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It's a good idea to regulate and examine companies with over a certain share of the market and over a certain size since it's almost guaranteed they will abuse

It's a good idea to regulate and examine companies with over a certain share of the market and over a certain size since it's almost guaranteed they will abuse their market position one way or another. These companies pose a general threat to the proper functioning of a healthy market due to network effects and compatibility issues, things that regulators should always be working to counteract.

stingraycharles 3y ago
Especially because in a global market, these kind of companies can be more powerful than governments. So it’s a good thing that large countries, or unions of countries, attempt to push back a little bit on their power. I think EU has an easier case, because the way I understand it, in the EU anticompetitive behavior in itself is illegal, while in the US, as long as you can argue the consumer benefits (eg Amazon selling stuff at a loss), it’s no problem.
- nameless912 3y ago
  I think you can replace "can be" with "are". If Google, Apple or Meta feel like what you're saying is not in their interest for the public to hear it, you just... can't say it. Apple can remotely disable your iPhone. Google can remove you from search results. Meta can nuke your social media presence from orbit. This is by no means an endorsement of the guy because he's a complete piece of shit, but the one thing Alex Jones got right during his temper tantrum when he got deplatformed is that getting deplatformed is not a thing that only happens to people you don't like; theoretically, and in fact quite regularly, large multinationals can simply decide that someone should cease to exist in the public sphere, and they can legally disappear people more effectively than the CIA. Today it's anti vax loonies and racist conspiracy theorists, tomorrow it's folks reporting on Apple's Foxconn factories in China or Meta's content moderation staff or Google's spying on people's private communications. We live in a world where we've created the marketplace of ideas, which necessarily means that those who hold the marketplace have to give everyone a stall, almost regardless of how vile their ideas are. Not doing so is a great way for large corporations to silence their critics on a scale never before imagined. I'm not exaggerating when I say these three companies can erase you from existence. Losing your Google account, Apple ID, and Meta accounts all at once would be an excellent way to prevent a corporate dissident from accessing the info they need to keep these companies accountable. It's terrifying, and it's also a mundane kind of terrifying that requires what might seem like overly aggressive government regulation, but I really don't see another way forward. And before someone comes in and says something to the effect of "well, isn't all of the above still true if you replace Google, Apple and Meta with $COUNTRY?" and of course the answer is yes, but at the very very least, countries are theoretically accountable to their citizens. Corporations are effectively accountable to no one, which is certainly worse.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > in fact quite regularly, large multinationals can simply decide that someone should cease to exist in the public sphere, and they can legally disappear people more effectively than the CIA This also happens jointly, I think. E.g. Russell Brand after sexual assault allegations came out was demonetised on YouTube following a letter from the House of Commons media committee to YouTube. I can't be bothered to find an exact article, but Rumble got the same letter, but didn't comply, in this BBC article[0]. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66875128 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66875128
  - ben_w 3y ago
    As a non-American looking in from outside: "De-platformed" and "cancel culture" seem to be the names given when the it's done by a left-associated corporations or governments. "Black-listed", "not renewed for another season", "banned from VISA/PayPal etc. payment providers due to ToS violations", and "violating public decency" seem to be the names for the same actions when taken by right-associated corporations or governments. (${team}-associated because this is about perceptions rather than any actual political preference).
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    The answer here is not necessarily for the govts to force big $$ platforms to act like neutral carriers, but for govt to enact and encourage policies to stop/slow the centralization and monopolization of information and entertainment around centralized $$ platforms, and to prevent such behemoths from sucking all the air out of the room in the first place. (Which, frankly, includes not using said platforms for their own communications. Not sure why Twitter is treated like a generic newswire and announcement system by schools, community groups, governments, etc ... after everything that's happened.) That's the vision we had of the Internet in the 90s: decentralized, publish your own content and link-out to other's. Not sure why we let that get derailed into the closed boxes we have today. Asshats like Alex Jones or Russel Brand wouldn't even be a concern and we wouldn't be talking about "deplatforming" as a thing really if the "platform" hadn't grown so unreasonably big and powerful in the first place. The Age Of Narcissism is entirely our own fault. If you build a huge giant megaphone and leave it lying in the middle of the playground, inevitably some jerk is going to "misuse" it.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
amelius 3y ago
Consumers would be helped more if these large companies are broken up. We could have so much more competition if Apple was divided into software, hardware and services companies. And these companies (except perhaps the services company) would be more pro-consumer, making stuff that we actually want instead of stuff that Apple wants us to have (and vendor-locks us in). It is also a bit ridiculous that some of the best CPUs out there are available only for consumer products.
