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Elizabeth Warren Calls To Break Up Facebook, Google, and Amazon
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is proposing to break up technology companies, including Amazon.com, Google and Facebook, calling them anti-competitive behemoths that are crowding out competition. From a report: "Twenty-five years ago, Facebook, Google, and Amazon didn't exist. Now they are among the most valuable and well-known companies in the world," Warren wrote in a post on the blogging platform Medium. "It's a great story -- but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets." Warren's call also comes as Democrats have begun to plan for increased oversight of tech companies after winning control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. On Wednesday, House and Senate Democrats introduced legislation to establish strong net neutrality protections that would look to prevent major service providers from using their power to manipulate how users experience the internet. Update: In a statement, Warren's team said that the proposal would also apply to Apple. "They would have to structurally separate -- choosing between, for example, running the App Store or offering their own apps," a spokesperson said.
No complaints about Apple and their walled-garden?
Seriously, that's her plan "break up the monopolies" ... and give the market to the Chinese who have a vested interest in maintain control of the world's infrastructure and who have demonstrated the ability to exploit a totalitarian surveillance state? This is JV level retarded, not something that should be seriously endorsed by a reasonable statesman.
Warren has to say something to separate herself from the throngs of Democratic Presidential hopefuls, and elevate her campaign into the limelight, but she doesn't really have a clue what her proposal would do.
Internet neutrality is poorly understood by Washington, and there would be throngs of salivating international competitors for the void created if the US government handicaps their domestic tech industry.
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Ernest Hemingway
So to get the full search results you'll have to look-up the same thing on:
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googlepacific.com
googlesouth.com
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googlewest.com
googletech.com
googleny.com
?
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For all I care, merge all of these big companies into one massive government if you like, but do away with Microsoft's licensing. It's the biggest scam they run.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Separate the networks and prohibit them from selling to users, or having exclusive contracts. Then we have competing networks (though sometimes it might be cable vs dsl), and competing providers on top of the networks.
I would toss in software as a separate company: iOS, Mac-OSX, iWorks, etc.
Microsoft to their credit can run their OS on older hardware.
But Apple abandons old hardware as quickly as they can, and doesn't even provide a paid software upgrade option for security fixes, or unlocks the bootloader to allows users to install alternative OS (such as Linux or Android) on older but still decent hardware.
Should be "Elizabeth Warren seeks to see relevant to any voters in 2020, tries to out-socialist all other candidates".
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
How is this different than any large store selling store brand products?
Apple is successful, but it doesn't have a monopoly position by far. Even in their strongest branch, phones and tablets, they don't even remotely hold half of the market.
With Google you're looking at a very dominant position in the search engine (and related ad) market and I hope we needn't go into detail of FBs position in social media.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Break up Facebook? Why not just close it down? Facebook is a drain on humanity for being the megaphone of ignorance and narcissism.
But Apple abandons old hardware as quickly as they can,
How do you come to that retarded idea?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I would actually be more interested in seeing them break apart into hardware / software / licensed entertainment.
I don't think the mobile computing vs. desktop computer is a big deal. The real issue is that the same people making the hardware are making the software. If you can buy yourself an iphone and decide whether to install android or ios, then it's all good.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Walmart
Microsoft
AT&T
Oracle
Disney
Koch Brothers
and so on.
I guess if you wanted to break them all up for the betterment of the people of the US, there wouldn't be any corporate entities left to contribute to :campaign finances", which would also be a good thing.
She's got my vote. She's the only politician that I've ever heard suggest this. She's the only politician that I'm aware of who has the balls to even begin to properly reign in and regulate big business in the US. I'm tired of having to eat shit from big companies just because they can buy politicians and write their own laws.
I don't respond to AC's.
No complaints about Apple and their walled-garden?
No, because there are easy alternatives - you can always get an Android phone, perhaps you've heard of them?
In no way in any space is Apple a monopoly, there are always other options - and the world would be poorer within a choice as distinct as Apple from other offerings.
The ones under discussion - Google, Facebook, Amazon, each have rather more a lock on what they do - although I don't see really how you can "break them up". What would that really mean for each of them? Google already self-broke into search and Alphabet. Facebook is just a big ball of yarn you can't really unravel. Amazon, what would you break off that could really survive by itself? Grocery stores?? H AH AH AHAH AHA HA. No.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And how is this to be accomplished?
