4 ms·

More and more, antitrust is a means for people who dislike big, successful companies for no particular reason to attack them. On some level, the government is j

by slibhb 2y ago

More and more, antitrust is a means for people who dislike big, successful companies for no particular reason to attack them. On some level, the government is just throwing its weight around. The message is "don't forget who's really in charge." Consider all the "Lina Khan fans" you see on HN and elsewhere. They rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if those laws make sense. They just don't like big companies and want them taken down a peg. The Google suit was particularly egregious. There was no alternative to Google search because no one had built a better product for reasons that have nothing to do with anticompetitive behavior. And the real irony here is that Google appears to be behind on LLMs, which have finally given us an alternative to typing things into Google. So the government picked the exact moment when Google's search market share is seriously threatened to sue!

xracy 2y ago
The entire conceit of capitalism is that competition is good, and that competition forces companies to better address their customers needs. If they're not doing this, then someone can come in and undercut them. But what happens in the scenario where the person comes in, undercuts them, and then sells to the bigger company? How does this force the larger company to change? This is like antitrust 101. I don't understand people who claim to be proponents of capitalism and are opposed to antitrust. If you want the free market to determine anything with fewer regulations, then we need antitrust. Otherwise we need a lot more regulations. Which one would you prefer? I have a feeling you wouldn't recognize anticompetitive behavior despite it hitting you in the face for the past 10 years.
llamaimperative 2y ago
Here you go: * I'm a big fan of Chairwoman Khan. * The government should be suing many of the companies FTC is going after because their behavior yields bad outcomes for consumers, such as worse health outcomes after a private equity group captures an entire geography then drives up prices while reducing quality. * They tend to have broken laws around creating and abusing monopoly positions, usually with various illegal details like kickback arrangements and self-dealing. * These laws make sense. * I don't mind big companies and many of the companies FTC goes after are not particularly big. * Companies that utilize edge cases in market dynamics to produce bad outcomes for consumers should be taken down a peg.
kmeisthax 2y ago
On the charge of just wanting to break up big companies because they're big, I plead not guilty on the virtue of this not being a crime. The whole point of breaking up large companies is because their size renders them unaccountable quazi-governments. To properly regulate them requires making the government even bigger with ever-more-complicated regulatory apparatus, compliance departments, administrative rulemaking, and "special understandings" (read: giving up) for the largest players. I'll put it to you another way: if you want smaller government, you need smaller corporations, too. > There was no alternative to Google search because no one had built a better product for reasons that have nothing to do with anticompetitive behavior. I would first argue that Google's unparalleled superiority in search is overblown. For one, there's ads in it. As Google's founders themselves stated, ads are a perverse incentive to ruin the search experience in favor of advertisers and I can point to several examples[0] in which this happened. There are paid search engines that do not have advertising (e.g. Kagi) but they themselves have complained about the struggle that is competing with Google. For example, on iOS, there's only five default search engine options, there's no way to add a different search engine as default, and Google pays $$$ to Apple to be set to the default and for that search engine option to be buried in Settings. I don't see how that isn't anticompetitive. On a technical level, Google has a supracompetitive advantage, too. A lot of websites have restrictive policies that forbid scraping except for Google and Bing. This means only those search engines can actually return results for those sites. [0] Product ads in web search, every programming search query giving you four or five ads before the actual StackOverflow answer you're interested in, image search becoming a glorified product search with actual functionality being removed, Gemini
- refurb 2y ago
  The whole point of breaking up large companies is because their size renders them unaccountable quazi-governments. Unaccountable to who? I can think of plenty “almost monopolies” that no longer exist or are former shells which would infer they were accountable - at least to the customer. But the more important question is - how big is too big? Is it the same for every company? If not, who decides? How do you measure it? If it’s not objective criteria, it becomes a “I know it when I see it” where subjective variables result in a company in the crosshairs. So in the end, the government picking winners and losers.
rozap 2y ago
Point taken about the level of discourse on the internet and the mainstream media, no argument there. It is painful, but just because the discourse around the topic is smooth brained doesn't mean that the position is wrong. This is something that I struggle with. Sometimes the discourse is so unimaginably stupid that it pushes you to default to the other side's point of view, but that doesn't actually mean you got to that point of view through any reasoning, you got there from emotion. There are the standard points around consumer protection. Ticketmaster, Adobe, Amazon, really do engage in anti competitive practices and then burn the consumer once they've consolidated power. People feel that, but to your point, can't articulate all the moving pieces, and that's fine, use the mute button. God help us if Kroger and Safeway get their way and merge. To your point about "don't forget who's really in charge." - it might feel like there's no upside here, but in reality you do end up with companies that have more power than the government, and that's a dangerous road to go down in a democracy, since there's no real way to hold them accountable. Obviously the government is deeply flawed in a million different ways, but ultimately there are elected officials, which cannot be said of private companies. Also Lina Khan talks a lot about resiliency. Too much efficiency can make things worse [1]. With mass consolidation, black swan events lead to and outsized impact compared to what they would in an economy where there aren't monopolies everywhere. Climate change, pandemics, instability in Europe and the middle east, etc mean that it's worth trading extreme efficiency for robustness. [1] https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart.html https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart....
- n4r9 2y ago
  > Too much efficiency can make things worse Absolutely. Isn't the recent Crowdstrike incident sort of a testament to this? In terms of efficiency it's great for a bunch of systems to all rely on the same tool. But when something goes wrong, it goes wrong for everyone.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>hey rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if those laws make sense. Because it's not productive and against HN guidelines to say "read the article". >Last year, the FTC alleged Amazon.com, which has 1 billion items in its online superstore, was using an algorithm that pushed up prices U.S. households paid by more than $1 billion. Amazon has said in court papers it stopped using the program in 2019. Price fixing is generally an illegal tactic. I'm not a lawyer but there's plenty of legal dictionaries that laymen can understand on the whats, why's, and hows. So yes, the goverment should sue if a law is suspected of being broken. >The Google suit was particularly egregious. There was no alternative to Google search because no one had built a better product for reasons that have nothing to do with anticompetitive behavior. did you ignore the point where google was spending 250m a year to Apple to be the default search engine on IOS? Please actually read the topics before complaining that there is no rationale behind it. You're doing the very thing you accuse others of doing. YOu're not providing an argument you're saying arguments don't exist and inserting a strawman. >the government picked the exact moment when Google's search market share is seriously threatened to sue! Googles been under scrutiny since pre-pandemic. There is no such thing as "good timing" for a lawsuit because they take years to bring to court, let alone to resolve.
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  > did you ignore the point where google was spending 250m a year to Apple to be the default search engine on IOS? More like ~$20-26 billion
yazzku 2y ago
> More and more, antitrust is a means for people who dislike big, successful companies for no particular reason to attack them. On some level, the government is just throwing its weight around. The message is "don't forget who's really in charge." The same government that gives it tax cuts when building new "fulfillment centers" and billions of dollars in cloud/military contracts? Something doesn't add up in your logic. > Consider all the "Lina Khan fans" you see on HN and elsewhere. They rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if those laws make sense. They just don't like big companies and want them taken down a peg. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/...