- threeseed 3y ago
  This comment is pretty ignorant of the history of computing. Apple tried to allow competition in their ecosystem. And all that happened is that vendors like Power Computing went straight for Apple's most profitable markets and nearly bankrupted the company. The only reason Apple is successful is because people like the console-esque experience of having one vendor do everything.
  - asadotzler 3y ago
    You cannot make that final claim because there are plenty of alternative scenarios never tried that could have allowed Apple to be successful by other means. Also, your 90s era anecdote is mostly meaningless today, certainly not demonstrative that licensing couldn't work, just that Apple failed to make it work with their one potentially poor attempt 30 years ago.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  It’s about choice. I want a tightly integrated experience on my iPhone and Mac. I don’t want regulators as designers. iPhone and Macs own a small fraction of their markets around the world. Clearly there are alternatives and you don’t need to choose an iPhone or a Mac.
  - simion314 3y ago
    >It’s about choice. I want a tightly integrated experience on my iPhone and Mac. I don’t want regulators as designers. if you are from outside EU then you are fine for now, you will not have this freedoms. If you are from EU then keep calm, nobody will force you to use a better application or service then the default ones from Apple. Side loading was available on Android and facebook Messenger and whatsapp are still on the official store despite all the FUD from Apple extremist fanboys, you can continue sitting inside the Apple walls.
ankit219 3y ago
Continuous examining for abuse is great and what a proactive regulator should be doing anyway. Question is, does it incentivize these companies to reduce their market share by different means - going low on a certain marketing campaign, release a subpar product, or make choices that alienate say bottom 10-20% of users and cause them to leave. Once they reduce the market share, would they not be examined till they attain that market share back? (that is after the market definition is clear) In India, there is UPI which at it's core is dominated by 2-3 apps. Regulator is trying to reduce market share but to no avail. The thing is, service is free for end user, so the only way a service provider app (links user with banks on whose rails the tech works) earns money is via advertising. Others dont take it up because returns are only possible once you burn money to attain a certain scale. No one in the chain earns anything on a single transaction except banks(paid for by other banks). Think while regulator should be watching the apps (and banks) closely, they should instead also work on an incentive structure which could open the market further for newer entrants.
- _visgean 3y ago
  > Question is, does it incentivize these companies to reduce their market share by different means - going low on a certain marketing campaign, release a subpar product, or make choices I dont think anybody expects them to reduce their market share. Thats what competition is for.
  - ankit219 3y ago
    In the hypothetical that the OP shared, they mentioned scrutiny for firms above a certain market share.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
      Yes, because you can't abuse (substantial) market share unless you have it. It's like having a gun. Perfectly fine unless you go around threatening people with it.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
techpression 3y ago
It’s a bit too late for that. The big players just buy any competitor coming anywhere close to be relevant, a boat load of money for said company, peanuts for the ones buying. I’d say the market is defunct since decades ago. I don’t think EU not the US is ready to implement rules against smaller companies being bought, I mean Microsoft could by Activision Blizzard.
- ameister14 3y ago
  These rules already exist, it's just enforcing them that is the issue.
- olivierduval 3y ago
  Actually it's better than that: medium corp will go against buying small player to avoid being subjected to DMA ! It will slow or stop growth because it will lower or cancel the advantage of being so big as having no competitor In the end, markets will optimize to have 2 or 3 big players in each fields to avoid that kind of problem...
yard2010 3y ago
Proper functioning of a healthy market is hardly the worst. These giants would sell people if they could get away with it and make money doing it. The people behind them would not think twice before damaging the society if there were few bucks in it for them to hoard. It's making me sad that this world is full of so many people and massive states/corps and only the EU tries to navigate the new challenges of integrating technology in our lives responsibly. It feels like the world is full with idiots, cry babies, and evil geniuses and just the EU which is such a small fraction of the world acting like a grown up. I mean, many people would agree that the US is the face of the western world. How come such a massive group of people act so irresponsibly making the same mistakes over and over again, causing a significant amount of suffering, and then saying the east is evil. The EU is the only body that advocates socialism and democracy while the US doesn't live to its standard, which is a shame really. In these challenging times the west needs strong leaders, not the horrifying shit show there is now.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  The best thing the EU can do is demonstrate that there are other ways to do things, often as a counterpoint to the US. Both a large liberal democracies (for now) but they live on opposite sides on the (center) left/right spectrum. There is a real benefit to humanity with competing ideas being put into practice at scale.

