Slashdot Mirror
The Monopolies That Dominate the Internet
Tim Wu has a piece up at the Wall Street Journal pointing out that the free-market, open Internet — "competition in its purest form" — has evolved to be dominated by monopolies. Wu argues that this is nothing new, and that each wave of information technology in the US has followed a similar pattern. "Today's Internet borders will probably change eventually, especially as new markets appear. But it's hard to avoid the conclusion that we are living in an age of large information monopolies. Could it be that the free market on the Internet actually tends toward monopolies? Could it even be that demand, of all things, is actually winnowing the online free market — that Americans, so diverse and individualistic, actually love these monopolies? ... Info-monopolies tend to be good-to-great in the short term and bad-to-terrible in the long term."
free market is what tends towards monopolies eventually. because there is competition, and nothing to prevent the big players from getting bigger, unless they make a HUGE mistake, all 'free' markets only function as free for all initial chaos environments until a hierarchy and order is established. as per the below post :
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1847700&cid=34083272
Read radical news here
imho its all about the money. Look at things now compared to say 5 or even 10 years ago. Most small companies are bought up by a larger competitor, just to make sure they get there hands on whatever tech it is they are developing. Or another company is sued by another for some copyright or patent infringement just to make a buck. No real new 'big' fish are coming to light with something new cool and innovative, if so very slowly, as the big boys try to make sure they stay on top and squash that competition.
Could it be that the free market on the Internet actually tends toward monopolies?
Free markets lead to successful companies. This is the same as in any other industry. Yes, the internet makes it very easy to just 'go with the flow' and follow the leader in a specific category but new companies and new leaders emerge regularly.
Just like with every other industry, if you sit back and watch it go by you'll see companies come and go. If you want to change things you've got to participate. The next "big thing" is in someone's basement or garage or spare room right now.
Apparently, according to the author, MS's failure in search is purely down to Google's monopoly and completely unrelated to the fact that MS has in the past chosen to skew search results and hence proven itself to be an untrustworthy search provider? The "$40B cash on hand" number is meaningless, because MS hasn't chosen to spend $40B on entering the search market. Perhaps the difference is simply that Google has been able to develop and maintain a better product?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
How hard would it be to go a week without Google? Or, to up the ante, without Facebook, Amazon, Skype, Twitter, Apple, eBay and Google?
Pretty fucking easy, actually. My God what are we becoming when people think this shit is so important?
Back in my day (well, ok, my grandfather's) we worried about important shit like steel, or oil. Hell, even telephone wire - it's physical, someone owns it, and they control it completely. Those are monopolies - you're strangled by one provider.
Facebook? Apple? Amazon? Give me a fucking break. Oh noesies, I can't go read about something cute one of some guy I barely know's brat kids did! Oh no, I have to buy a less expensive version that functions just as well of some gadget I don't need! Uh oh, I have to walk my fat ass to Target or order from one of the other billion internet stores!
Author makes common mistake of confusing a monopoly with most successful provider of something that one could, if one wanted, get from 20 other places.
Google is a de facto monopoly because they're pretty awesome. Your local Telco is a de jure monopoly because they have lobbyists. Monopolies are great so long as the market remains open.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Google and Amazon are possible because of a large crowd.
Facebook and Twitter and eBay don't work without a large existing crowd.
So you pick a site which already has a large crowd, thus creating a monopoly.
My other
like what other industry ? the publishing industry ? which is dominated by approx. 4 groups ? the broadcasting ? which is dominated by 4 groups again ? music ? 4 groups ? movie ? 4 groups ? cleaner products ? even less groups ? oil ? even less ?
ironically most of the above groups in different industries are either the same, or subsidiaries of bigger holdings.
what was about that 'come and go' bullshit again ? apparently they have come, and not going anywhere.
Read radical news here
It's a feature of the supply of credit to the market. You make money by pushing your competitors out of the market and taking their business. Credit is what allows you to do that.
