3 ms·

What do you mean? Minimising monopolies is how you keep the free market competitive.

diob 2y ago
I hope they reply. This is the first FTC in a while to try and get the free market "free" again, rather than captured.
carlosjobim 2y ago
Free competition should mean that you don't get punished for winning. There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Imagine Schwarzenegger being banned from Mr Olympia or Gretzky being banned for life from minor league ice hockey. So that the other competitors are given a fair chance of winning. But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  That’s because business isn’t an abstract activity that doesn’t affect anyone’s real life.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    Okay, what about art? Should we punish and limit the most successful artists to give other people a chance?
    - lazyasciiart 2y ago
      No, because see above.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        Art affects people's real life profoundly. For example TV shows alter the behaviour of entire generations of people.
- ewb 2y ago
  Most sports have a salary cap to prevent being able to buy your way to success. They recognize that having more money than your opponent gives you an unfair advantage and destroys competition.
- kettro 2y ago
  > There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly Almost all North American sports have a player entry draft, where the weighting is based on your success. The best teams (eg the Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s and 00’s) are given garbage draft picks, while the bottom-feeders (eg the Edmonton Oilers of the late 00’s-early 10’s) are given (the opportunity for) superstars. This is clearly a punishment for doing well, and a reward for being terrible.
- beart 2y ago
  I'm not an expert on these things, so I'm asking in good faith; what significant anti monopoly policies have been enacted in the US in recent history?
- brandall10 2y ago
  It's funny you bring up Schwarzenegger, as his last Olympia win was mired in controversy for being almost certainly rigged. Did he cheat? No, everyone used a similar amount of steroids. But to anyone with eyes and a basic knowledge of the sport it's overwhelmingly obvious that the organizers and judges threw it in his favor because of the attention it would bring. Which is the issue when an entity becomes too big to fail. There is a power disparity that is virtually impossible to overcome as the leverage is so much that any opponent can be swat down with ease. Things such as: - leveraging economies of scale when dealing with suppliers and resources to the point of starving access to competition - using lobbyists to write legislation in their favor or blockade opponents - doing fuck all with no reservations, then pay out lawsuits and fines at an order of magnitude less than profit made and damage done
- acdha 2y ago
  > But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". This is a provocative claim. Do you have any examples?
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    It is repeated on the level of gospel here on HN that Apple is "a monopoly", and nobody even flinches at the absurdity of that claim.
    - acdha 2y ago
      That’s not in this thread, though, and it usually gets a lot of pushback.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating. See also, casinos: the "legitimate" ones don't rig the game - they know the odds; they expect you to win something here and then, but if they see you winning consistently, they'll rightfully assume you're cheating somehow, and ban you from the venue. > But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. Marketplace isn't like sportsball. It's like war. On the market like in war, anything goes. The only people who can afford living under delusion of market sportsmanship are people who are already so well-off and safe they can treat it as a game; for everyone else, it's a matter of life and death. > But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". The market isn't some divine ball game, or a magic ritual. It's a feedback system, with known failure modes. Wrt. monopolies, in particular, any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment, because that's how they can maximize profits while minimizing effort. At the same time, the market serves a critical function in organizing human society - but that stops working when monopolies pop up. It's really very simple: all the goods and services and advancement we enjoy require market players to be actively putting in effort. To society, an entrepreneur is basically a donkey with a pole mounted to it, from which there hangs a carrot, just out of reach - the donkey just wants to grab the carrot, but the society only benefits when the donkey is chasing it. The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop. That's why markets are regulated as to let people and companies grow and accumulate winnings, until a point, past which they'd stop participating (or worse, just go screwing around breaking things). I.e. it's not about punishing someone for winning - it's about preventing them from complete victory, because then they become useless to society. > While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline. Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency. -- [0] - Feedback loops like compounding interest. In sports, unlike in the economy, you can't just reinvest your win to get more wins, and then reinvest them in turn, until you're winning so much so fast that no one can ever hope to catch up with you.
- dml2135 2y ago
  The economy is not a sport to be won. I think you are maybe prioritizing a some notion of fairness to those competing in the market, while to someone like Khan the thinking is more, how can we make the market function in a way that provides the biggest net-benefit to society?
  - entropicdrifter 2y ago
    This. The market should be working for us human beings, not the other way around.
- plagiarist 2y ago
  Give us some examples of gigantic "winning" companies that haven't been engaging in cheating or unsportsmanlike behavior.
- EdwardDiego 2y ago
  They're not punishing you for winning, they're punishing you for using techniques to ensure competitors can't have a fair go at competing. So your analogy is very terrible, unless Simone Biles was bribing sports officials to change the rules to effectively prevent other gymnasts competing against her. A better analogy for a monopoly in a free market is allelopathy in plants, where you actively modify the environment to starve out competitors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy

diob 2y ago

I hope they reply. This is the first FTC in a while to try and get the free market "free" again, rather than captured.

