- What?!
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  We didn't let anything happen. 50 years ago Singer sewing machines was making computers[0]! Why didn't people back then ask who let them innovate and risk their money the way they chose to. I think they understood that you can't both have a process that delivers the fastest progress in human history, and dislike the vanishingly few participants who succeed at it inordinately well. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singer_System_Ten https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singer_System_Ten
  - izacus 4y ago
    Funny you use "vanishingly few" in your sentence. Why is that do you think? Do you those amazing innovator megacorps with walled gardens into which new companies can't reach have nothing to do with it? Why do modern Americans hate market competition so much?
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      "Vanishingly few" applies not just to the narrow world of American tech. I'm not American, and I'm not just talking about tech. I'm talking about the general process of progress and effort.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > think they understood that you can't both have a process that delivers the fastest progress in human history, and dislike the vanishingly few participants who succeed at it inordinately well. Fastest progress in what? What you smoking mate? 60 years after Wright Brothers we landed on the moon! We went from a flying bit of cardboard to real space rockets. Now another 60 years have passed, and we achieved fuck all. It is amazind that free market advocates do not understand their most important feature. - competition
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      You typing this on an inconceivably advanced computer made by one of several competing companies whose information lances across competing yet collaborating network companies to rest on my pocket supercomputer? Glad you just survived a global pandemic enabled by competing companies creating vaccines in record time, with your life made easier in the interim via streaming and video calling services enabled by competing companies. Your example of going to the moon is the opposite. That was funded by taxpayers. Most or all this progress has been done by individuals and groups choosing to do it, not by presidential assignment of taxpayer money.
    - bobdvb 4y ago
      The world has changed dramatically in the past 60 years. Cell phones to smart phones, medical imaging (e.g. MRI scans, ultrasound imaging), information processing and storage, genetic engineering, quantum computing, fibre optic communications, DNA sequencing, 3D printing, nanoscale lithography, public key cryptography, RNA vaccines, self-driving cars, the internet, the ISS, digital television What a lot of people don't understand is that companies that compete also cooperate. All through my career I have been working along side companies that I also compete with for customers. Innovation often happens in isolation, but often it is with cooperation that innovation become the norm.
- deadpannini 4y ago
  What is Amazon's Monopoly? I don't mean this as a gotcha question: I really don't understand what people are claiming when they say this. All three of those companies are now large conglomerates with a lot of power (perhaps too much), but calling them "monopolies" is counter-productive (except Google search), especially in the context of regulatory or legal framework, where the facts have to fit a very precise pattern to take action.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    They own a dominant platform for consumer shopping and use it to promote their own products. Meanwhile established competitors like Walmart cannot be featured on the same platform without submitting to rules that Amazon itself doesn't have to abide to. It's called a tie-in arrangement in antitrust law, and it's not legal.
    - deadpannini 4y ago
      I'd agree that they are "dominant", and that legal authorities should watch Amazon closely for specific violations, but they only control 35-40% of the online consumer retail market (by most estimates circa 2022).
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Really? No retailer has ever let a competitor advertise on their platform and store brands have always been a thing across retail. Poor little Walmart is much larger than Amazon in terms of revenue and profit.
      - zozbot234 4y ago
        Physical retail stores are not a natural monopoly platform like a shopping site is. There's nothing stopping Amazon from building a physical store next door to a Walmart and selling its products there.
        scarface74 4y ago
- scarface74 4y ago
  This is not true for Apple and I assume Google. It came out in the Epic trial that 80% of App Store revenue comes from pay to win games. If you look right now at many of the most popular non game mobile apps, most don’t monetize directly through the App Store. Anyone can set up their own online store and many do using services like Shopify.
college_physics 4y ago
Maybe we are all biased about the importance of tech but it is a sector that can expand beyond its confines. Actually its not even a sector anymore. "Big tech" is hardly selling tech products or services anymore, its core profit is from selling ad or product marketplaces The finance example is illustrstive. Big tech would love to expand into that space and "disrupt" that sector (double the size of conglomerates) but so far at least it has been pushed back by other equally entrenched oligopolies

Semaphor 4y ago

I think a big difference might be that in tech, you often have a global monopoly, while finance, medical, and law are more national ones.