In addition, the fact that you have loans to pay means you are largely required by your creditors to grow.
Deleted
In the absence of regulation, free markets always end up as monopolies. Not sometimes but always.
Name three.
Back in the real world, actual, real monopolies can only exist if:
a) the monopoly is more efficient than any competitor, thereby providing better service to their customers.
or:
b) the government keeps competitors out of the market.
In many cases in communications, governments built the initial infrastructure using its powers to take land from its owners at gunpoint, and then handed it over to private companies, which no new company can easily compete with since they don't have such powers. Similarly, big business loves regulation (or, at least, the 'right kind' of regulation as produced by its lobbyists and their tame politicians) as it raises the barriers of entry and keeps new competitors out of their market.
Our current market economy depends on finite supply, and with limited production capacity per person in order to employ people and pay them wages so they can also be consumers. As automation and robotics take over the means of production, only societies that can cope with overproduction with more socially shared resources will be able to thrive.
In other words, China and Europe will continue to eat our lunch.
This article is full of sensationalist bullshit.
Facebook, Amazon, Skype, Twitter, Apple, eBay and Google
Yes, one can do comfortably without all these. I don't shop at Amazon, instead, I shop at several other places, which vigorously compete with Amazon.
I've never used online auction site, and still manage to buy shit online cheaply.
I check my facebook account once a week if that, and I still manage.
I switch between several search engines, and I think they've gone more or less on par.
Twitter and Apple? Monopolies? Lolwut.
It seems the author isn't very well versed in economics and uses words like "monopoly" and "free market" colloquially.
Also, he has his bearings wrong. The only thing that allows any kind of "monopoly" in information is the government and its fucked up system of copyright and related rights, which is being tended by lawyers who are probably students of the author in the quagmire of "Intellectual property". Now, this is the REAL danger, but he somehow misses it altogether.
Not impressive at all.
Maybe the professor should concentrate on his studies in law, and not venture with superficial sensationalism in areas he doesn't know much about -- like economics -- before learning the basics.
Apparently, according to the author, MS's failure in search is purely down to Google's monopoly and completely unrelated to the fact that MS has in the past chosen to skew search results and hence proven itself to be an untrustworthy search provider?
Citation needed. You're the first I have heard to make such an allegation. They only honest way to determine search engine "trustworthiness" or any over perceived performance measure is to do the search engine taste test. Three engines, one query. Choose the best result list.
I bet you'll be surprised.
Surprise surprise - capitalism on the internet is largely about companies dominated by the network effect. It is interesting, though, that while many folks thought the internet would lead to a broader spectrum of companies given that start up/fixed costs are so low, the network effect has tended to consolidate power to a very small number of winners.
I think the overall effect on capitalism itself will be very interesting. Capitalism was always about winners and losers, but previously you could have a lot more winners given that there were a lot more markets. The internet is connecting all these markets, making space for fewer (albeit much bigger) winners. We talk a lot about the rise in income inequality in the US over the past few decades, and I think it has as much to do with technology as with any policy changes. Technology fundamentally makes things more efficient and breaks down market barriers - in many ways this is a great thing, but I think people are just now starting to realize how it has broad negative effects given the way our brand of capitalism works.
Well as long as I get to play as the thimble or hat, I have no complaints.
This whole premise is flawed a true monopoly of information in the traditional sense is not really happening on the Internet as far as I can tell. Sure the vast majority of people see Facebook as the Ineternet and spend entirely too much time on there posting inane updates, doing inane quizzes and playing terrible web games. However that does not stop Slashdot, Reddit or Penny Arcade or xckcd or hack a day or cnczone from existng and doing just fine for people that want or have a thought rattling around between their ears. The cost of entry is not high in fact with tech like Amazon ec2 it's stupid low at this point. Anyone can start a web site and make money it's just most people suck at it (me included).
The whole thing about "individualism" and being an "individual" appears to mean something different from what it sounds like - comes with an evaluation of how much (?!) of an individual you are.