stingraycharles 3y ago

Especially because in a global market, these kind of companies can be more powerful than governments. So it’s a good thing that large countries, or unions of countries, attempt to push back a little bit on their power. I think EU has an easier case, because the way I understand it, in the EU anticompetitive behavior in itself is illegal, while in the US, as long as you can argue the consumer benefits (eg Amazon selling stuff at a loss), it’s no problem.

nameless912 3y ago
I think you can replace "can be" with "are". If Google, Apple or Meta feel like what you're saying is not in their interest for the public to hear it, you just... can't say it. Apple can remotely disable your iPhone. Google can remove you from search results. Meta can nuke your social media presence from orbit. This is by no means an endorsement of the guy because he's a complete piece of shit, but the one thing Alex Jones got right during his temper tantrum when he got deplatformed is that getting deplatformed is not a thing that only happens to people you don't like; theoretically, and in fact quite regularly, large multinationals can simply decide that someone should cease to exist in the public sphere, and they can legally disappear people more effectively than the CIA. Today it's anti vax loonies and racist conspiracy theorists, tomorrow it's folks reporting on Apple's Foxconn factories in China or Meta's content moderation staff or Google's spying on people's private communications. We live in a world where we've created the marketplace of ideas, which necessarily means that those who hold the marketplace have to give everyone a stall, almost regardless of how vile their ideas are. Not doing so is a great way for large corporations to silence their critics on a scale never before imagined. I'm not exaggerating when I say these three companies can erase you from existence. Losing your Google account, Apple ID, and Meta accounts all at once would be an excellent way to prevent a corporate dissident from accessing the info they need to keep these companies accountable. It's terrifying, and it's also a mundane kind of terrifying that requires what might seem like overly aggressive government regulation, but I really don't see another way forward. And before someone comes in and says something to the effect of "well, isn't all of the above still true if you replace Google, Apple and Meta with $COUNTRY?" and of course the answer is yes, but at the very very least, countries are theoretically accountable to their citizens. Corporations are effectively accountable to no one, which is certainly worse.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > in fact quite regularly, large multinationals can simply decide that someone should cease to exist in the public sphere, and they can legally disappear people more effectively than the CIA This also happens jointly, I think. E.g. Russell Brand after sexual assault allegations came out was demonetised on YouTube following a letter from the House of Commons media committee to YouTube. I can't be bothered to find an exact article, but Rumble got the same letter, but didn't comply, in this BBC article[0]. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66875128 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66875128
- ben_w 3y ago
  As a non-American looking in from outside: "De-platformed" and "cancel culture" seem to be the names given when the it's done by a left-associated corporations or governments. "Black-listed", "not renewed for another season", "banned from VISA/PayPal etc. payment providers due to ToS violations", and "violating public decency" seem to be the names for the same actions when taken by right-associated corporations or governments. (${team}-associated because this is about perceptions rather than any actual political preference).
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  The answer here is not necessarily for the govts to force big $$ platforms to act like neutral carriers, but for govt to enact and encourage policies to stop/slow the centralization and monopolization of information and entertainment around centralized $$ platforms, and to prevent such behemoths from sucking all the air out of the room in the first place. (Which, frankly, includes not using said platforms for their own communications. Not sure why Twitter is treated like a generic newswire and announcement system by schools, community groups, governments, etc ... after everything that's happened.) That's the vision we had of the Internet in the 90s: decentralized, publish your own content and link-out to other's. Not sure why we let that get derailed into the closed boxes we have today. Asshats like Alex Jones or Russel Brand wouldn't even be a concern and we wouldn't be talking about "deplatforming" as a thing really if the "platform" hadn't grown so unreasonably big and powerful in the first place. The Age Of Narcissism is entirely our own fault. If you build a huge giant megaphone and leave it lying in the middle of the playground, inevitably some jerk is going to "misuse" it.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

amelius 3y ago

Consumers would be helped more if these large companies are broken up. We could have so much more competition if Apple was divided into software, hardware and services companies. And these companies (except perhaps the services company) would be more pro-consumer, making stuff that we actually want instead of stuff that Apple wants us to have (and vendor-locks us in). It is also a bit ridiculous that some of the best CPUs out there are available only for consumer products.