Apple doesn't fit her reasoning. Look at what her reasoning is for why government (her) needs more power:
--- ...
25 years ago they didn't exist. Now they are among the most valuable and well-known companies in the world.... That highlights why the government must break up
---
She's saying they must destroy "new* companies that have done well. Apple isn't new.
I'm not sure she read what she wrote before sending it in, though. The fact that upstarts can compete and become major players, like Amazon beat both Walmart and IBM/Dell/HP is why government has to break up established companies, she says. Because Amazon wouldn't have stood a chance if the government hadn't knocked Walmart down? Amazon couldn't have competed in data center computing if the government hadn't gotten rid of HP? Google couldn't have done anything with search, had the government not broken up Yahoo?
The lists off a bunch of companies that beat out the established big players, by being BETTER, not by having the government break up the existing successful companies. Then says those are examples of why the government needs to break up successful companies. Those are actually examples of why the government doesn't NOT need to meddle with things. All of the companies ahe listed beat out much larger companies, by simply offering something customers prefer, by being better.
... it didn't happen.
IMHO it won't work. For one thing these companies have far too much influence already to let that happen, also the US aren't interested in devalueing their most successful companies.
Another thing is, that they are in a business (especially facebook) where having more customers makes the service more attractive to additional customers. participation in a social network is more interesting the larger that network is.
With amazon the case is slightly different: there it's about convenience (ordering and paying via only one instance) and scaling effects.
With google: As far as i can remember there was always one search engine that people flocked to (at some point that was alta-vista), just because it gave the most useful results. Google became successful because their page-ranking algorithms gave the most useful results. Of course now they are so big, and know how to monetize their services, it'll be hard for any competitor to get a foot in the door. An exception may be niches like the one DuckDuckGo found (better privacy).
So i don't think breaking these companies up will be a realistic goal. I think that they should be regulated though, to hinder them from abusing their power (e.g. censoring or just imagine an amazon embargo).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Facebook is a drain on humanity for being the megaphone of ignorance and narcissism.
If you're going to use that metric, you have too shut down the entire internet - and most of Hollywood.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
+1
Someone is probably bitter about the big tech companies that haven't donated to her campaign. What would really be more useful would be to break up the 6 companies that own all Mainstream Media. Since Bill Clinton passed the law allowing the media companies to consolidate, just a few companies now control the "trusted" news outlets.
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lets break up Apple because they have a monopoly on iphones, and ipads, and macbooks,
lets break up the Ford motor company because they have a monopoly on Ford cars and trucks
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
iOS 12 runs on the 2013 iPhone 5s. What android device from 2013 can run the newest version of Android?
Going on principle only, Facebook and Twitter - what I call Facetwat - must be cleaned with fire. For one thing they make it far too easy for disinformation to get out into the heads of the gullible, and for another thing they engage in selective censorship. While it's their right as a private non-government entity to censor what they don't like, it doesn't always make it right.
Same for google. Monopoly in what sense? In the sense that they attempt to control the flow and content of information? Yes, they do do that. They do exercise undue and improper influence, I think, on how people think. That's not a monopoly, that's just being preachy bastards, as evil as Religions.
But the rest? They're not monopolies. Amazon's the closest one to being one. It could be argued that by having their own brand, now they are. If they start directly manufacturing they certainly will be.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
You don't break up the search engine. You break up the various functions. Email, search, advertising, google's office suite, maps/earth, Android, and the Play Store should all be separate businesses. Search continues to be one business, but it's not the same unit as the advertising company.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I mean don't they fit the category? seems like they should also be on the list. I have always though require a company to produce 1 and only 1 product would be a boon for the average citizen. Greatly increasing jobs ( by the proliferation of companies) , personal engagement by creating smaller companies and forcing companies to favor consumers, because a boycott would hurt them a lot more.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
"Twenty-five years ago, Facebook, Google, and Amazon didn't exist. Now they are among the most valuable and well-known companies in the world," Warren wrote in a post on the blogging platform Medium. "It's a great story -- but also one that highlights why the government must break up monopolies and promote competitive markets."
Except none of them is actually a monopoly. Facebook might come closest with social networking but even then to call it a monopoly is something of a stretch. Amazon and Google aren't monopolies in any serious sense of the word. Yes they are 800lb gorillas in their respective space but not monopolies unless you define the market so narrowly as to make the term lose meaning.