The view appears to be: since we cherish the perception of how everyone has the opportunity to excel, we should honor those who do so since they are the representation of true individualism (which gives the word a whole new meaning)
It follows that those who don't excel need to recognize that and pay deference to those who do = where the "leadership" comes in, which appears to be not far off from conforming to your place in the society (say, a follower displays leadership when recognizing that he is expected to follow and then doing everything possible to please the (actual) leader - individualism and leadership as top-down hero worship)
One that hath name thou can not otter
> Forgoing Google and Amazon is just
> inconvenient; forgoing Facebook or Twitter
> means giving up whole categories of activity.
I don't use facebook or twitter, but use google on a daily basis & amazon on a weekly basis.
Anyone that claims to not be able to live without twitter/facebook is not someone I wanna hang out with regularly. Or read what they have to say about tech :P
The term "free market" is used to mean "competitive market" and is also used to mean "un-regulated market", despite the fact that few markets are both competitive and un-regulated. When someone uses the term "free market" with out clarifying which they mean, they are either confused, or they are trying to confuse you.
"Could it be that the free market ... actually tends toward monopolies?"
That's economics 101: economy of scale means that a pure free market tends to monopoly. Why anyone should expect the Internet to be different escapes me. The usual argument is that the role of the government in a free market economy is to provide regulation to limit this tendency: first, by preventing the abuse of the monopoly (to prevent competition, or to take over related fields), and second, by limiting the maximum size of companies, if necessary, by breaking them up.
The recent banking mess is a good illustration of the failure of modern governments. They should never allow companies to become "too big to fail". If a company has achieved such a size, the government has failed its regulatory responsibility - at the cost we all saw: hundreds of billions of dollars/euros of your tax money used to prop up companies whose mistakes should have simply bankrupted them.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Google is a monopoly as long as the alternatives suck.
Seriously.
I have yet to see Bing, Yahoo, Altavista, Webcrawler, Lycos, etc, bring their products up to speed to offer better alternatives to Google's offerings.
There is nothing stopping Microsoft making Bing a successful alternative to Google except maybe the poor algorithms they use.
Oh yeah, and where are my advanced search functions, Bing?
--
BMO
Well, Government regulation can give good and bad.
In Germany, government regulation had given us a big single monopoly over any sort of communication, from letters to phone calls. OTOH new regulations have caused a great competition in the phone and internet market despite the pre-existing monopoly.
So you see, government regulation can do both good (prevent/destroy monopolies) and bad (create monopolies). It always depends on the type of regulation.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You wanted some examples?
And if you want to complain about the second link, note that an Oligopoly is just a point on the asymptotic slide towards a Monopoly. Gobbling up competitors becomes more difficult as they become larger and the benefits of gaining a monopoly decrease as the the number of competitors decrease, at least as long as those competitors are amenable to a little group price-fixing.
Even so, given enough time and the lack of any outside intervention, eventually oligopolies will collapse into a monopoly state. One by one each company will _eventually_ make a mistake large enough to make it a good takeover prospect, or companies will come up with good reasons to merge.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Maybe you should look up the East India Company.
Tim Wu has a piece up at the Wall Street Journal
They speak of hating monopolies, yet that's what Murdoch wants to be.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This is actually what TFA says.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I'd say that eBay is pretty much a monopoly as well, and for similar reasons to Microsoft, which are network effects. If you want to auction something, you go where the buyers are. And you then become part of the problem because you get more buyers to use eBay.
Facebook and other social networks don't have the same power because you can exist on many networks.
TFA refers to big monopolies that are familiar to us all, but there are millions of small monopolies that also drive business.
The USPTO gives monopolies to businesses and individuals in the form of Patents, Trademarks and copyright.
Exclusive rights to something of value confer power to the owner. This is the core strength of all the big monopolies mentioned.
Your local shoe repair shop will never have power because it owns no IP or other exclusive rights.