by slibhb 2y ago

xracy 2y ago

The entire conceit of capitalism is that competition is good, and that competition forces companies to better address their customers needs. If they're not doing this, then someone can come in and undercut them. But what happens in the scenario where the person comes in, undercuts them, and then sells to the bigger company? How does this force the larger company to change? This is like antitrust 101. I don't understand people who claim to be proponents of capitalism and are opposed to antitrust. If you want the free market to determine anything with fewer regulations, then we need antitrust. Otherwise we need a lot more regulations. Which one would you prefer? I have a feeling you wouldn't recognize anticompetitive behavior despite it hitting you in the face for the past 10 years.

llamaimperative 2y ago

Here you go: * I'm a big fan of Chairwoman Khan. * The government should be suing many of the companies FTC is going after because their behavior yields bad outcomes for consumers, such as worse health outcomes after a private equity group captures an entire geography then drives up prices while reducing quality. * They tend to have broken laws around creating and abusing monopoly positions, usually with various illegal details like kickback arrangements and self-dealing. * These laws make sense. * I don't mind big companies and many of the companies FTC goes after are not particularly big. * Companies that utilize edge cases in market dynamics to produce bad outcomes for consumers should be taken down a peg.

kmeisthax 2y ago

On the charge of just wanting to break up big companies because they're big, I plead not guilty on the virtue of this not being a crime. The whole point of breaking up large companies is because their size renders them unaccountable quazi-governments. To properly regulate them requires making the government even bigger with ever-more-complicated regulatory apparatus, compliance departments, administrative rulemaking, and "special understandings" (read: giving up) for the largest players. I'll put it to you another way: if you want smaller government, you need smaller corporations, too. > There was no alternative to Google search because no one had built a better product for reasons that have nothing to do with anticompetitive behavior. I would first argue that Google's unparalleled superiority in search is overblown. For one, there's ads in it. As Google's founders themselves stated, ads are a perverse incentive to ruin the search experience in favor of advertisers and I can point to several examples[0] in which this happened. There are paid search engines that do not have advertising (e.g. Kagi) but they themselves have complained about the struggle that is competing with Google. For example, on iOS, there's only five default search engine options, there's no way to add a different search engine as default, and Google pays $$$ to Apple to be set to the default and for that search engine option to be buried in Settings. I don't see how that isn't anticompetitive. On a technical level, Google has a supracompetitive advantage, too. A lot of websites have restrictive policies that forbid scraping except for Google and Bing. This means only those search engines can actually return results for those sites. [0] Product ads in web search, every programming search query giving you four or five ads before the actual StackOverflow answer you're interested in, image search becoming a glorified product search with actual functionality being removed, Gemini

