Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But we could find ways to break up tech monopolies.

Et tu, Sebby?

This is growing in popularity, but it's dumb. I've written about it elsewhere (not with as much rigor as keep telling myself I should) and the simple fact is that to the extent we've got tech monopolies, it's because they are in industries that create consumer-benefiting network effect. You can't break them up without undermining those consumer benefits. And even if you do break them up, you're likely to wind up with adjacent monopolies.

And, frankly, antitrust enforcement against big tech has never really worked. Who benefited from Baby Bells being true monopolies in non-overlapping geographies? No one. Every consumer had one choice, until we took more affirmative steps in the Telecommunication Act of 1996 (or was it '97) and even that didn't help all that much.

And that's even assuming that we can correctly identify where the problems are. How does browser competition look today? Did all the time and money spent litigating over it look at all worthwhile? Hey, look, Microsoft was right that a browser is like the operating system clock in that it's essential to making your computer work and right that competition is a click and a download away (the EU still has in place it's feckless and stupid browser remedy last I looked).

What "ends" tech dominance is innovation. IE isn't really dominant because Firefox, Chrome and Safari are better products (meanwhile, Microsoft is pretty dominant in less consumer-visible spaces still without anyone worrying about them). What broke the phone monopolies was celluar. Etc.

Where enforcement can be of use is in protecting innovation (incidentally, what the agencies are trying to do). If and when the current big tech is stifling innovation, let's worry about that.

But big, mature companies can also act as stimulators of innovation, because they provide a way for innovators and entrepreneurs to exit. Prove the tech, sell out, move on to the next tech. It happens all the time in med tech. Pretty sure it does in Silicon Valley too, but I don't personally touch that much.

We could, of course, invest in research to further fuel innovation, but we've got one party that's against all non-military spending.

We could also tax tech more creatively (Jaron Lanier has some decent ideas) and use the money for infrastructure, which has a decent multiplier effect.

We need to do those things (not sure what Lanier has proposed), but we also just need to come to grips with being a developed economy. We need higher taxes and to spend way less on war and way more on health care and providing for those on the lower end of things.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Et tu, Sebby?

This is growing in popularity, but it's dumb. I've written about it elsewhere (not with as much rigor as keep telling myself I should) and the simple fact is that to the extent we've got tech monopolies, it's because they are in industries that create consumer-benefiting network effect. You can't break them up without undermining those consumer benefits. And even if you do break them up, you're likely to wind up with adjacent monopolies.

And, frankly, antitrust enforcement against big tech has never really worked. Who benefited from Baby Bells being true monopolies in non-overlapping geographies? No one. Every consumer had one choice, until we took more affirmative steps in the Telecommunication Act of 1996 (or was it '97) and even that didn't help all that much.

And that's even assuming that we can correctly identify where the problems are. How does browser competition look today? Did all the time and money spent litigating over it look at all worthwhile? Hey, look, Microsoft was right that a browser is like the operating system clock in that it's essential to making your computer work and right that competition is a click and a download away (the EU still has in place it's feckless and stupid browser remedy last I looked).

What "ends" tech dominance is innovation. IE isn't really dominant because Firefox, Chrome and Safari are better products (meanwhile, Microsoft is pretty dominant in less consumer-visible spaces still without anyone worrying about them). What broke the phone monopolies was celluar. Etc.

Where enforcement can be of use is in protecting innovation (incidentally, what the agencies are trying to do). If and when the current big tech is stifling innovation, let's worry about that.

But big, mature companies can also act as stimulators of innovation, because they provide a way for innovators and entrepreneurs to exit. Prove the tech, sell out, move on to the next tech. It happens all the time in med tech. Pretty sure it does in Silicon Valley too, but I don't personally touch that much.

We could, of course, invest in research to further fuel innovation, but we've got one party that's against all non-military spending.



We need to do those things (not sure what Lanier has proposed), but we also just need to come to grips with being a developed economy. We need higher taxes and to spend way less on war and way more on health care and providing for those on the lower end of things.

The Econ 101 answer to natural monopoly is regulation.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The Econ 101 answer to natural monopoly is regulation.

I retract my suggestion we could break up big tech. Upon considering the issue in greater detail, the effort would be fruitless. Re Amazon (is it tech or not?): https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/...itrust-paradox

Jaron Lanier’s idea was to compel tech companies to pay licensing fees to users who provide personal data, and (I believe this was Lanier, but might’ve been someone else) to more heavily tax disruptive technologies (stated elsewhere as an efficiency tax, or in certain specific instances a robot tax). The idea on the former would be to create a revenue stream for data providers, which would encourage them to provide more data, offsetting the cost of the licensing fees to the tech companies. The idea on the latter would be to recapture the tax revenues lost from workers rendered unemployable and taxable supply chain events eliminated by technology.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I retract my suggestion we could break up big tech. Upon considering the issue in greater detail, the effort would be fruitless.

This is confusing to me because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that your positions are always 100% consistent and 100% correct. So I dutifully began banging the "break up the big tech monopolies" drum yesterday to anyone who would listen, which made for some awkward spin class conversations and more than a few annoyed looks from legal assistants. Now you go 180 degrees on me, and I'm left with egg on my face. And I dislike eggs immensely, with their sulfury smell and unpleasant consistency.

Here is some African funk for the Daily Dose. De Frank Kakra with "Do Your Own Thing":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysUdfokQMQ0

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I retract my suggestion we could break up big tech. Upon considering the issue in greater detail, the effort would be fruitless. Re Amazon (is it tech or not?): https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/...itrust-paradox

Maybe you can break up big tech, but it seems to me that the different companies pose different problems (and to different people), and that the remedy one picks depends on the problem one has identified. I'm not sure what you think the problem is.