Your local gas station is in the same situation except that it may have exclusive rights to the only viable corner in the neighborhood.
But your local hacker who comes up with a patentable idea could skyrocket to wealth when Google buys his idea. Or he could just sit on it and prevent anyone from using it.
Monopolies come in all shapes and sizes. They can benefit or hurt individuals, corporations, nations or consumers. This general discussion cannot lead to a simple answer about monopolies.
...omphaloskepsis often...
c) a company buys all the competitors
Of course you won't find perfect examples of that because we do have some regulation preventing that. But even with regulation, that's the direction we're going towards. Each year top 100 companies in the world make up a bigger and bigger part of the world economy. And the entry barriers in pretty much any business today is so high, that new competitors don't just magically appear out of nowhere.
"This isn't Wikipedia. Grow up!"
Exactly! Citations are only useful on Wikipedia. Who needs those silly things anywhere else?
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
When it comes to the internet I think it's all about scale, not necessarily free market. For example, what scale (infrastructure, etc) is required to generate and update a searchable index of the entire WWW? Isn't the main appeal of Facebook the number of users it has?
Being big is essentially a requirement - my point is whatever entity provides these specific services must be of at least a certain size in order to function or meet a critical mass of sustainability.
Better known as 318230.
i havent seen it put shorter, more precise than this. a very fat dog eh.
Read radical news here
yours is just conditioned belief. you are either young, in or fresh out of college, or indoctrinated, or stupid. no offense, these are the potential possibilities.
there wasnt any government interference back in early 19th century to late 19th century. and, at the end of that period, america ended up being owned by FOUR persons, which can be named even today. vanderbilt to rockefeller.
the only way to prevent that, has been the regulations theodore roosevelt put.
simply ; in a dog eat dog world, you end up with one very fat dog.
read the below post.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1847700&cid=34083272
Read radical news here
The idea is that to make a higher profit, to be more efficient, one has to serve the demands of the customer to gain the business required to make a higher profit.
This is not what economic efficiency means.
And the idea is wrong.
A monopoly will be economically inefficient, specifically because it maximizes profits, and is in a position to control prices. That means that the prices it sets will be greater than the marginal cost of production.
In a competitive market, the marginal cost of production equals the marginal benefit equals the price. No one firm has the ability to set prices, because others will eat their lunches. On the other hand, a larger business can easily grind away smaller businesses by providing exactly the same quality of service and price on a large scale, because its cost of capital will typically be lower. This means that markets tend toward monopolies.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Microsoft took a bit longer to get it's monopoly without the internet because after all there was a real world distance propagation delay...
As much as I dislike MS, the reality is that Bing is really not a bad search engine. Which is typical of MS their products in areas that they don't control are frequently quite good, it's not until they own the market that the products start to really suck. There are exceptions like their mobile software platform, but it tends to hold up fairly well.
dear fool, WHAT identifies a government, and a corporation ?
if, a private entity owns all rights to a vast swath of land, all the resources and amenities that come from that swath of land, any rights that can be conceived over that land, arent they de facto ruler of that land ?
so, if someone owns a vast swath of land as large as idaho or arkansas, then arent they de facto the government of that land ? because they own all rights to it.
it is even the case today. the ONLY thing that is limiting their sovereignty there, are the laws that GOVERNMENT put out. if those laws had not been there, they would be able to do anything with that tract of land. its as simple as that. if they said that 'no people will drink water in this land, without paying to us', everyone would have to abide. if they said 'noone will be able to make homes in hilltops', they would have the right to it. if they said 'we are going to sell all the iron in this land to pygmies', it would happen.
so, if you take the government out of the picture, any owner of anything becomes RULERS of what they own. its as simple as that. there is no discussing this. this was the historical foundation of feudalism and aristocracy. im not even saying this is a fact - this is the way things, societal dynamics work. if you let anything happen, you will eventually see some parties overpower others, and rule over them, in any manner conceivable.
read some history, and less right wing bullshit.