Believe me, I'm all for breaking up and regulating companies if/when they become problems but this isn't it. The companies that need to be broken up are the large banks. THEY are a threat to the financial stability of the country. Look to the events of 2008 if you need evidence. The big tech companies are not even close to being a serious systemic threat.
Update: In a statement, Warren's team said that the proposal would also apply to Apple. "They would have to structurally separate -- choosing between, for example, running the App Store or offering their own apps," a spokesperson said.
Umm, Apple doesn't really sell much of their own software through the App store. They aren't Microsoft where they have some dominating application like Office. I think these people have no clue how Apple's business actually works or how they make money.
I wonder how much Trump's camp had to pay her to do something this stupid?
Pandering to the crazy fringe left will not win her an election.
Today March 8th it's time to tone down male chauvinism discourse: She's the only politician who has the ovaries ...
If you want to advertise on the web you will either use facebook or you use Google as the middle man. Want to sell adds on your website you will either have to hire a sales person or sell add space to Google. Google owns both sides of the transaction, no other middle man can ever be created. Mail, search, docs, those are all walls and a moat around the castle that is adwords.
I seriously doubt Warren understands this though. Heck, most slashdot users think they are google's customer.
Are they also going to break up Huawei and Alibaba so that American companies aren't competing with massive foreign behemoths? How's that going to work?
We did it to Ma Bell when it was the only telephone company in most of the US. It worked fine. None of these companies are as important as Ma Bell was, so I don't know why you're saying that this is unrealistic.
I don't respond to AC's.
If you make the private market illegal and let the government run everything, you are back to a monopoly with all the abuse an inefficiency that comes with it.
Right, because the current incentive is the only incentive (according to Grimm's law of narrativium butterfly rivets).
And onions are turnips, too.
I could say FTFY, but it's closer to a brain transplant.
Step aside, world according to onions with one layer to make a welcoming cavity for inbound cerebral folds.
They are the biggest Democrat funders. This is like a Republican coming out against Christianity.
If past anti-trust breakups are any indication, It usualy ends up with the parent company making record profits and all the child companies also doing very well, and wealth gets generated quicker. It's like a toddler fighting a nap, they will bitch and say they don't need it, but at the end of the nap, everyone is much happier.
Any corporation that gets so big that it becomes a monopoly/duopoly becomes politically influential, e.g. lobbying, pressure on individual states for tax breaks, & shaping political campaigns, & effectively becomes a participant in government, e.g. billionaire's setting education agendas & redirecting public funds towards their own pet projects such as teaching software development in public K-12 schools.
At that point, rather than break them up, acknowledge that that particular industry/sector has matured & consolidated, & bring it in under democratic control, i.e. either nationalise it or convert it into a democratic worker-owned cooperative (independent from government). One of the most important areas of citizen life, i.e. the workplace, is still mostly run under a medieval/feudal system. How can we call ourselves democratic if we aren't working towards democratising the workplace?
How about telecoms, Google, Amazon, et. al. as public utilities? What if Facebook's policies & strategies were actually publicly accountable & the public could vote for change with transparency & oversight? What if their CEOs & executives were either elected by the public or appointed by their workers? Could you imagine working for a corporation like that & what it'd be like?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
"Actually, especially if it pisses Rand Paul off, that's just a bonus."
That's the congressman you have a problem with? The one that actually tries to follow the constitution?
Your feelings are no basis for a system of government. The sooner you learn that the better off you will be.
Here is a talk by Professor Scott Galloway at a Business Insider Ignition Conference: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, And Google should be broken up
You do know that the USA spends the most per capita on health insurance & has the worst healthcare outcomes, e.g. highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, don't you?
And you do know that the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA is medical bills from getting sick & losing job/health insurance, don't you?
That's what a privatised healthcare system looks like: Predatory, brutal, & dysfunctional. People shouldn't have their lives & their families' lives ruined because they got sick.
Even semi-privatised healthcare, e.g. Canada's which offers universal healthcare but privatised insurance, is a poor comparison to nationalised services like in the UK & Germany, which look after *all* their citizens, have good healthcare outcomes, & low costs.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Monopolies are not inherently illegal. Abusive usually are. Abusive non-monopolies can also be. As you state, some of these companies aren't monopolies, but they often use their strength and/or size in one market to unfairly strong arm their way to another market. That leverage can be anti-competitive and illegal. The breakups being proposed seem to be more related to that than a good-ol Ma Bell monopoly breakup.
