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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."
I'm glad to see she understands the first rule of business.
If ISP put restrictions on ports etc, it will make it harder for the next Amazon, Apple or Google to prosper and grow. You look at Comcast, they advertise that they block port unless you pay twice as much for half the speed.
Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.
I think you have to define a line for "individual liberty". That is, where does individual liberty meet the collective (arrangement)?
Does whoever wrote the summary know that Elizabeth Warren's day job is as a sitting United States Senator? Apparently not.
Somewhere along the way corporations stopped being corporate citizens that gave back to the local community to being multi-national corporations that don't care about the local community of any nation. Given enough bad PR by community activists and politicians, multi-national corporations can be shamed into doing the right thing for the local community.
so her posturing against companies that use government to shut the door behind them to keep competition out are a bit disingenuous
No, it is not. The only way a monopoly can exist is through government protection. Her "posturing" is spot on.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
"...Apple, Amazon and Google Are Trying To 'Lock Out' Competition"
Oh my gawd, say it isn't so.
Seriously, no shit, of COURSE they're trying to lock out competition. In the "Quest For More Dollars" game they'd send death squads around to the other company's Boards Of Directors if they thought they could get away with it. It's all about the benjamins, and killing off the competition (or stifling them) by whatever means necessary is Job One.
This is "news" in the same way that "water is wet" or "criminals commit crimes" is "news".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Big tech execs are in big heap trouble...until they share wampum with Democrats.
Probably because of all the activist shareholders who sue (and win) companies for not maximizing profits above all else.
I don't know, but it works for me.
As a great teacher once said, "Go educate thyself!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren#Academic
Who is world would call Elizabeth warren an academic?
Apparently, the University of Texas, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard as she taught at each of their Law Schools. From Wikipedia:
Warren was formerly a professor of law, and taught at the University of Texas School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and most recently at Harvard Law School. A prominent scholar specializing in bankruptcy law, Warren was among the most cited in the field of commercial law before starting her political career.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.
The only way a monopoly can exist is through government protection.
You have it exactly backwards. The only way competition exists in certain (most?) sectors is due to government protection.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Her argument really fell apart for me at that point.
Both are correct.
Play Command HQ online
All business seek to lock/snuff out competition.
And what makes a better tool than a government hammer?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I guess we're at a stalemate then.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The problem is that a collective (like a society) is more than just a bunch of people crammed together.
It is a bunch of people who have to cooperate with each other. Cooperation requires limiting selfish indulgences, and defining where one person's rights end, and another's begins. Eg, if I am a home owner who is a lazy slob who harbors trash, my freedom to be a willful slob creates a haven for vermin that accosted my neighbors, bease the vermin don't stay put. To satisfy the neighbor's rights to keep their homes free of vermin, my right to be a slob has to be infringed.
We do not live in a universe where ideal fantasies about personal liberty can be realistically entertained.
That is what people try to tell you. You are the one not understanding.
Google and Apple are big supporters of liberal causes. Someone better get Warren back on the reservation.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
It's always nice to see the American Indian perspective on these things.
Do you have ESP?
^does not appear to understand how named chairs work^
You are welcome on my lawn.
Can you prove this in a general sense, or are you just guessing?
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe I'd take what Senators say more seriously if D.C. didn't have a history of bailing out big monopolies that lock out smaller competitors like the big three. It just comes off as disingenuous to me, as there is some ulterior motive at play.
The cynic in me wonders if these tech companies aren't greasing the palms of the right people on the east coast.
Do you think they even realize the deep hypocritical irony?
Although HRC and others have accepted millions in "speaking fees" from Wall Street and big pharma, Elizabeth Warren has not. She is not being hypocritical, since she has also spoken out about the influence of big money on politics.
Do you seriously think California will vote for Trump?
What you've stumbled upon there are basic health and sanitation rules as opposed to the more modern HOA restrictions. Chances are that all we really need is the "old and obsolete stuff" and the new "shiny shiny" really isn't the least bit useful.
Also, these old school restrictions are really limited to real damages that would be actionable in a civil court.
"Your vermin ate my air conditioner"
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
>> The only way competition exists in certain (most?) sectors is due to government protection.
>
> That's a baldfaced lie.
This is why the Sherman anti-trust act exists. Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy. Even Smith acknowledged this fact.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This fallacy rich quote proves that.
What fallacy exactly? Businesses — or individuals — don't exist separately from society and government. We're all in this together as a country for the last 240 years.
About the only thing that could get California to vote Trump is if it was Palin instead of Warren on Clinton's ticket.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
But the economy was never "unregulated". The big railroad and oil monopolies were a direct result of government protection and corruption that provided exclusive contracts and closed the market to the upstarts. This is the same reason we have no competition in pharmaceuticals, communications, media, internet service, etc. today
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You don't need to get into the money for the hypocrisy.