Read radical news here
i have exhausted my quota of debating against ayn rand bullshit a few posts ago. i wont be able to reply to you. other than that, all these are 'if this happens, if that happens', invisible hand etc are no different than belief in miracles of our lady of santa maria da rosaria and catholic church.
its belief.
Read radical news here
The premise seems to be that because there is a dominant player in a market, that we have a "monopoly". Here's the problem. None of the companies mentioned in the article have a monopoly on the market that they dominate. That's because competition still exists and there are alternatives for each of the businesses mentioned. Here's my take. If we applied the same low standard to a dozen randomly chosen markets in the world, we're going to find a few that happen to be dominated by a single business. In other words, the same phenomena seen here appears everywhere else as well. So I don't think the author can even claim that internet markets are more likely than any other market to tend towards market domination by a single player.
PS, what's particularly striking is that Microsoft only gets mentioned once as a competitor to Google's "monopoly". Think about it, the premier example of the internet monopoly and they only get mentioned once in passing. That's what happens to dominant players, if they can't evolve out of their market niches.
"Americans should be vigilant against corrupt use of government power and the promises of politicians."
Yes, they should. But the fact remains that they aren't. This is how there's actually people that support bills/laws/treaties such as the Patriot Act. That's how there are actually people that support the blatant invasions of privacy and freedom at airports. The average indoctrinated drone believes that they are making a difference by voting in the same two parties over and over.
"Our government is founded on the very idea that men should not be trusted with power and it would serve us well to remember why."
Well, it failed seeing as how the rich currently control the government. When they don't, a tyrant does. Giving the people such little power turned out to be a great idea! I mean, it's an all or nothing scenario right? Majority controls everything or the government does! Those are the only choices!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Facebook:
http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/
http://www.joindiaspora.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
Amazon:
http://www.bookfinder.com/about/booksellers/
Skype:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_VoIP_software
Twitter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr
http://www.plurk.com/
Apple:
http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx
http://www.ubuntu.com/
eBay:
http://online-auction-sites.toptenreviews.com/
Google:
http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/
Actually, you've got that backwards, deregulated sectors typically come with a much higher barrier to entry as the players already there have typically built themselves an impenetrable fortress against anybody entering the sector.
Regulated sectors tend not to have that happen as the first thing that regulators like to do is put into place measures that make companies actually compete.
Actually, the IRS has a better record of gaining compliance to tax laws than pretty much any equivalent body in any other nation. And the USPS has managed for quite some time to keep the rate of rate increases under the rate of inflation.
I don't really think those are particularly good examples of what you're intending to say.
It is government that is the organization holding the special right to employ coercion as a means, not "market forces". No private group can possibly hold that right; otherwise, they wouldn't be private at all, but an arm of government.
This is only partly true.
The Mafia uses force, and is not a part of government. Admittedly, they do not have a "legitimate" right to use force. But this isn't a question of legitimacy. It is a question of money and power.
After all, I am strangely colored.
3. I don't care if ANYBODY thinks gov't regulations is a 'good thing'. Gov't is terrible from my perspective for every single one thing completely and fully.
So, children should still be working underground until they die from exposure to their working conditions? Workers should be born into debt to the company hospital? Slavery should still exist if it's economically viable?
Really, no one takes you seriously except for yourself.
you may be born before me, but, apparently im still much older than you, since i have better comprehension. find me one pointer in the post you replied, which points to you as the person who is fresh out of college. or, is understanding posts from one's ass an oldtimer specialty ?
Read radical news here
This morning Google gave me 20 results for a search, none of which answered by question. So I tried Bing - 0 results. Several other specialist queries later, so result so I gave up.
People don't switch products unless they feel that the new product is significantly better. So, nuff said.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
All those monopolies competing one against the other!
Keep Doing Good.
http://advice.cio.com/shane_oneill/bing_search_tainted_by_pro_microsoft_results
This has been around for a while, and was referenced on Slashdot.
