Slashdot Mirror
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.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
So to get the full search results you'll have to look-up the same thing on:
googleatlantic.com
googlepacific.com
googlesouth.com
googlesouthwest.com
googlewest.com
googletech.com
googleny.com
?
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
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.
Break up Facebook? Why not just close it down? Facebook is a drain on humanity for being the megaphone of ignorance and narcissism.
Breaking up monopolies is socialist now?
So the world did turn 180 degrees while I wasn't looking...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
... 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
"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.