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> There is nothing preventing search companies paying the same $60 Million to license content. Yes, actually, there is - having $60m to throw around. "Barrier

> There is nothing preventing search companies paying the same $60 Million to license content. Yes, actually, there is - having $60m to throw around. "Barriers to entry often cause or aid the existence of monopolies and oligopolies" [0]. Monopolies and oligopolies are definitionally the opposite of free market forces. This is quite literally Econ 101. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry

saghm 2y ago
Not to mention the fact that if this became commonplace, other websites might start charging as well
zooq_ai 2y ago
Having a Monopoly != Anti-Competitive. Having Barriers to Entry != Anti-competitive Yes, large players have advantages of Economies of Scale. Just because you can't run an Airline because you don't have money to buy an Airplane isn't anti-competitive. Today Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, Google, Amazon all can afford those piddly $60m to license from reddit. Not Anti-competitive at all. But saddened by how much corporate-hate by HNers destroys their credibility in debating these thing. Go ahead downvote
- not_wyoming 2y ago
  If you check citations, you'd find the sentence preceding my excerpt on barriers to entry: "Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy." Antitrust policy then links to a page on competition law: "Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies." [0] So yes, I'd downvote you if I could, but HN doesn't allow downvotes - which is honestly pretty fitting in the context of this conversation. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
  - zooq_ai 2y ago
    Once again buying an Airplane and starting an Airline business has probably the highest barrier to entry. Yet the Airline industry is the most competitive.
    - not_wyoming 2y ago
      The air travel industry has also seen some of the most significant government regulation in the form of blocking mergers (ie monopolistic, anticompetitive behavior) - meaning that competition in the airline space is due to regulation, not free market dynamics alone. I’m happy to continue this debate if you’d like to start supporting your posts with citations but probably won’t engage further unless you do. Have a great day!
    - stoperaticless 2y ago
      Hm. Chip fabrication?
  - nativeit 2y ago
    I took care of the down vote for you. I dunno when the privilege is earned, but keep up the quality comments and you’ll be able to downvote incurious ideologues like this in no time!
    - zooq_ai 2y ago
      HN Downvotes on non-engineering things are my badge of honor. It has rewarded very well financially
  - animal_spirits 2y ago
    Btw you will be allowed to downvote once you hit a certain karma threshold
try_the_bass 2y ago
And yet "free market forces" are often the reason why monopolies and oligopolies arise...? Monopolies are entirely consistent with free market economics. After all, if there's clearly a "best product" for a particular niche, it's entirely rational (free market actor) behavior for everyone to use the same product, leading to its monopoly in that market segment. I don't understand why people think this isn't/won't be/shouldn't be a common result of "free market forces".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- not_wyoming 2y ago
  > Monopolies are entirely consistent with free market economics. This is a fair critique. I'm approaching this from an admittedly American perspective in which "free market" colloquially implies competition - but I recognize that competition is not inherently a free market concept. Good callout!
- Newlaptop 2y ago
  > Monopolies are entirely consistent with free market economics Not in the least. Literally in the first semester, Economics 101 type class that any business/economics/etc student would take, it would be covered clearly that monopolies are violations of free markets. A free market isn't a euphemism for anarchy or "no rules", it's a specific economic term. The things it is free of include artificial price floors or ceilings, barriers to entry, anti-competitive practices, etc. In other words, monopolies, oligopolies, cartels, monopsonies, etc are all violations of a free market. You do not have a free market if there is a monopoly supplier.
  - animal_spirits 2y ago
    And many times the sources of these monopolies come from special privileges given out by governmental authorities, such as the U.S. FDA
    - account42 2y ago
GuB-42 2y ago
Microsoft can throw around $60M, and Bing is used by most of the "alternative" search engines. It doesn't solve the problem, but if money is the only thing preventing search engines from accessing Reddit, then what goes for Google also goes for Microsoft.
- superb_dev 2y ago
  Cool, so the top two players are now the only players and everyone else is now trapped feeding off of them
- account42 2y ago
  > Microsoft can throw around $60M, and Bing is used by most of the "alternative" search engines. That's a symptom of the issue, not a solution. Bing is used because having your own crawler is infeasible, partially because you will be literally blocked in many cases.

