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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."
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.
She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.
Does whoever wrote the summary know that Elizabeth Warren's day job is as a sitting United States Senator? Apparently not.
Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.
Not just tech company leadership.
A *lot* of people have had a good long drink of the greed is good/reagonomics/greenspan business philosophy koolaid.
No amount of failure seems to convince them of the problems with it.
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.
Er, considering that we seem to have not been operating on an ideal version of any system, anyone could argue "well if things were done right, they would be good."
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!”
She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.
Perhaps she might also lecture her colleagues regarding what they should be focussing on - stuff like this - instead of them devoting their energies towards hobbling encryption and trying to remove their citizen's constitutional rights.
#DeleteChrome
Big tech execs are in big heap trouble...until they share wampum with Democrats.
Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.
I think you meant, "Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of every company and government in the history of the universe."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I'm glad to see she understands the first rule of business.
Honestly, I don't know what you are getting at. Is it, "Make money?" Or perhaps "Grow your business?" Maybe you mean "Don't talk about Fight Club."
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.
:head scratch: So Amazon, Apple, and Google should encourage their competition?
You mean like how the two major political parties have rigged the board so as to discourage political parties outside of the two majors?
1331461 is only semiprime *sigh* Alas - I am just short of 1337.
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.
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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.
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It's always nice to see the American Indian perspective on these things.
Do you have ESP?
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.
>> 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.
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.
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.
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."
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?