Everyone wants a common interface - but you are not allowed to just rip
You might be surprised at how much ripping U.S. courts will allow. See, for example, Lotus v. Borland : Borland made and sold a 1-2-3 workalike with the same menus, Lotus sued, Lotus lost in the Supreme Court. The end result is that menu text in a computer program is not subject to U.S. copyright.
Mafia that the government failed to stop is sufficient. No accomplices in formal government are required.
The political innovation that made markets work so well is to counterbalance them with democracy, where the guiding principle is "one person one vote" (i.e. votes can't be traded away - the opposite of markets).
Mass media broke this. The parent companies of five movie studios control U.S. television news, which in turn controls the general public's awareness of issues and of candidates. Notice that TV news hasn't covered ACTA or other issues where the public could stand to gain at the expense of the MPAA or vice versa.
Governments are associated with monopolies when market forces overcome democratic forces within the government.
This has in fact happened. U.S. voters by and large do what the TV tells them.
Further, it sounds like 'monopoly' is being used like it's a dirty word, but is a monopoly automatically a bad thing? I'm not asking is it ever a bad thing, but rather is it fundamentally a bad thing.
Regards
With Facebook, the resource you are accessing is not necessarily the social network platform itself but its other users, and the users of Diaspora and Appleseed are a rounding error. It'd be like trying to start an alternative to AT&T before the breakup: if all your contacts are on the big network, and you can't call anyone on the big network from an alternative network, you have no choice but to use the big network. Likewise, as far as I know, you can't use Appleseed or Diaspora to friend someone on Facebook or like a group on Facebook, and you can't use Tumblr to follow the feed of a Twitter user. And under "Comparison of VoIP software", can software other than Skype call a Skype user?
For Apple you recommended Microsoft and Ubuntu. Like Facebook, Apple provides a platform for the resources you want to reach, namely applications. The applications that one can run on an iPod touch are usually not available for Zune or for whatever Ubuntu-powered handheld device you are thinking of.
What alternative do you recommend to the Microsoft-Nintendo-Sony oligopoly on local multiplayer video gaming? Apparently there aren't a lot of games with a mode designed for PCs connected to TVs because there aren't a lot of PCs connected to TVs, and vice versa.
Only on slashdot would such economic bullshit (and the socioeconomic bullshit referenced within) get modded +5 insightful and repeated ad-nauseum. Free markets do NOT tend towards monopolies eventually. The vast majority of markets are not monopolies and are in no danger of becoming so, regardless of government intervention or regulation. The evidence on this is so overwhelming I wouldn't know where to begin. In fact, there are so few examples of natural/existing monopolies (where the efficient scale of production exceeds the size of the market) that we tend to use the same examples over and over in classrooms and textbooks (public utilities).
The internet and information goods have some interesting characteristics (e.g. network effects) that tend to encourage consolidation, but even in this area, changing technology and consumer preferences tend to overthrow dominant firms (e.g. Microsoft).
And yes, I'm an economist.
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Then you get illicit market activity, such as kickbacks, blackmail,
lobbying, donations, special access ...
I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
Monopoly is such a scare word, ESPECIALLY on the internet. If something better comes along people will eventually tend towards that. People are scared of Google? What do you expect? Google is simply phenomenal at what it does. If something better comes along, then people will use that, like they did when people switched to Google in the first place. Myspace died because Facebook was better. Facebook will probably eventually die out, too. It works, it works well, and people will continue to use it as long as it works well.
You cannot have a monopoly without a group who are monopolized.
So the question is, do you mind being somebody's property? And if not, do you have the ability/awareness necessary to move out from beneath that monopoly?
Where it gets dangerous is when said monopoly manipulates your awareness and ability to seek something different.
-FL
Google, I would argue, is not a true monopoly as I define things.