lwhi 4y ago

I'd argue that tech stands to eventually swallow the companies in the domains you talk about. The truly difficult thing about monopolies is that their power and strength in the marketplace grows exponentially.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

echelon 4y ago

The main and most important monopolies are, in this order, 1. Apple 2. Google 3. Amazon > finance, medical education and law Each of the above companies reaches deep into finance. Google and Apple capture real world payments on their devices, take 30% on top of any app software, limit or own the web, etc. They're each trying to break into medical, with big medical endeavors underway right now. Forget textbooks. Look at the fight between Google and Apple for the classroom. These companies have their own film studios, for goodness sake. How the hell did we let that happen? Lord of the Rings is Amazon -- What?!

robertlagrant 4y ago
We didn't let anything happen. 50 years ago Singer sewing machines was making computers[0]! Why didn't people back then ask who let them innovate and risk their money the way they chose to. I think they understood that you can't both have a process that delivers the fastest progress in human history, and dislike the vanishingly few participants who succeed at it inordinately well. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singer_System_Ten https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singer_System_Ten
- izacus 4y ago
  Funny you use "vanishingly few" in your sentence. Why is that do you think? Do you those amazing innovator megacorps with walled gardens into which new companies can't reach have nothing to do with it? Why do modern Americans hate market competition so much?
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    "Vanishingly few" applies not just to the narrow world of American tech. I'm not American, and I'm not just talking about tech. I'm talking about the general process of progress and effort.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > think they understood that you can't both have a process that delivers the fastest progress in human history, and dislike the vanishingly few participants who succeed at it inordinately well. Fastest progress in what? What you smoking mate? 60 years after Wright Brothers we landed on the moon! We went from a flying bit of cardboard to real space rockets. Now another 60 years have passed, and we achieved fuck all. It is amazind that free market advocates do not understand their most important feature. - competition
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    You typing this on an inconceivably advanced computer made by one of several competing companies whose information lances across competing yet collaborating network companies to rest on my pocket supercomputer? Glad you just survived a global pandemic enabled by competing companies creating vaccines in record time, with your life made easier in the interim via streaming and video calling services enabled by competing companies. Your example of going to the moon is the opposite. That was funded by taxpayers. Most or all this progress has been done by individuals and groups choosing to do it, not by presidential assignment of taxpayer money.
  - bobdvb 4y ago
    The world has changed dramatically in the past 60 years. Cell phones to smart phones, medical imaging (e.g. MRI scans, ultrasound imaging), information processing and storage, genetic engineering, quantum computing, fibre optic communications, DNA sequencing, 3D printing, nanoscale lithography, public key cryptography, RNA vaccines, self-driving cars, the internet, the ISS, digital television What a lot of people don't understand is that companies that compete also cooperate. All through my career I have been working along side companies that I also compete with for customers. Innovation often happens in isolation, but often it is with cooperation that innovation become the norm.
deadpannini 4y ago
What is Amazon's Monopoly? I don't mean this as a gotcha question: I really don't understand what people are claiming when they say this. All three of those companies are now large conglomerates with a lot of power (perhaps too much), but calling them "monopolies" is counter-productive (except Google search), especially in the context of regulatory or legal framework, where the facts have to fit a very precise pattern to take action.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  They own a dominant platform for consumer shopping and use it to promote their own products. Meanwhile established competitors like Walmart cannot be featured on the same platform without submitting to rules that Amazon itself doesn't have to abide to. It's called a tie-in arrangement in antitrust law, and it's not legal.
  - deadpannini 4y ago
    I'd agree that they are "dominant", and that legal authorities should watch Amazon closely for specific violations, but they only control 35-40% of the online consumer retail market (by most estimates circa 2022).
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Really? No retailer has ever let a competitor advertise on their platform and store brands have always been a thing across retail. Poor little Walmart is much larger than Amazon in terms of revenue and profit.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      Physical retail stores are not a natural monopoly platform like a shopping site is. There's nothing stopping Amazon from building a physical store next door to a Walmart and selling its products there.
      - scarface74 4y ago
scarface74 4y ago
This is not true for Apple and I assume Google. It came out in the Epic trial that 80% of App Store revenue comes from pay to win games. If you look right now at many of the most popular non game mobile apps, most don’t monetize directly through the App Store. Anyone can set up their own online store and many do using services like Shopify.

college_physics 4y ago

Maybe we are all biased about the importance of tech but it is a sector that can expand beyond its confines. Actually its not even a sector anymore. "Big tech" is hardly selling tech products or services anymore, its core profit is from selling ad or product marketplaces The finance example is illustrstive. Big tech would love to expand into that space and "disrupt" that sector (double the size of conglomerates) but so far at least it has been pushed back by other equally entrenched oligopolies