3 ms·

I feel like this article is leaving out the important parts. You'd think from the text that it's purely a price thing, where DOJ has some subjective idea of wha

I feel like this article is leaving out the important parts. You'd think from the text that it's purely a price thing, where DOJ has some subjective idea of what a transaction ought to cost and are mad that Visa charges too much. The actual complaint and the DOJ statement on it both make it clear that the real problem is specific steps Visa has allegedly taken to stop people from competing with them.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
I mean that is what I would assume (specific steps allegedly taken) given the title has the word "monopoly" in it.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > what I would assume (specific steps allegedly taken) given the title has the word "monopoly" That’s a bad assumption. Being a monopoly isn’t illegal. You have to also behave anti-competitively.
  - vdfs 2y ago
    If you are not anti-competitive you won't be a monopoly. "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks" -- Bill Gates
    - soperj 2y ago
      That's a quote from the character Bill Gates in the Simpsons, not actually Bill Gates. A true quote from Bill would likely be much worse.
    - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
      Sure you do. ASML has a famous 100% monopoly on advanced photolithography machines, but I've never heard anyone accuse them of anticompetitive behavior - there's just nobody else who knows how to make them so well. I guess it's not how Visa works though.
  - tbrownaw 2y ago
    > Being a monopoly isn’t illegal. You have to also behave anti-competitively. Which is why it's reasonable to some that someone getting in trouble for "being a monopoly" is actually getting in trouble for some specific actions they took.
    - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
      right, hence the "specific steps taken", and actually when in the history of the world has a monopoly existed that has not taken anti-competitive actions? People having monopolies have a strong urge to maintain them, the means to do so, and not doing so might actually require lots of thinking and trying to walk a very thin, straight line. on edit: ok it seems this post mentions a monopoly that takes no anti-competitive steps, which is a company I've never heard of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41642040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41642040 but if they have 100% of the market I guess there's no reason for them to be anti-competitive, that kind of thing comes when you have 80% of the market but it's threatened (guesstimate)

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

I mean that is what I would assume (specific steps allegedly taken) given the title has the word "monopoly" in it.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> what I would assume (specific steps allegedly taken) given the title has the word "monopoly" That’s a bad assumption. Being a monopoly isn’t illegal. You have to also behave anti-competitively.
- vdfs 2y ago
  If you are not anti-competitive you won't be a monopoly. "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks" -- Bill Gates
  - soperj 2y ago
    That's a quote from the character Bill Gates in the Simpsons, not actually Bill Gates. A true quote from Bill would likely be much worse.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Sure you do. ASML has a famous 100% monopoly on advanced photolithography machines, but I've never heard anyone accuse them of anticompetitive behavior - there's just nobody else who knows how to make them so well. I guess it's not how Visa works though.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  > Being a monopoly isn’t illegal. You have to also behave anti-competitively. Which is why it's reasonable to some that someone getting in trouble for "being a monopoly" is actually getting in trouble for some specific actions they took.
  - bryanrasmussen 2y ago
    right, hence the "specific steps taken", and actually when in the history of the world has a monopoly existed that has not taken anti-competitive actions? People having monopolies have a strong urge to maintain them, the means to do so, and not doing so might actually require lots of thinking and trying to walk a very thin, straight line. on edit: ok it seems this post mentions a monopoly that takes no anti-competitive steps, which is a company I've never heard of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41642040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41642040 but if they have 100% of the market I guess there's no reason for them to be anti-competitive, that kind of thing comes when you have 80% of the market but it's threatened (guesstimate)