Google still requires public assent, ("We all like this option and so we give it all the power!"). People can still collectively choose something different. Google, however, is buying into the infrastructure which makes it possible to choose and become informed. If they were to use those muscles to quash competition in subversive ways, and if they were successful at this, then they would become a monopoly and we would be owned.
People have the conceit to believe that large human populations cannot be contained, programmed and controlled. The Free Market only works if we are free, but in many ways, we are not.
The interesting part is that we are made up of collections of set and predictable behavioral reactions. It takes awareness and will power to break those reaction cycles, but most people, and I mean nearly everybody, never attains the self-awareness necessary to accomplish this. The Ego gets in the way. People THINK they achieve self-awareness and self-determination, but really, their reactions are not only predictable, but easy to control without their being aware that they are only choosing within a set of pre-determined and controlled boundaries.
The American two-party political system as controlled by the global banking elite is an example of this kind of illusory "free" market. There are options within it, but really, to break out of its primary bounds is very difficult. -Especially when people are so totally programmed to not ever question it or even see it. The control level extends right down to our basic beliefs about reality and the soul.
Many of the economics specialists and students quoting their knowledge here are, in fact, caught in a type of semantic control. The system will not teach you that you are slaves. It will teach you to be happy within the system and to not see beyond it.
-FL
s/the Internet//
Government regulation shows up at your door with M-16s. Corporate monopolies don't.
True enough, but only because modern corporate monopolies understand the value of outsourcing.
There have been a bunch of such stories about Bing as well. Every time, someone eventually points out that this is due to fluctuations in the page ranking algorithms, and you can just as well come up with queries slanted for the "other side". Or get the same kind of bias from Google.
What? Still trying to blame government for monopolization? Don't you people ever get tired/smart?
*sigh* I don't deny that the gov can create monopolies that's obvious, the problem is that monopolies are intrinsic to capitalism and trying to blame all monopolies on government only makes you look like a child, a shill, an idiot or a combination of above.
Deals get done in a regulation free environment, plenty in fact. That McNasty Co. will still get a deal with that free market school, ditto with ingredient suppliers, McNasty doesn't need to out the ingredients of Goodie Co. just make exclusive deals (MS and OEMs serve as a example).
Also you forgot to mention McNasty is also very cheap and bring me some bullshit that Googdie Co. is both the cheapest and tastier provider, you never get both of those, so Goodie Co. probably can't compete in price, at most you get two tiers a high and a low end tier (Apple/MS isn't it?).
That is until McNasty starts to really lean on the budget, cutting cost by using unhealthy production methods, no regulation baby! People won't find out until 10 years later their children start getting born without brains. *Then* can people start inquiring so then can vote with their wallet in the only righteous way available.
Mean while Goodie Co. will also start cutting down prices by exploiting people in sweatshops (Remember Apple-Foxconn?) in fact there's lot's of nasty stuff Goodie Co can do and still sell better tasting hot dogs than McNasty.
One thing is true, McNasty is bigger so it sells in places that Goodie Co. they can afford to launch a line of tasty dogs too. In fact McNasty can have a cheap, healthy and tasty lines leaving Goodie Co with no slice of the cake. But that's ok McNasty is serving the needs of the public, until Goodie Co exhausts it's capital and either goes bankrupt or gets sold, then McNasty will be the only player in town and can do whatever they want until the next Goodie Co needs to be stomped upon.
And where is the next Goodie Co going to come from? Pop&Mom's Hot Dogs of course can't get the deals and connections McNasty has got. No, your best choices will probably be Big Movies Inc. or Generic Motors (hot dogs division).
With or without governments capitalism gravitates to small oligopolies at best and monopolies at worst.
