Ends, Means, and Antitrust (stratechery.com)

Analyst Ben Thompson on the European Commission's $2.7 billion fine levied on Google for anti-competitive behavior: The United States and European Union have, at least since the Reagan Administration, differed on this point: the U.S. is primarily concerned with consumer welfare, and the primary proxy is price. In other words, as long as prices do not increase -- or even better, decrease -- there is, by definition, no illegal behavior.

The European Commission, on the other hand, is explicitly focused on competition: monopolistic behavior is presumed to be illegal if it restricts competitors which, in the theoretical long run, hurts consumers by restricting innovation.

Comments

You've got to be kidding

[BarbaraHudson]

the U.S. is primarily concerned with consumer welfare

Tell that to the 22 million health care consumers who are going to be cut to give a tax break to millionaires. If they really cared, and cared about lowest cost, they'd bring in single payer universal healthcare. The cutbacks to the EPA that will result in dirtier air, higher fossil fuel consumption and pollution, and less water quality monitoring. And if you're going to use price as a proxy for caring, it's pretty damned obvious that the US is not considered with the rate of inflation of education leaving students looking at a lifetime of debt.

Re:You've got to be kidding

[Your.Master]

This isn't a statement about reality, it's a statement about ethics. And therefore, the fact that he thinks it is *does* make it so.

Re:Wait, there's more...

[BarbaraHudson]

What do you expect - the author is an analyst == he needs to get the word out that he's willing to ignore realities that are unfavourable to what potential corporate customers want to here.

Corporatism

[labnet]

The USA has a unique culture that was bought by the Puritan work ethic that promoted individualism and self improvement.
A good explanation is the three stages of maturity.
Dependance (child), Independance (teen), Interdependence (adult)
The USA seems to revere Independence, where Europe, Oceania focus more on interdependence.

Americans confuse this with socialism/communism and have a great fear that someone may undeservedly benefit from their labor. I can assure you being in one of these 'socialist' countries, that the benefits outweigh disadvantages.
Universal healthcare is terrific. Proper limits on monopolies. Much better support for poor people so they don't resort to crime. Higher minimum wages so low socioeconomic people can afford to live and spend it into their communities. Running prisons to reform rather than profit. Even better public transit systems.
Unfortunately, I don't see any cultural changes on the horizon.

Re:Corporatism

[iggymanz]

really, my relatives in Europe hate the healthcare system, waiting months for what should be urgent surgery. they make a lot less money too. We have a couple inner city subcultures (which are economically dependent by the socialism we do have here) that commit most the crime, that isn't a "poor" problem. By the way, some of those european countries are also recently dealing with their newborn criminal classes making violent crime.

Re:Corporatism

[gweihir]

Do they maybe live in the UK?

Re:Corporatism

[gweihir]

Pretty accurate. Building infrastructure and safety-nets is not socialism in any way. It just shows the level of ignorance of most US citizens that they think it is.

Re:Corporatism

[BitterOak]

The USA has a unique culture that was bought by the Puritan work ethic that promoted individualism and self improvement. A good explanation is the three stages of maturity. Dependance (child), Independance (teen), Interdependence (adult) The USA seems to revere Independence, where Europe, Oceania focus more on interdependence.

Americans confuse this with socialism/communism and have a great fear that someone may undeservedly benefit from their labor. I can assure you being in one of these 'socialist' countries, that the benefits outweigh disadvantages.

You may regard America as being immature (teenage, as you call it) but it's worked remarkably well. Look how much of the technology and innovation that is used today all over the world has come from America, a relatively small country as a fraction of the world's population: electric lighting, telecommunications, audio recording, motion pictures, aircraft, solid state electronics (transistors, integrated circuits, microchips), electronic computers, GPS, mass produced consumer priced automobiles, the Internet. And companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, which although not perfect, have changed the way people live all over the world. All this from America. I guess it's pretty amazing what "teenagers" can do and I for one hope that America never grows up!

Re:Corporatism

[Anonymous Coward]

Radio came from Europe.
Aircraft came from Europe (and Richard Pierce in NZ was possibly the first with Powered Flight)
Rail came from Britain
The Jet Engine was British
The computer came from Britain
The Web came from Europe
Printing press Europe
etc etc etc etc etc.

The USA did well from the 1940-1970s because their cities and infrastructure were not bombed during WWII, they made money selling weapons and then made money selling everything needed to rebuild europe/Asia. The USA was able to progress while other countries rebuilt. That is not an indication that the USA was "great" but simply lucky.
During the 1950s the US accounted for over 50% of the worlds GDP, now its about 20% and falling.
Not because the USA has done anything wrong, its because other countries have modernised and are no longer dependant on the USA for food, technology, medicine, etc etc etc.

The USA is not the centre of the universe, the centre of everything good, or anything else.
When it comes to Health, Welfare,education, honesty, law and order, social mobility, "happiness", etc etc the USA does not do that well.

Re:Corporatism

[rtb61]

They are not immature or teenage with no reason. Basically US society poisoned itself with lead (lead in petrol, lead water pipes WTF and firing lead at rifle ranges), the current decision markers being the worst of the lot. Millennials with much lower levels of lead seem to be pretty much on a path to recovery and the problems will resolve itself as they become the decision makers. Other countries decision markers also suffered, just not as badly as the US and their millennial generations are also making improvements.