saghm 2y ago

Not to mention the fact that if this became commonplace, other websites might start charging as well

zooq_ai 2y ago

Having a Monopoly != Anti-Competitive. Having Barriers to Entry != Anti-competitive Yes, large players have advantages of Economies of Scale. Just because you can't run an Airline because you don't have money to buy an Airplane isn't anti-competitive. Today Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, Google, Amazon all can afford those piddly $60m to license from reddit. Not Anti-competitive at all. But saddened by how much corporate-hate by HNers destroys their credibility in debating these thing. Go ahead downvote

not_wyoming 2y ago
If you check citations, you'd find the sentence preceding my excerpt on barriers to entry: "Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy." Antitrust policy then links to a page on competition law: "Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies." [0] So yes, I'd downvote you if I could, but HN doesn't allow downvotes - which is honestly pretty fitting in the context of this conversation. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law
- zooq_ai 2y ago
  Once again buying an Airplane and starting an Airline business has probably the highest barrier to entry. Yet the Airline industry is the most competitive.
  - not_wyoming 2y ago
    The air travel industry has also seen some of the most significant government regulation in the form of blocking mergers (ie monopolistic, anticompetitive behavior) - meaning that competition in the airline space is due to regulation, not free market dynamics alone. I’m happy to continue this debate if you’d like to start supporting your posts with citations but probably won’t engage further unless you do. Have a great day!
  - stoperaticless 2y ago
    Hm. Chip fabrication?
- nativeit 2y ago
  I took care of the down vote for you. I dunno when the privilege is earned, but keep up the quality comments and you’ll be able to downvote incurious ideologues like this in no time!
  - zooq_ai 2y ago
    HN Downvotes on non-engineering things are my badge of honor. It has rewarded very well financially
- animal_spirits 2y ago
  Btw you will be allowed to downvote once you hit a certain karma threshold

try_the_bass 2y ago

And yet "free market forces" are often the reason why monopolies and oligopolies arise...? Monopolies are entirely consistent with free market economics. After all, if there's clearly a "best product" for a particular niche, it's entirely rational (free market actor) behavior for everyone to use the same product, leading to its monopoly in that market segment. I don't understand why people think this isn't/won't be/shouldn't be a common result of "free market forces".

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
not_wyoming 2y ago
> Monopolies are entirely consistent with free market economics. This is a fair critique. I'm approaching this from an admittedly American perspective in which "free market" colloquially implies competition - but I recognize that competition is not inherently a free market concept. Good callout!
Newlaptop 2y ago
> Monopolies are entirely consistent with free market economics Not in the least. Literally in the first semester, Economics 101 type class that any business/economics/etc student would take, it would be covered clearly that monopolies are violations of free markets. A free market isn't a euphemism for anarchy or "no rules", it's a specific economic term. The things it is free of include artificial price floors or ceilings, barriers to entry, anti-competitive practices, etc. In other words, monopolies, oligopolies, cartels, monopsonies, etc are all violations of a free market. You do not have a free market if there is a monopoly supplier.
- animal_spirits 2y ago
  And many times the sources of these monopolies come from special privileges given out by governmental authorities, such as the U.S. FDA
  - account42 2y ago

GuB-42 2y ago

Microsoft can throw around $60M, and Bing is used by most of the "alternative" search engines. It doesn't solve the problem, but if money is the only thing preventing search engines from accessing Reddit, then what goes for Google also goes for Microsoft.

superb_dev 2y ago
Cool, so the top two players are now the only players and everyone else is now trapped feeding off of them
account42 2y ago
> Microsoft can throw around $60M, and Bing is used by most of the "alternative" search engines. That's a symptom of the issue, not a solution. Bing is used because having your own crawler is infeasible, partially because you will be literally blocked in many cases.