But... the future refused to change.
thats the point. if things go more in the direction the right wing wants, government wont be able to do ANYthing regarding your land. 'private rights', 'individual liberties'. 30 senators including mccain had given objections to a bill that prevented companies from putting contract clauses in their contracts with female employees, that held them not to sue the company or the rapists, if they were raped by company employees while working overseas.
their reason was 'government should not be able to tell private citizens how to conduct their business'.
so in short, they are saying that, if a private company lets its employees rape each other, it should be able to do so, if they drop a contract clause preventing rapists and company from getting sued.
this was an actual hearing, in u.s. houses. it was an actual bill. the 30 senators objected to it were actual senators. one of them, was the presidential candidate of the last election. these are real people.
this is where ayn randists want to end up. and youre saying 'government can take it away'. yeah. not if they get their way with 'no government'.
Read radical news here
The only thing like a monopoly that I have ever heard of that did not result from government action is Microsoft.
Then your school failed you, because you've never heard of Standard Oil. You know, the reason we have antitrust laws?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I look how anti-regulation kooks try to paint the post office as inefficient. The US Post Office is one of the most efficient shipping organizations in the world.
Go ahead, look up how much it costs to mail a letter in England. 41 pence. Which is 66 cents, 50% more than the US, and that's only delivery to Great Britain (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, channel isles, etc.), not to other places in the UK, whereas the US rate includes places like Hawaii and the US Virgin Islands and military bases.
They're so cheap that UPS and FedEX are now using them for some package delivery.
I swear to god, it's like people making jokes about 'airline food' or something. It's a joke with a total disconnect from actual facts.
And how exactly is the IRS inefficient? The tax code is inefficient, but the IRS isn't.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Yes, I have heard of Standard Oil. Standard Oil became a monopoly in part as a result of government regulations that created the railroad monopolies.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Exactly! This is the key conundrum of human government.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
As I've been saying forever: Just saying things does not make them true.
Or, in the new lingo: Cite please.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
some people want a device that doesn't cost $600 or come with yet another $70 per month phone bill.
I think blackberry has a larger market than Apple in the US, and Android is pretty competitive as well.
As I said, some people don't want another phone line. There are plenty of BlackBerry and Android counterparts to the iPhone, but which counterpart to the iPod touch do you recommend that people try?
Copyright infringement does act as a competitor to prevent certain abuses of a monopoly.
But in my home country, it is considered contributory copyright infringement for the maker of a device or service to promote it primarily for use with infringing copies. A&M v. Napster; MGM v. Grokster. For this reason, few established companies will try making a bullet point out of ability to play warez.
I really wonder at the fundamental stupidity of the surprise that free markets tend towards monopoly.
Free market capitalism involves competition for profits. The point of gaining profits is to invest them in future production, for increased profits. A successful competitor wins a decisive advantage over the unsuccessful competitors. Competitors in a free market are competing to be monopolies, and the prize for winning a round of competition is the means to become a monopoly.
Professional team sports, with rules to enforce competitive equilibrium and a reset of standings each season, notoriously suffer from the problem that successful teams have more resources to recruit players and coaches than less successful teams. How much more the case would it be if successful teams got to claim the best players and staff from the losing teams at the end of each game?
The only way I can imagine a free market with a level competitive playing field persisting is if there's a level of state intervention that would be more heavy-handed than a completely monolithic and centralized command economy. I would prefer a democratic socialism, in which the competition occurs between debaters proposing policies in a democratic theater.
Probably some archos handheld, or a MID.
The advantage of iPod touch over "some archos handheld, or a MID" is that an individual can walk into a Best Buy store and try the former but not the latter. A handheld device bought online that turns out to be unusably unergonomic for the buyer leaves the buyer $100 out of pocket in shipping, return shipping, and restocking fees. Apple has a monopoly on in-store demonstrations of Wi-Fi-only MIDs in that size range.
You might even argue that a netbook competes to some degree.
In fact, I've described iPad as what Apple makes instead of netbooks.
iTunes is competing with piracy, which keeps their prices lower
Piracy costs several thousand dollars even when done by a home user. Capitol v. Thomas.
The idea is perfectly viable and I think it's the inevitable future of such services. The implementation is still lacking though and even after the implementation improves significantly, it'll take a lot of time due to snowball effect.