Lycestra
Elizabeth Warren will not be president.
Time for some trust busting
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The American Dream. Build your company, sacrifice as you build it, become successful, become very successful, support the free market and compete well, reach the apex in your field. Then have the government, who manages itself oh so well, step in and step on your Dream. Because they think they can do a better job than your customer driven enterprise.
Yet they think banks are too big to fail.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Collecting data from the web requires a massive infrastructure to do it right and it seems inevitable that most companies will narrow their focus here, prioritizing only the biggest websites, in order to save some cash.
The Internet archive has a budget of something on the order of $10 million/year and they retain a lot more data for a lot longer than would be useful for any search engine.
Organizing the raw data into something searchable is extremely complicated and technical; Google has spent a fortune building the technology to do this well and it is difficult for a smaller search engine to compete with them.
Was the Google of 10 years ago (Minus Wikipedia integration) any better at finding shit than the Google of today?
Page rank is old hat. The biggest drain on search engines these days is countering legions of opportunists seeking to dilute and exploit the index and its users for personal financial gain. Part of that is caused by Google's business model itself. Specifically the affiliate network system is a cesspool of fraud.
So if the US Government wanted to encourage competition in the search engine field, a straightforward approach would be to force Google to sell search data to 3rd parties who could then index it and display it as they will.
Again crawling the web is no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Lots of companies that are not Google are doing it for lots of different reasons. Figuring out what is most useful to human users is the challenge.
Russia and China would absolutely love if the US government shot their only remaining economic golden goose in the head in a fit of raging populism.
Russia is irrelevant economically so there is no point in even mentioning it.
The unfalsifiable China talking point is getting old. Either you believe capitalism and freedom produces better outcomes than dictatorships and socialism or you don't.
Allowing monopolies to run amok isn't capitalism. Without competition it's just a sign of market failure.
The CCP right now only wishes that it could get Americans using QQ for their searches, filtering every scrap of information through Beijing for monitoring and indexing. The government obliterating Google would be their pathway to do that.
Russia has the economy of Spain. What CCP thinks is irrelevant.
Friend of Sacagawea would certainly be better than an entire administration populated with the Friends of Sergei, but I can't say this heavy-handed proclamation compels blind allegiance.
Most serious of all is the underlying equation of false equivalence: that just because these companies are all humongous (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft) means they all deserve the same regulatory scrutiny—and the same remedy.
Besides, unless we regain net neutrality, their pie is doomed to shrink, anyway.
Would sure be nice if this was couched in terms of principles, instead of merely pointing fingers at all the towering suspects.
* Revlon Redskin
Lewis and Clark got one look of the ultimate warpaint, hostilities erupted, and the next day she had to cut off her pony tails in self-defense.
Apple is successful, but it doesn't have a monopoly position by far. Even in their strongest branch, phones and tablets, they don't even remotely hold half of the market.
They have a monopoly on software distribution for captive iThing users. Hopefully pending Apple v Pepper decision in the supreme court will bring some much needed sanity to this domain.
Well, it’s all about what market you’re talking about.
My issue with Apple is mostly around their rules regarding in-app purchases and subscriptions. If you want sell stuff or subscribe to stuff via your app, Apple must get it’s cut of that money.
The best example of this is with the Kindle app. When it first came out, you could buy books in the app. Apple said “No.”. Then they just directed you to the website where you could buy books. Apple still said “No.”. Amazon’s only choice was to have Apple handle all the processing of the order and give them 30% for doing so.
Another example is with streaming music services. You can sign up for Apple’s streaming service inside Apple Music. But if I sign up with a different service, I either have to do it outside the app or pay more to do it inside the app because Apple has to manage it and the company must pay Apple to do it. There is no choice.
And iOS 12 does not run on the 2010 iPhone 4...
The point is, Apple does stop supporting their own hardware.
They're just a lot less aggressive about it than Android manufacturers.
I would actually be more interested in seeing them break apart into hardware / software / licensed entertainment.
I don't think the mobile computing vs. desktop computer is a big deal. The real issue is that the same people making the hardware are making the software. If you can buy yourself an iphone and decide whether to install android or ios, then it's all good.