refurb 2y ago
The whole point of breaking up large companies is because their size renders them unaccountable quazi-governments. Unaccountable to who? I can think of plenty “almost monopolies” that no longer exist or are former shells which would infer they were accountable - at least to the customer. But the more important question is - how big is too big? Is it the same for every company? If not, who decides? How do you measure it? If it’s not objective criteria, it becomes a “I know it when I see it” where subjective variables result in a company in the crosshairs. So in the end, the government picking winners and losers.

rozap 2y ago

Point taken about the level of discourse on the internet and the mainstream media, no argument there. It is painful, but just because the discourse around the topic is smooth brained doesn't mean that the position is wrong. This is something that I struggle with. Sometimes the discourse is so unimaginably stupid that it pushes you to default to the other side's point of view, but that doesn't actually mean you got to that point of view through any reasoning, you got there from emotion. There are the standard points around consumer protection. Ticketmaster, Adobe, Amazon, really do engage in anti competitive practices and then burn the consumer once they've consolidated power. People feel that, but to your point, can't articulate all the moving pieces, and that's fine, use the mute button. God help us if Kroger and Safeway get their way and merge. To your point about "don't forget who's really in charge." - it might feel like there's no upside here, but in reality you do end up with companies that have more power than the government, and that's a dangerous road to go down in a democracy, since there's no real way to hold them accountable. Obviously the government is deeply flawed in a million different ways, but ultimately there are elected officials, which cannot be said of private companies. Also Lina Khan talks a lot about resiliency. Too much efficiency can make things worse [1]. With mass consolidation, black swan events lead to and outsized impact compared to what they would in an economy where there aren't monopolies everywhere. Climate change, pandemics, instability in Europe and the middle east, etc mean that it's worth trading extreme efficiency for robustness. [1] https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart.html https://sohl-dickstein.github.io/2022/11/06/strong-Goodhart....

n4r9 2y ago
> Too much efficiency can make things worse Absolutely. Isn't the recent Crowdstrike incident sort of a testament to this? In terms of efficiency it's great for a bunch of systems to all rely on the same tool. But when something goes wrong, it goes wrong for everyone.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

>hey rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if those laws make sense. Because it's not productive and against HN guidelines to say "read the article". >Last year, the FTC alleged Amazon.com, which has 1 billion items in its online superstore, was using an algorithm that pushed up prices U.S. households paid by more than $1 billion. Amazon has said in court papers it stopped using the program in 2019. Price fixing is generally an illegal tactic. I'm not a lawyer but there's plenty of legal dictionaries that laymen can understand on the whats, why's, and hows. So yes, the goverment should sue if a law is suspected of being broken. >The Google suit was particularly egregious. There was no alternative to Google search because no one had built a better product for reasons that have nothing to do with anticompetitive behavior. did you ignore the point where google was spending 250m a year to Apple to be the default search engine on IOS? Please actually read the topics before complaining that there is no rationale behind it. You're doing the very thing you accuse others of doing. YOu're not providing an argument you're saying arguments don't exist and inserting a strawman. >the government picked the exact moment when Google's search market share is seriously threatened to sue! Googles been under scrutiny since pre-pandemic. There is no such thing as "good timing" for a lawsuit because they take years to bring to court, let alone to resolve.

aspenmayer 2y ago
> did you ignore the point where google was spending 250m a year to Apple to be the default search engine on IOS? More like ~$20-26 billion

yazzku 2y ago

> More and more, antitrust is a means for people who dislike big, successful companies for no particular reason to attack them. On some level, the government is just throwing its weight around. The message is "don't forget who's really in charge." The same government that gives it tax cuts when building new "fulfillment centers" and billions of dollars in cloud/military contracts? Something doesn't add up in your logic. > Consider all the "Lina Khan fans" you see on HN and elsewhere. They rarely articulate why the government should be suing these companies, which laws that company broke, or if those laws make sense. They just don't like big companies and want them taken down a peg. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/...