threeseed 3y ago
This comment is pretty ignorant of the history of computing. Apple tried to allow competition in their ecosystem. And all that happened is that vendors like Power Computing went straight for Apple's most profitable markets and nearly bankrupted the company. The only reason Apple is successful is because people like the console-esque experience of having one vendor do everything.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  You cannot make that final claim because there are plenty of alternative scenarios never tried that could have allowed Apple to be successful by other means. Also, your 90s era anecdote is mostly meaningless today, certainly not demonstrative that licensing couldn't work, just that Apple failed to make it work with their one potentially poor attempt 30 years ago.
aurareturn 3y ago
It’s about choice. I want a tightly integrated experience on my iPhone and Mac. I don’t want regulators as designers. iPhone and Macs own a small fraction of their markets around the world. Clearly there are alternatives and you don’t need to choose an iPhone or a Mac.
- simion314 3y ago
  >It’s about choice. I want a tightly integrated experience on my iPhone and Mac. I don’t want regulators as designers. if you are from outside EU then you are fine for now, you will not have this freedoms. If you are from EU then keep calm, nobody will force you to use a better application or service then the default ones from Apple. Side loading was available on Android and facebook Messenger and whatsapp are still on the official store despite all the FUD from Apple extremist fanboys, you can continue sitting inside the Apple walls.

ankit219 3y ago

Continuous examining for abuse is great and what a proactive regulator should be doing anyway. Question is, does it incentivize these companies to reduce their market share by different means - going low on a certain marketing campaign, release a subpar product, or make choices that alienate say bottom 10-20% of users and cause them to leave. Once they reduce the market share, would they not be examined till they attain that market share back? (that is after the market definition is clear) In India, there is UPI which at it's core is dominated by 2-3 apps. Regulator is trying to reduce market share but to no avail. The thing is, service is free for end user, so the only way a service provider app (links user with banks on whose rails the tech works) earns money is via advertising. Others dont take it up because returns are only possible once you burn money to attain a certain scale. No one in the chain earns anything on a single transaction except banks(paid for by other banks). Think while regulator should be watching the apps (and banks) closely, they should instead also work on an incentive structure which could open the market further for newer entrants.

_visgean 3y ago
> Question is, does it incentivize these companies to reduce their market share by different means - going low on a certain marketing campaign, release a subpar product, or make choices I dont think anybody expects them to reduce their market share. Thats what competition is for.
- ankit219 3y ago
  In the hypothetical that the OP shared, they mentioned scrutiny for firms above a certain market share.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    Yes, because you can't abuse (substantial) market share unless you have it. It's like having a gun. Perfectly fine unless you go around threatening people with it.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

techpression 3y ago

It’s a bit too late for that. The big players just buy any competitor coming anywhere close to be relevant, a boat load of money for said company, peanuts for the ones buying. I’d say the market is defunct since decades ago. I don’t think EU not the US is ready to implement rules against smaller companies being bought, I mean Microsoft could by Activision Blizzard.

ameister14 3y ago
These rules already exist, it's just enforcing them that is the issue.
olivierduval 3y ago
Actually it's better than that: medium corp will go against buying small player to avoid being subjected to DMA ! It will slow or stop growth because it will lower or cancel the advantage of being so big as having no competitor In the end, markets will optimize to have 2 or 3 big players in each fields to avoid that kind of problem...

yard2010 3y ago

Proper functioning of a healthy market is hardly the worst. These giants would sell people if they could get away with it and make money doing it. The people behind them would not think twice before damaging the society if there were few bucks in it for them to hoard. It's making me sad that this world is full of so many people and massive states/corps and only the EU tries to navigate the new challenges of integrating technology in our lives responsibly. It feels like the world is full with idiots, cry babies, and evil geniuses and just the EU which is such a small fraction of the world acting like a grown up. I mean, many people would agree that the US is the face of the western world. How come such a massive group of people act so irresponsibly making the same mistakes over and over again, causing a significant amount of suffering, and then saying the east is evil. The EU is the only body that advocates socialism and democracy while the US doesn't live to its standard, which is a shame really. In these challenging times the west needs strong leaders, not the horrifying shit show there is now.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
The best thing the EU can do is demonstrate that there are other ways to do things, often as a counterpoint to the US. Both a large liberal democracies (for now) but they live on opposite sides on the (center) left/right spectrum. There is a real benefit to humanity with competing ideas being put into practice at scale.