If that gets me a legal copy of macOS for PC then I'm all for it. IMHO the only usable unix desktop is macOS, so if I could legally run it on off the shelf PC hardware without any more difficulty then installing Windows then I would pay good money for that software license. If Mac has 6.37% of world OS market share and total internet users is just over 4 billion then that implies 266 million Mac devices exist on the internet. I would pay a $100 a year for a macOS subscription, so that times 266 million would be nearly 27 billion in income alone without adding in PCs running macOS.
You do know that the USA spends the most per capita on health insurance & has the worst healthcare outcomes, e.g. highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, don't you?
Indeed, the US counts every child born with a pulse as a live-birth regardless of how premature they may be or their chances of survival, while few other countries do so(I think most count anything less than 1 day as still-born). I had a nephew with, I think it was, 4 open heart surgeries before he died 1 week after being born. In most other countries he would have been counted as still-born and they would not have bothered.
This, combined with staggeringly high obesity rates, reduces the average life expectancy of a US citizen in spite of having the most advanced health technology in the world.
Of course defensive testing driven by multi-million dollar malpractice suits does nothing to help results and plenty to drive up costs.
This is what she said:
--
25 years ago they didn't exist. Now they are among the most valuable and well-known companies in the world
--
She SAID it's because they didn't exist 25 years ago (not part of the good old boys club that finances her) and they've been very successful.
I understand you wish she had said something different, something you could agree with. She didn't say something different, she said exactly what she said. If you don't like what she said, if you don't agree with what she said, the that's cool - you don't agree with her.
Maybe you WANT to agree with her, so you WANT for her to have said something that isn't stupid. She said what she said
How would the competitive market for social media look?
Would it be interconnected platforms, sharing posts and content, permitting users to have privileges on those other, competing platforms? How would the different user agreements coexist, be enforceable, and understandable?
Would these competing but cooperating platforms enforce censorship of unacceptable* content? How would such content be defined? How would disagreements be resolved?
If I block a user on another platform, would they be able to register on a third platform and still get through to me? Would there be a federated identity system to prevent, for instance, abuse by people under court order to not contact me? I this already a problem, and would a competitive but cooperative marketplace be able effectively deal with this?
How would platforms share unique, proprietary intellectual property? If not, would this defeat the intention of a cooperative marketplace?
How do we avoid favored and disfavored platforms, and the antitrust concerns arising? Would a new platform be able to petition for inclusion, and if so, based on subscriptions, or user demand, or what?
A 'competitive' market is such an attractive term and goal, but the reality is that unlike cars, it's not as simple (f this example is simple at all) as agreeing on the size of fuel nozzles, parking spaces, or safety devices. That may be an appropriate model, but then again, we actually DO HAVE a competitive marketplace. It's just not consistent in UI, in content type, in shape and appearance. Facebook isn't like Twitter like Instagram like Pinterest. Amazon is just a big retailer, so I expect Granny Warren to also demand Walmart be 'broken up' also, for one.
Which exposes the futility of all this. Even if you break up a Walmart and Amazon, what do you get? Fewer stores? New competitors? The breakup of AT&T resulted in the 'Baby Bells', with locks on their markets. Changing the rules to require competitors be permitted access to their networks changed
* - 'unacceptable' being my term for content that any platform determines cannot be permitted for distribution. This is often described as 'hate speech', 'inflammatory speech', or 'objectionable speech'. How it is named isn't as important for the purposes of this discussion as how it is defined, and currently there are not a lot of definitions that are consistently used or even disclosed.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
this is not about socialism, its about greedy people in those organizations. break those up, greedy acting people. not the organization.
Media and Telecom companies?
You do know that the USA spends the most per capita on health insurance; has the worst healthcare outcomes
Yes, our healthcare system is a dumpster fire, and I really wanted to vote for the candidate who would work towards fixing this.
Unfortunately, I don't want the rest of the ultra-left shit sandwich served along with it. Free childcare, Green New Deal, breaking up companies because you fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of the word "monopoly", etc. If the only choice is this or Trump, sorry, I'll be playing Pokemon Go Fuck Both of Ya'll on election day.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
That's called anarchy my friend, and it leads to cannibalism, which is a definite no no.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
A different direction resulting in better world for all,..
remove Speech from Corporations Dragons & immunity of major Owners & Executives - then likely the owners would want them fragmented down into manageable sizes & functional groups.
We should start there.
#KillCorpDragons
https://twitter.com/StevWork/s...