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.
Sherman act exists to destroy private property rights and provide governments with ammunition to destroy individuals who are so good at providing excellent products and services that they take over an industry by doing the best of all of them.
Since Standard Oil was dismantled, oil never went down in price, only up, while government never shrunk in size, it only grew.
How about applying Sherman act where it actually matters: to the government itself?
You can't handle the truth.
She is not being hypocritical, since she has also spoken out about the influence of big money on politics.
And then she gets on the stage with the biggest Big Money candidate there is, and shouts, "I'm with her!"
I'm fine with people donating to campaigns. I'm not fine with blatant hypocrisy.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
It tells us that Wareen knows nothing about the industry she's criticizing.
Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy.
Nope. In an unregulated economy, the only way to make a monopoly is by offering your products or services at a better price than your competition. Rockefeller came close, and he did so by drastically reducing his costs *and* prices.
Even Smith acknowledged this fact.
Smith subscribed to a common misconception. That doesn't make him right.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You would think she'd know enough not to badmouth big Democrat supporters ($$) like Google, Amazon, and Apple.
Next thing you know she'll be criticizing CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times!
Ye she is endorsing Clinton instead of Sanders, hmmm...
Maybe that is because Sanders will not be on the ballot.
This is not true.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor...
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.
You don't mean the same Rockefeller who used worker gangs to shake down the competition into selling out and buying government officials to look the other way, do you? You make him sound so innocent :-)
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy.
Nope. In an unregulated economy, the only way to make a monopoly is by offering your products or services at a better price than your competition. Rockefeller came close, and he did so by drastically reducing his costs *and* prices.
Nope. The fastest and cheapest way to become a monopoly in an unregulated economy is to bring in the Pinkertons, establish a company town, and extract all of the profit for any and all economic activity for yourself. Rockefeller reduced his costs by murdering strikers using every armed force he could get his hands on, which was most of them. The tricks and techniques utilized by unregulated monopolies to extend and enhance their dominance are many and varied, and it is historical fact that a sufficiently advanced monopoly can and will arrogate the nominal government monopoly on force unto itself, either explicitly using some organization like the Pinkerton Agency or covertly, in the case of Rockefeller getting the Colorado National Guard called out for his benefit.
Even Smith acknowledged this fact.
Smith subscribed to a common misconception. That doesn't make him right.
Adam Smith knew it was a fact because he had already seen it happen with the East India Company, which had operated as a monopoly in every market in which it did business and as de facto government of India for over 150 years at the time he wrote Wealth of Nations. He was not reciting some bullshit academic theory like the one you spout. The consequences of monopoly in an unregulated economy were the reality on the ground for his entire lifetime. Mr. Smith was busy writing his book as East India Company tea was being dumped into Boston harbor. Fortunately for him, he was living in Paris at the time, so his afternoon tea was not interrupted. Still, he knew exactly what an unregulated monopoly was capable of. The later activities of Carnegie and Rockefeller and other Gilded Age robber barons were a pale imitation of their predecessor.
Reducing costs... Pfft. Where do you get this crap, The Toddler's Guide to the Republican Party Platform?
One of the most blatant "lesser of two evils" argument I've heard. If enough people voted for the values they want instead of the candidate they think will win then we wouldn't have this problem. Hillary is enough of a pandering liar that I don't think we're really so much worse with Trump. Don't get me wrong, Trump is a truly horrible person and the last thing we need. But flipping on gay marriage, lying about getting shot at in Kosovo, being a hypocrite and endangering national security through her blasé attitude toward computer security, accepting money from the rich while pandering to the poor. There's no low she won't stoop to. Just don't blame me, I'm voting for Kodos.
How could she be a career politician? She's a first term senator and she only ran for the senate because she was shut out of being nominated to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has very little experience as a politician, and that does show sometimes, but she knows an awful lot about the stuff in the article.
Citation needed for "all" these "wins" for not maximizing profits to the exclusion of everything else. I do this for a living; you're absolutely full of shit. For one thing, the business judgment rule makes it very hard to do such a thing. Courts routinely defer to directors' and execs' individual decisions rather than let activist shareholders sue for something so insane as "earned a few pennies less than they could have if they'd done XYZ."
Here is a very liberal business law professor at one of the top schools for scholarship in the country explaining it for you:
and
and
It's actually the free market that is creating these perverse incentives, not government judicial interference:
What she means by that is that execs get compensation based largely on stock performance, so they are incentivized by the free market, not be the law, to maximize stock value.