3 ms·

So anti-trust action is good against FAANG and bad against Adobe? What's the general principle here?

by t_mann 2y ago

fidotron 2y ago
You lot are so blinded by Adobe hate you cannot even read what I actually wrote.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  Or you are so blinded by big four hate that you cannot apply the same principles to all wannabe big fours.
  - fidotron 2y ago
    “FAANG and co. ” Means Adobe are included, as it says at the very top. Stopping them buying Figma achieves nothing good. Their monopoly is on print and publishing tools, and no one has been close to them since the actual crime of the acquisition of Macromedia and subsequent killing of Freehand. Had Figma been bought at the valuation Adobe were offering the founders would, given a few years, be free to leverage their expertise and now vast resources on whatever is more valuable at the time, and now that is lost.
    - Apocryphon 2y ago
      As other responses to your original post have pointed out, it's quite likely Adobe would have turned Figma into yet another saas offering, dubiously supported and with onerous bloatware, and consumers would be left high and dry when it is inevitably sunsetted.
      - fidotron 2y ago
        They will enshittify regardless of if Adobe buy them or not. Now though you will certainly suffer because when Figma inevitably goes to hell the only remaining option will be the janky self hosted clone as no one will be able to fund proper competition for it or any replacement.
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        People can just switch to the actual Adobe version, or use Zeplin.
        fidotron 2y ago
        So when Figma dies because Adobe bundle their worse product with Creative Cloud and it destroys the market for Figma you will be A-OK with it? (I mean die or get picked off for peanuts by someone like Atlassian or ServiceNow.) This isn’t abstract, it is exactly what MS Teams has done to that whole segment.
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        Figma will likely have a lead over Adobe's worse product. But if Adobe's worse product becomes better, then that's good for the consumer as well.
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      > the founders would, given a few years, be free to leverage their expertise and now vast resources I couldn’t make heads or tails of your posts here until I read this. “Anti-monopoly action is good, even regarding Adobe, except for the Figma acquisition in particular, which should have happened” doesn’t really make sense unless your starting point is “the desired outcome is that specifically the Figma folks get overnight super rich” and then you work backward to construct an economic reason for that.
      - fidotron 2y ago
        It is the wrong anti compete action to enforce against them. The correct thing would be to dismantle their publishing monopoly. The point is unless you dismantle the core print publishing monopoly Adobe will simply produce a crap Figma, bundle it in Creative Cloud, and Figma will die a slow death. At least if Figma is acquired it gets the chance to do the opposite. My priority is the widespread availability of high quality products and services, which requires rewarding those that make them, and a competitive marketplace without people engaged in product dumping.
        jemmyw 2y ago
        Adobe already tried to make a crap figma. That failed and they've shut it down. I don't think they'll try again just yet.
        jrflowers 2y ago
        >At least if Figma is acquired it gets the chance to do the opposite. This makes sense. If Adobe makes a crap Figma copy and Figma dies, that is bad. If Adobe buys Figma, makes it terrible, and then it dies, that is good. In both scenarios Figma is dead, but in the Good one the Figma founders cashed out. You literally posted that the ideal outcome is that the Figma founders could leverage their newfound wealth to do… something(?) with all their new cash, which has zero to do with Figma as a product or the users that get screwed.
        fidotron 2y ago
- t_mann 2y ago
  I don't care about Figma or Adobe, but you simply haven't made a good case why antitrust enforcement is good in general but bad in this case. Your only argument is that it makes it harder for other companies to grow to that size, which is not an unintended consequence of antitrust enforcement. You can't have your cake and eat it.

So anti-trust action is good against FAANG and bad against Adobe? What's the general principle here?

by t_mann 2y ago

So anti-trust action is good against FAANG and bad against Adobe? What's the general principle here?

fidotron 2y ago

You lot are so blinded by Adobe hate you cannot even read what I actually wrote.

Apocryphon 2y ago
Or you are so blinded by big four hate that you cannot apply the same principles to all wannabe big fours.
- fidotron 2y ago
  “FAANG and co. ” Means Adobe are included, as it says at the very top. Stopping them buying Figma achieves nothing good. Their monopoly is on print and publishing tools, and no one has been close to them since the actual crime of the acquisition of Macromedia and subsequent killing of Freehand. Had Figma been bought at the valuation Adobe were offering the founders would, given a few years, be free to leverage their expertise and now vast resources on whatever is more valuable at the time, and now that is lost.
  - Apocryphon 2y ago
    As other responses to your original post have pointed out, it's quite likely Adobe would have turned Figma into yet another saas offering, dubiously supported and with onerous bloatware, and consumers would be left high and dry when it is inevitably sunsetted.
    - fidotron 2y ago
      They will enshittify regardless of if Adobe buy them or not. Now though you will certainly suffer because when Figma inevitably goes to hell the only remaining option will be the janky self hosted clone as no one will be able to fund proper competition for it or any replacement.
      - Apocryphon 2y ago
        People can just switch to the actual Adobe version, or use Zeplin.
        fidotron 2y ago
        So when Figma dies because Adobe bundle their worse product with Creative Cloud and it destroys the market for Figma you will be A-OK with it? (I mean die or get picked off for peanuts by someone like Atlassian or ServiceNow.) This isn’t abstract, it is exactly what MS Teams has done to that whole segment.
        Apocryphon 2y ago
        Figma will likely have a lead over Adobe's worse product. But if Adobe's worse product becomes better, then that's good for the consumer as well.
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    > the founders would, given a few years, be free to leverage their expertise and now vast resources I couldn’t make heads or tails of your posts here until I read this. “Anti-monopoly action is good, even regarding Adobe, except for the Figma acquisition in particular, which should have happened” doesn’t really make sense unless your starting point is “the desired outcome is that specifically the Figma folks get overnight super rich” and then you work backward to construct an economic reason for that.
    - fidotron 2y ago
      It is the wrong anti compete action to enforce against them. The correct thing would be to dismantle their publishing monopoly. The point is unless you dismantle the core print publishing monopoly Adobe will simply produce a crap Figma, bundle it in Creative Cloud, and Figma will die a slow death. At least if Figma is acquired it gets the chance to do the opposite. My priority is the widespread availability of high quality products and services, which requires rewarding those that make them, and a competitive marketplace without people engaged in product dumping.
      - jemmyw 2y ago
        Adobe already tried to make a crap figma. That failed and they've shut it down. I don't think they'll try again just yet.
      - jrflowers 2y ago
        >At least if Figma is acquired it gets the chance to do the opposite. This makes sense. If Adobe makes a crap Figma copy and Figma dies, that is bad. If Adobe buys Figma, makes it terrible, and then it dies, that is good. In both scenarios Figma is dead, but in the Good one the Figma founders cashed out. You literally posted that the ideal outcome is that the Figma founders could leverage their newfound wealth to do… something(?) with all their new cash, which has zero to do with Figma as a product or the users that get screwed.
        fidotron 2y ago
t_mann 2y ago
I don't care about Figma or Adobe, but you simply haven't made a good case why antitrust enforcement is good in general but bad in this case. Your only argument is that it makes it harder for other companies to grow to that size, which is not an unintended consequence of antitrust enforcement. You can't have your cake and eat it.