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Elizabeth Warren Says Apple, Amazon and Google Are Trying To 'Lock Out' Competition (recode.net)
Elizabeth Warren, an American academic and member of the Democratic Party, believes that Google, Apple, and Amazon are trying to use their size to "snuff out competition." In a speech about the perils of "consolidation and concentration" throughout the economy, the Massachusetts senator singled out the three of tech's biggest players. From a report:Warren had different beefs with Google, Apple and Amazon, but the common thread was that she accused each one of using its powerful platform to "lock out smaller guys and newer guys," including some that compete with Google, Apple and Amazon. Google, she said, uses "its dominant search engine to harm rivals of its Google Plus user review feature;" Apple "has placed conditions on its rivals that make it difficult for them to offer competitive streaming services" that compete with Apple Music; and Amazon "uses its position as the dominant bookseller to steer consumers to books published by Amazon to the detriment of other publishers.""Google, Apple and Amazon have created disruptive technologies that changed the world, and ... they deserve to be highly profitable and successful," Warren said. "But the opportunity to compete must remain open for new entrants and smaller competitors that want their chance to change the world again."
While I will steer clear of accusations of intent here; in terms of service and innovation, oligopolies usually end up sucking rotting eggs in the longer term such that we should have policies and/or regulations in place to encourage competition in key services and technologies.
I know most conservatives will balk at such, but it contradicts their usual push for competition, and oligopolies have insufficient competition. Having a slightly bigger gov't is the least evil compared to letting oligopolies rot progress and choices.
Table-ized A.I.
Both the DNC and the GOP are quite guilty of using their dominant positions in politics to keep other parties from gaining any kind of traction.
That is an inherent characteristic of winner-take-all plurality voting. 2016 is a strange year to be complaining that the establishment locks out other voices. An insurgent won the nomination of one major party, and another insurgent came close in the other party.