In conjunction iwith this article I would strenuously urge everyone to read:
The Myth of Capitalism (monopolies and the death of competition) by Jonathan Tepper with Denise Hearn
My gut reaction was that Elizabeth Warren needs to shut the heck up and the government needs to stay mind its own business so companies can mind their own. Then I started thinking about the breakup of Ma Bell and how that unleashed tremendous innovation and creation of new services in telecommunications technologies and availability. Then there is the example of the airline monopolies being broken apart in a similar fashion. While no one enjoys air travel, anymore, at least it's cheap and widely available, something that couldn't be said when the monopolies existed. But those two industries had been in existence far longer than the companies Warren wants to gut. I think there is still plenty of time and room for innovation and growth under their current structures (well...maybe not Apple); breaking them up is inevitable and has successful precedents, but it's too soon.
Yes. We'd have to go back to those things... what were they called? Oh yes... links, placed on purpose by the site owners after choosing what they wanted to represent. Without selling our data to anyone.
I totally agree. That would be terrible. /s
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Whatever makes you think we have privatized healthcare in the US? There is nothing free about this market. I can't shop around. I'm barely allowed to even choose my doctor since a bunch of middle men (either govt mandated insurers or govt entities set networks that I must adhere to) make those decisions. The _last_ thing I want is govt with more control of my healthcare. I want transparency and choice. No more middle men secretly negotiating arbitrary values I'm then responsible for paying.
Fuck, imagine if car purchasing worked that way: "No, you can't shop at that dealership offering a sweet 20k deal on the car you want. You have to go to one of these 3 dealerships we picked and pay 40k for the same model. And you can't negotiate with the dealer. We did that for you." You guys are nuts.
I think the problem with Apple is that it is hard to define their market share in a way that captures their real dominance. According to The Four that is because they are deliberately overcharging their small market share by appealing directly to the suckers gonads.
On the general topic, I like the idea of breaking up the giant corporate cancers into true competitors. However I have reservations about letting the government make the decisions in any direct way.
I would prefer to see indirect incentives via pro-freedom tax policies. The basic idea is that excessive market share limits choice, so it is better if the companies divide themselves to make sure there are sufficient REAL choices in the market. (Contrast with Microsoft's FAKE choices, but at least MS understands the problem.) Don't think of it as a punishment for success, but rather think of it as an incentive program to make sure the best ideas get reproduced into more competitors.
Smaller companies also makes it easier for the companies with bad ideas to die. No more too-big-too-fail companies. Plus the government can be smaller if the companies it has to regulate are smaller.
At the same time, too many competitors can also make it hard to exercise freedom in the form of meaningful choice. We're not smart enough to handle too many options, so we become too subject to manipulation. The optimum locus of choice is probably around 5, according to the research on how we think.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If macOS were free, they would let anyone install it on any compatible hardware.
That's what Apple does now. They just define "compatible" as the hardware they sell. If you want to get it to run on something they don't make then don't expect them to come running to fix any problems you have.
Microsoft is no different. They publish a list of system requirements on how they define "compatible". If you got something not on that list then you are on your own. Same for your Linux distribution of choice, or your favorite flavor of BSD.
If you think Apple's software really is free, you know nothing about how businesses work.
You think Linux is free? Well, it's got it's own definition of "free" I guess. If you want someone to call if something doesn't work then you need to pay for that. With Apple this is paid by purchasing their hardware.
I wonder if you understand how businesses work.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
This is absolutely insane. It's like the democrats don't want to win. The problem is service, not content.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you make the private market illegal and let the government run everything, you are back to a monopoly with all the abuse an inefficiency that comes with it.
Have you not seen our healthcare system? It's a total shit show. I paid over $12k last year in insurance for my family, and this year the coverage is worse for more money, just like it is every year. Our system really couldn't be more horrible. People die all the time because they can't afford to get sick.
- Vincit qui patitur.
According to the polls the top candidates on the left are Bernie and Biden, the two old white dudes. The two guys who actually have enough support to give Trump a run for his money. And the two candidates the Left will never allow to win the primary because they're old white dudes.
There are too many comments saying Amazon is not a monopoly, but they are staging and moving towards that. They are actively looking into owning their entire logistics chain, to include sea freight, which is not good for market competition in shipping, given how many companies ship for Amazon. This also presents competition problems for all port jobs related to shipping.