Lead poisoning, lower IQ, reduce morals and reduce thoughtfulness (higher crime at all levels). Basically those in charge are full of lead and full of shit, just lying about everything, cheating as a rule and stealing when ever they think they can get away with it. They have not the slightest qualm about screaming lies into your face over and over and over again, even when they know, you know they are lying, they don't care, they just scream the same right wing lies until you give up and walk away (the idiots think they have won but you just ignore them from then on it and work around them). Coming from the lead addled generation, I know I can not change what my generation is doing, all I can do is mitigate the harm they cause (if you have some to spare, you don't suffer that badly, not that I appreciate the theft of intellect committed by greedy fuckwit dead dog dick sucking arse holes, who should be condemned to the hell of strangling beads). People should be really pissed off, between 10 and 20 IQ points stolen across the whole of society to feed the greed of a fuckwit minority, only morons would not be infuriated by the thought of 20 IQ points be destroyed, smart people know exactly the impact of 20 more IQ points and how it advantages them.

Re:Corporatism

[argStyopa]

I wouldn't say it was purely the Puritan work ethic, but something much simpler: nearly *everyone* (save the tiny % of native Americans and the small population of slaves) that came to the US chose to 'roll the dice' on their future, or is descended from such people. I think the outlook, even perhaps genetically, is for an inherently greater tolerance of risk for a potentially better outcome. Is a penchant for gambling an inheritable characteristic?

The result is that the even American families at the poverty line live better than the European average.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...

The US has an abundance of food, is responsible for most of the of the world's modern innovations and conveniences, and is generally wealthier.

I wouldn't disagree with you in your comparison of the US emotionally, developmentally as an adolescent or young adult, while the European states are far more like mature adults. Then again, most peoples' great accomplishments in invention, math, science, etc are in their 20s, not their 40s or 50s or later.

Which strategy is better - gain maximizing or loss minimizing? I don't believe there IS a 'better' - just different eventual outcomes.

Re:Corporatism

[GNious]

... and letting people live their lives on the safety net - which is supposed to be there to catch people who occasionally slip.

That would mean that there's a way up from the safety net

43-48 million Americans live in poverty
564 thousand Americans are homeless (44% have some paid work)
20-odd million Americans pays more than 30% of income on rent, and almost half of renters are at risk of not being able to pay next month's rent
643 thousands go bankrupt from medical expenses, every year

There are just holes too deep for many Americans to dig themselves out of, and the system is seemingly not geared to help them.

Re:Corporatism

[AmiMoJo]

I won't pretend that healthcare is perfect in the EU, but compared to the US... People aren't worried they will die because they ran out of money and went bankrupt, screwing over their family in the process. People aren't made homeless by preventable diseases that they couldn't afford the medicine to prevent.

And for the most part, the system works pretty well for the majority. If you have the money you can still pay a private doctor too.

Re:Corporatism

[AmiMoJo]

How much of that is due to not being bombed during the second world war?

Also, the British made the first electronic computer and invented the World Wide Web, and we had ARM... We invented television too. Considering our population is only a fraction of the US... I'd suggest that this method of measuring success is flawed.

Re:Corporatism

[gweihir]

These numbers are pathetic. Sounds much more like the stats a 3rd world country would have.

Unmeasurable

[whoever57]

The United States and European Union have, at least since the Reagan Administration, differed on this point: the U.S. is primarily concerned with consumer welfare, and the primary proxy is price. In other words, as long as prices do not increase -- or even better, decrease -- there is, by definition, no illegal behavior.

But you can't measure the difference between price in the case of a monopoly and price in the case of a competitive market. One or other won't exist. Of course, that's probably the objective of using price as the measure.

Re: Trivial to switch search engines

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about switching search engines. It's about misusing your dominant position in search to give you an unfair advantage in other areas.

Re:Control group

[jonsmirl]

Google should simply make this whole block a biddable AdWords item.
Search image

Then if the external shopping engine's bid exceeds the total of the bids for the five items, the external engine gets control of the entire block.
"Shop for adidas boost on Google" would be replaced with "Shop for adidas boost on Price Grabber". And the five ads would be sourced from the external engine.

This is a win-win solution. The external engines can achieve exactly the same ad placement Google does, and Google gets compensated for generating the traffic if someone clicks. External engines still make money because they are after affiliate commissions which are far high enough to cover the cost of the clicks.

Solutions where these external engines get fed valuable, easily monetizable traffic for free are a non-started with me. Google has invested a lot of effort in generating this traffic, Google deserves some compensation if they pass the consumer to the external site.

Look at the pharma industry

[Snotnose]

That tells you competition is vital, otherwise companies raise prices as high as they can.

In other words, the EU is correct, the US is wrong (again).

Problem with prices centered approach of US

[gurps_npc]

1) Some services cost no money but are still a monopoly instead they cost other things, such as privacy. Prime example: Facebook.

2) When technology is advancing fast, prices drop. Or they do if their is competition. But a monopoly could simply maintain their current price and claim "Hey, we aren't anti-competitive, our prices haven't changed. We still sell our phone with a 1 MP camera, 2 inch display, and 5 whole megabytes of memory for a mere $749, just like we did in 1999."