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Big Tech seemed like a smart place to put money so that’s what the market did with ridiculous P/E ratios. Inevitably everyone realizes they’re not full of geniu

by tmpz22 3y ago

Big Tech seemed like a smart place to put money so that’s what the market did with ridiculous P/E ratios. Inevitably everyone realizes they’re not full of geniuses who do everything right - see the Metaverse and the slow demise of Googles Ad monopoly for examples.

piva00 3y ago
The genius part was capitalising the companies well enough with their first breakthrough of revenues + investments and buy out competition to profit off their products or just to stamp them out. Coupled with the genius of some regulatory capture with their acquisitions not being challenged for decades until recently and... We got these behemoths that swallowed most of the innovation produced to become ad-infested bullshit. Yes, I'm jaded by this fucking industry after 20+ years working in it, it's all becoming bullshit with different flavours.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Low interest rates + lax monopoly regulation + aggressive acquisitions of competitors = what we have today The monopoly standard of current harm, in the age of internet-speed growth, is laughable. The standard should be "Is this merger likely to create concentration that will lead to less competition in 5 years?"
  - fallingknife 3y ago
    Those things were true for all industries so that can't be used to explain the unique success of the tech industry. Also the standard you propose is ridiculous because you can't predict the future even close to 5 years out. Do you think that the owners of Instagram would have sold for $1 billion if they knew what the next 5 years of growth would look like? Would the owners of Android have been willing to sell for $50 million?
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Other industries had growth rates like tech, circa ~1990-2010? Do you think regulators could have predicted that Facebook buying Instagram would lead to less competition in 5 years? Do you think regulators could have predicted that Google buying Android would have led to less competition in 5 years? In both cases, yes. But they had to prove a higher standard under the law.
      - fallingknife 3y ago
        Any acquisition leads to less competition. That's a ridiculous standard.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        It seems like a perfectly appropriate standard for companies that are already large enough to have intrinsic monopoly concerns in any acquisition.
- fullshark 3y ago
  Me too. So what do we do? As far as I can tell the only option is to turn down the money and well...it's hard to do that.

by tmpz22 3y ago

piva00 3y ago

The genius part was capitalising the companies well enough with their first breakthrough of revenues + investments and buy out competition to profit off their products or just to stamp them out. Coupled with the genius of some regulatory capture with their acquisitions not being challenged for decades until recently and... We got these behemoths that swallowed most of the innovation produced to become ad-infested bullshit. Yes, I'm jaded by this fucking industry after 20+ years working in it, it's all becoming bullshit with different flavours.

ethbr1 3y ago
Low interest rates + lax monopoly regulation + aggressive acquisitions of competitors = what we have today The monopoly standard of current harm, in the age of internet-speed growth, is laughable. The standard should be "Is this merger likely to create concentration that will lead to less competition in 5 years?"
- fallingknife 3y ago
  Those things were true for all industries so that can't be used to explain the unique success of the tech industry. Also the standard you propose is ridiculous because you can't predict the future even close to 5 years out. Do you think that the owners of Instagram would have sold for $1 billion if they knew what the next 5 years of growth would look like? Would the owners of Android have been willing to sell for $50 million?
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Other industries had growth rates like tech, circa ~1990-2010? Do you think regulators could have predicted that Facebook buying Instagram would lead to less competition in 5 years? Do you think regulators could have predicted that Google buying Android would have led to less competition in 5 years? In both cases, yes. But they had to prove a higher standard under the law.
    - fallingknife 3y ago
      Any acquisition leads to less competition. That's a ridiculous standard.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        It seems like a perfectly appropriate standard for companies that are already large enough to have intrinsic monopoly concerns in any acquisition.
fullshark 3y ago
Me too. So what do we do? As far as I can tell the only option is to turn down the money and well...it's hard to do that.