It's fashionable in some corners to pontificate on breaking up Big Tech these days.
On Facebook, I'm honestly not concerned. Just look at the last few years where facebook.com fades into irrelevance (with IG not that far behind) while TikTok has surged and honestly poses an existential threat to FB's business (IMHO). That problem, if you consider it one, will take care of it self.
On Google, I'm not concerned either. Google dominates search because it's quite simply better than everyone else. Using another search engine is easy. Making that alternative search engine obviously isn't but the modern doctrine of US antitrust is not to protect competitors from competition; it's to protect consumers from anticompetitive behaviour. You can argue all sorts of anticompetitive behaviour. I'm not yet convinced by any of it.
As an aside, it'd be foolish to engage in killing our own golden geese while Chinese competitors rise in influence, especially given the deep ties between Chinese companies and the CCP and the fact that the Chinese market is typically barred to competitors while Western markets aren't barred to Chinese companies.
And then there's Amazon. To me, Amazon is the clearest case for government action for it's effective monopoly over distribution. Yes you can sell stuff on your own website. You can ship physical products. But in doing so you cannot compete with Amazon's price-points, speed and overall logistics.
On this the Chinese too have had an advantage by taking advantage of the postage union in a way that a domestic supplier cannot.
I'm not sure this has yet reached the level that warrants government action. When it does I'm honestly not sure what we'd even do.
>It's fashionable in some corners to pontificate on breaking up Big Tech these days.
[...]
>As an aside, it'd be foolish to engage in killing our own golden geese while Chinese competitors rise in influence
Harry Truman said in 1945 about the atomic bomb, "We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies". I feel the same way about FAANG (including Amazon) and Silicon Valley as a whole (and Wall Street, and Hollywood, and SpaceX/Tesla, and the Ivy League), that they are in the United States.
That doesn't mean I approve of everything they do. That doesn't mean I can't or won't decry their putting thumbs on scales toward a certain type of bien-pensant ideology. That does mean that, overall, I am very, very glad that they are American instead of Russian, Chinese, or even British, French, or German.
You're absolutely right. We were at war in 1945, we are at war now, and will be in the future. The world is a savage place and will destroy you. Fact. Now, let's talk about abortion.. yawn life is good you see.
Facebook only lost relevance to Instagram...then sure Tiktok is getting really big, but is economically worse for creators, and is kinda lowering the icome bottom a bit more (creators litteraly choosing by themselves to work for exposure).
If that is your example of the market regulating itself, it's a pretty grim picture.
> And then there's Amazon. To me, Amazon is the clearest case for government action for it's effective monopoly over distribution. Yes you can sell stuff on your own website. You can ship physical products. But in doing so you cannot compete with Amazon's price-points, speed and overall logistics.
UPS/FedEx/USPS/DHL/Walmart/Target/eBay/Best Buy/Costco/Home Depot/Lowes/Staples/the list goes on and on of businesses that have distributed goods to me many, many times in recent years and over the last 2 decades.
Ludicrous to claim Amazon has any kind of distribution monopoly. Many businesses deliver, many businesses have warehouses, and competition is so high that profit margins are low single digit margin slim. As a customer, one could hardly hope for a better situation.
>On this the Chinese too have had an advantage by taking advantage of the postage union in a way that a domestic supplier cannot.
I think this was at least partially rectified 2 years ago:
Google dominates search because it pushes its own search engine incredibly aggressively, whether that's by taking over virtually the entire web browsing market (Chrome), or paying off its rivals to include Google as the default search engine (Firefox), or ensuring its services are indispensibly integrated with the vast majority of mobile phones across the world (Android).
That's only half the story. I dislike using google services as much as the next person because their services are too pervasive, but they had a superior search engine when they released it on the web and they have maybe held that dominance with both aggressive tactics and a good search engine. Obviously that is changing fast. But I'm not going to lie and say just because they are evil, that they did not have a good product when it was first released.
Do people really put energy into 'pontificating' to be fashionable? or do they form opinions and call for changes when they see things of actual real concern to them and the kind of world they hope to live in.
Current calls for regulation of Google and Amazon, are not even about search domination, and monopoly of distribution. They're about using their platforms to promote their own products and services over others, and rent seeking and app stores.
> On Facebook, I'm honestly not concerned. Just look at the last few years where facebook.com fades into irrelevance (with IG not that far behind) while TikTok has surged
I am also not concerned but note that in the past FB has used an embrace-and-extend strategy themselves to include features from competing networks, killing or restricting them.
The problem is that if you don’t grow competition by killing your golden geese, your golden geese fade out of relevance, as you said with TikTok eating Facebook and insta lunch, I think we need to force companies to innovate by forcing competition and antitrust
On Facebook, I'm honestly not concerned. Just look at the last few years where facebook.com fades into irrelevance (with IG not that far behind) while TikTok has surged and honestly poses an existential threat to FB's business (IMHO). That problem, if you consider it one, will take care of it self.
On Google, I'm not concerned either. Google dominates search because it's quite simply better than everyone else. Using another search engine is easy. Making that alternative search engine obviously isn't but the modern doctrine of US antitrust is not to protect competitors from competition; it's to protect consumers from anticompetitive behaviour. You can argue all sorts of anticompetitive behaviour. I'm not yet convinced by any of it.
As an aside, it'd be foolish to engage in killing our own golden geese while Chinese competitors rise in influence, especially given the deep ties between Chinese companies and the CCP and the fact that the Chinese market is typically barred to competitors while Western markets aren't barred to Chinese companies.
And then there's Amazon. To me, Amazon is the clearest case for government action for it's effective monopoly over distribution. Yes you can sell stuff on your own website. You can ship physical products. But in doing so you cannot compete with Amazon's price-points, speed and overall logistics.
On this the Chinese too have had an advantage by taking advantage of the postage union in a way that a domestic supplier cannot.
I'm not sure this has yet reached the level that warrants government action. When it does I'm honestly not sure what we'd even do.
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