Jaron Lanier’s idea was to compel tech companies to pay licensing fees to users who provide personal data, and (I believe this was Lanier, but might’ve been someone else) to more heavily tax disruptive technologies (stated elsewhere as an efficiency tax, or in certain specific instances a robot tax). The idea on the former would be to create a revenue stream for data providers, which would encourage them to provide more data, offsetting the cost of the licensing fees to the tech companies. The idea on the latter would be to recapture the tax revenues lost from workers rendered unemployable and taxable supply chain events eliminated by technology.

Sounds like a form of price regulation. Who are the "data providers"?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

This is confusing to me because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that your positions are always 100% consistent and 100% correct. So I dutifully began banging the "break up the big tech monopolies" drum yesterday to anyone who would listen, which made for some awkward spin class conversations and more than a few annoyed looks from legal assistants. Now you go 180 degrees on me, and I'm left with egg on my face. And I dislike eggs immensely, with their sulfury smell and unpleasant consistency.

Here is some African funk for the Daily Dose. De Frank Kakra with "Do Your Own Thing":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysUdfokQMQ0

It's not that we shouldn't break them up, just that after we do we should put them back together again.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The Econ 101 answer to natural monopoly is regulation.

Yup. And I'm open to regulation of any monopoly we think is enduring enough to warrant it. Pretty sure I've said that here before. I don't think anyone else is, though.

Instead, we get fantasies like "break up."

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I retract my suggestion we could break up big tech. Upon considering the issue in greater detail, the effort would be fruitless. Re Amazon (is it tech or not?): https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/...itrust-paradox

Pretty sure I've ranted specifically about that article here before too.

It's a good example of the problem with the new lefty focus on antitrust: it's all hand-waving.

What Bork et al did is insist on rigour and specificity in identifying the harm before using the blunt instruments of antitrust remedies. Yes, that makes enforcement a lot harder, but it also makes it much better grounded.

Rather than meet that sort of standard, some on the left want to just go back to the old way. No thanks.

Jaron Lanier’s idea was to compel tech companies to pay licensing fees to users who provide personal data

We have not even begun to come to grips with policy implications of big data (hello, Equifax) and that's interesting.

to more heavily tax disruptive technologies (stated elsewhere as an efficiency tax, or in certain specific instances a robot tax).

This sounds like a terrible idea. Disruption and efficiency are good things. Why not just more heavily tax profits?

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It's not that we shouldn't break them up, just that after we do we should put them back together again.

I sense that the conversations in today's spin class are only going to be even more awkward.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Yup. And I'm open to regulation of any monopoly we think is enduring enough to warrant it. Pretty sure I've said that here before. I don't think anyone else is, though.

Instead, we get fantasies like "break up."

Let's take Google, just for one. Are they not an enduring monopoly in search?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Yup. And I'm open to regulation of any monopoly we think is enduring enough to warrant it. Pretty sure I've said that here before. I don't think anyone else is, though.

Instead, we get fantasies like "break up."

My kneejerk reaction was to say "break up." But how do you break up, say, Google? Split search from ads? That won't work. Split Gmail from ads? Nope. Fails again. Break it into mini-Googles based on geography? That'd only earn regulators a Ted Stevens' "the internet is a series of tubes" meme online.

One could break up Amazon, as there's bricks and mortar and supply networks, etc. And it is clearly, and admittedly, predatory. But taxing it seems the better course.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Maybe you can break up big tech, but it seems to me that the different companies pose different problems (and to different people), and that the remedy one picks depends on the problem one has identified. I'm not sure what you think the problem is.

I don't see one particular problem. They are many. But one I definitely see of importance is compulsion. Facebook has integrated itself into other platforms in a manner where one needs to have a Facebook account to use the platform, or has to jump through hoops to use it without a FB account. The expansion compels people who'd otherwise avoid FB, as many do, to provide a truly pernicious data mining machine with information.

Sounds like a form of price regulation. Who are the "data providers"?

People. Soylent Green is people.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

This sounds like a terrible idea. Disruption and efficiency are good things. Why not just more heavily tax profits?

Tax avoidance is much easier at that level.

I have trouble with the idea myself, but it's tech disruption and efficiency that are most responsible for and unusually effective at removing taxable events and market participants from the economy. The current system isn't set up to absorb the removal of those events and participants that's been occurring and is increasing.

Disruption and efficiency also drive deflation. Things get cheaper. This is not a great scenario in a situation where wage inflation is needed.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

My kneejerk reaction was to say "break up." But how do you break up, say, Google? Split search from ads? That won't work. Split Gmail from ads? Nope. Fails again. Break it into mini-Googles based on geography? That'd only earn regulators a Ted Stevens' "the internet is a series of tubes" meme online.

Why would you want to break up Google? What problem are you trying to solve?

One could break up Amazon, as there's bricks and mortar and supply networks, etc. And it is clearly, and admittedly, predatory. But taxing it seems the better course.

Why would you want to break up Amazon? What problem are you trying to solve? How is it predatory? (From what I can tell, its prices aren't consistently better than the alternatives, but a lot of people don't want to shop around.)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't see one particular problem. They are many. But one I definitely see of importance is compulsion. Facebook has integrated itself into other platforms in a manner where one needs to have a Facebook account to use the platform, or has to jump through hoops to use it without a FB account. The expansion compels people who'd otherwise avoid FB, as many do, to provide a truly pernicious data mining machine with information.

What other platforms? Do you have to use them? Are you just vexed by ads that follow you around the web?

People. Soylent Green is people.

True. So maybe just simpler to nationalize the company, leave it under current management, and distribute the stock to the entire population?