-This signature is strictly to prevent comments ending with questions or propositions.-
Let's be blunt, this is job protectionism and it's nonsense.
:
The planet can't survive unless we come up with a better plan than to try and avoid being smart. I personally believe that a much better solution would be to demand that Facebook, Google and Amazon establish a long term plan as to how to consolidate into a single company.
Here's the thing, the vast majority of our environmental problems are not from overpopulation. It's from overproduction due to capitalism.
In order for each person on the planet to have a job and earn enough income to sustain their lives, we have to produce far more than we need.
Visit Walmart or Amazon or eBay or any other major shopping source. Now, I want you to consider the percentage of the products they sell that simply would not exist unless someone was just trying to make jobs.
Now, take all the products which are in fact necessities and identify how they are packaged, stored, distributed, etc... and consider
- does a store like Walmart would really need 25 full length isles of freezers running 24/7 if it weren't for the fact that we have frozen pizza, frozen pizza with pepperoni, frozen pizza with extra pepperoni, frozen bite sized pizzas with pepperoni, frozen bite sized pizza with extra pepperoni....
- do we need 9 different sizes of corn flakes from 3 different brands?
- Does the cucumber need to be individually wrapped in plastic?
Our excessive consumerism comes from an overabundance of workers attempting to each have a place in the world producing things we simply don't need.
Companies like Google, Tesla, and Amazon and others are working extremely hard at optimizing all aspects of the supply chain. This will over time eliminate the vast majority of jobs on the planet. Google and Tesla's self-driving technology will make it possible in the near future to handle warehouse to warehouse shipping with almost no human intervention. Amazon's drone technology combined with Google and Tesla's self-driving technology will make it possible to deliver directly to the consumer with almost no human intervention as well. Self-sailing cargo ships are coming fast as well. Self-flying planes will be around the corner.
Why does this matter so much for the planet?
Well, suppose Amazon were to start buying massive numbers of farms... or at least they were to buy the vast majority of food produced by farms. Then they were to setup a few depots around each state. Now, they could slaughter meat on demand and produce meat on demand. In addition, they could in real-time alter the prices of different cuts on the wholesale and retail market to increase or decrease demand for different parts of the animals. This would allow producers of other products to setup plants attached to Amazon locations to purchase the meat products they would need in order to fulfill their orders. They could also, using automated production lines switched between which products they would produce based on real-time demand.
Now consider if for example Kellogg were to use real-time statistics to produce cereal based on demand. Now, instead of selling boxes of different sizes, shapes and packaging, they could offer on Amazon all different sizes, shapes and packaging labels. They could also offer bulk options made available in reusable packages. They would fill silos at Amazon's distribution locations with their products based on their production capability as well as the demand. By moderating production based on demand, they could reduce the amount of preservatives they use during production.
When a purchase is made, using a simple algorithm, a box would be printed and manufactured to size and labeling. A wax paper bag would be produced to size. The entire process would be automated.
Consider if Tropicana were to do the same, but they would provide oranges and silos at Amazon would be filled with their oranges and their production machinery that would produce orange juice to demand. Tropicana cou
... nuttier than a squirrel turd. But yes, fuck facebook.
Of course the Amazon site would communicate using computers with the Amazon warehouse. In fact, they already do. The difference is the API would be open and JacksAwesomeEcommerceSite.com could also communicate with the Amazon warehouse via the same APIs
You mean like how PhilsHobbyShop.com already communicates with Amazon using the Marketplace Web Service API? In fact, the reports and feeds on "Seller Central", Amazon's web application for third-party sellers, are a fairly thin layer around MWS.
Anyone who wants to can already compete, so what exactly do you think would be different? Do you really imagine that there are, today, people who say "we cannot compete against AWS because Amazon also has online shopping?"
That wasn't as clearly the case while Amazon still owned the 1-Click patent.
A monopoly exists when, and only when, there is some specific reason for your success that your competitors are not able to use.
And that "specific reason" was US Patent 5,960,411. From September 1999 (grant) through September 2017 (expiration), Amazon held a legal monopoly on 1-Click ordering in the United States.
A medallion taxi company, though minuscule in comparison to Walmart, is a monopoly because it is illegal for any other ride for hire company to compete in their city.
Different taxi companies can compete for different cities' franchises, much as with electric power, water, natural gas, and other public utilities. Amazon's patent was nationwide.