Free competition should mean that you don't get punished for winning. There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Imagine Schwarzenegger being banned from Mr Olympia or Gretzky being banned for life from minor league ice hockey. So that the other competitors are given a fair chance of winning. But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline.

lazyasciiart 2y ago
That’s because business isn’t an abstract activity that doesn’t affect anyone’s real life.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Okay, what about art? Should we punish and limit the most successful artists to give other people a chance?
  - lazyasciiart 2y ago
    No, because see above.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      Art affects people's real life profoundly. For example TV shows alter the behaviour of entire generations of people.
ewb 2y ago
Most sports have a salary cap to prevent being able to buy your way to success. They recognize that having more money than your opponent gives you an unfair advantage and destroys competition.
kettro 2y ago
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly Almost all North American sports have a player entry draft, where the weighting is based on your success. The best teams (eg the Detroit Red Wings of the 90’s and 00’s) are given garbage draft picks, while the bottom-feeders (eg the Edmonton Oilers of the late 00’s-early 10’s) are given (the opportunity for) superstars. This is clearly a punishment for doing well, and a reward for being terrible.
beart 2y ago
I'm not an expert on these things, so I'm asking in good faith; what significant anti monopoly policies have been enacted in the US in recent history?
brandall10 2y ago
It's funny you bring up Schwarzenegger, as his last Olympia win was mired in controversy for being almost certainly rigged. Did he cheat? No, everyone used a similar amount of steroids. But to anyone with eyes and a basic knowledge of the sport it's overwhelmingly obvious that the organizers and judges threw it in his favor because of the attention it would bring. Which is the issue when an entity becomes too big to fail. There is a power disparity that is virtually impossible to overcome as the leverage is so much that any opponent can be swat down with ease. Things such as: - leveraging economies of scale when dealing with suppliers and resources to the point of starving access to competition - using lobbyists to write legislation in their favor or blockade opponents - doing fuck all with no reservations, then pay out lawsuits and fines at an order of magnitude less than profit made and damage done
acdha 2y ago
> But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". This is a provocative claim. Do you have any examples?
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  It is repeated on the level of gospel here on HN that Apple is "a monopoly", and nobody even flinches at the absurdity of that claim.
  - acdha 2y ago
    That’s not in this thread, though, and it usually gets a lot of pushback.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> There is no sport that punishes a competitor who is constantly winning, as long as they are competing fairly. Constantly winning in a competitive environment with no runaway feedback loops[0] is evidence of cheating. See also, casinos: the "legitimate" ones don't rig the game - they know the odds; they expect you to win something here and then, but if they see you winning consistently, they'll rightfully assume you're cheating somehow, and ban you from the venue. > But every sport punishes competitors who are cheating or being unsportsmanlike. As it should be in the marketplace. Marketplace isn't like sportsball. It's like war. On the market like in war, anything goes. The only people who can afford living under delusion of market sportsmanship are people who are already so well-off and safe they can treat it as a game; for everyone else, it's a matter of life and death. > But hackers and the EU and US bureaucrats think that being a leader in a market has to be punished for being a "monopoly". The market isn't some divine ball game, or a magic ritual. It's a feedback system, with known failure modes. Wrt. monopolies, in particular, any good profit-seeking actor will aim at becoming a monopolist in their market segment, because that's how they can maximize profits while minimizing effort. At the same time, the market serves a critical function in organizing human society - but that stops working when monopolies pop up. It's really very simple: all the goods and services and advancement we enjoy require market players to be actively putting in effort. To society, an entrepreneur is basically a donkey with a pole mounted to it, from which there hangs a carrot, just out of reach - the donkey just wants to grab the carrot, but the society only benefits when the donkey is chasing it. The donkey needs to believe they can win, so it keeps running, but it also can never be allowed to actually get their prize, because then it'll stop. That's why markets are regulated as to let people and companies grow and accumulate winnings, until a point, past which they'd stop participating (or worse, just go screwing around breaking things). I.e. it's not about punishing someone for winning - it's about preventing them from complete victory, because then they become useless to society. > While always turning a blind eye to rampant fraud and scams that are in the marketplace everywhere online and offline. Who's turning a blind eye to it? Fraud and scams are the base state of the market; it's what it decays to if left to its own devices. Regulations are there to counteract this tendency. -- [0] - Feedback loops like compounding interest. In sports, unlike in the economy, you can't just reinvest your win to get more wins, and then reinvest them in turn, until you're winning so much so fast that no one can ever hope to catch up with you.
dml2135 2y ago
The economy is not a sport to be won. I think you are maybe prioritizing a some notion of fairness to those competing in the market, while to someone like Khan the thinking is more, how can we make the market function in a way that provides the biggest net-benefit to society?
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  This. The market should be working for us human beings, not the other way around.
plagiarist 2y ago
Give us some examples of gigantic "winning" companies that haven't been engaging in cheating or unsportsmanlike behavior.
EdwardDiego 2y ago
They're not punishing you for winning, they're punishing you for using techniques to ensure competitors can't have a fair go at competing. So your analogy is very terrible, unless Simone Biles was bribing sports officials to change the rules to effectively prevent other gymnasts competing against her. A better analogy for a monopoly in a free market is allelopathy in plants, where you actively modify the environment to starve out competitors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy