Elizabeth Warren Says Apple, Amazon and Google Are Trying To 'Lock Out' Competition (recode.net) 321
Elizabeth Warren, an American academic and member of the Democratic Party, believes that Google, Apple, and Amazon are trying to use their size to "snuff out competition." In a speech about the perils of "consolidation and concentration" throughout the economy, the Massachusetts senator singled out the three of tech's biggest players. From a report:Warren had different beefs with Google, Apple and Amazon, but the common thread was that she accused each one of using its powerful platform to "lock out smaller guys and newer guys," including some that compete with Google, Apple and Amazon. Google, she said, uses "its dominant search engine to harm rivals of its Google Plus user review feature;" Apple "has placed conditions on its rivals that make it difficult for them to offer competitive streaming services" that compete with Apple Music; and Amazon "uses its position as the dominant bookseller to steer consumers to books published by Amazon to the detriment of other publishers.""Google, Apple and Amazon have created disruptive technologies that changed the world, and ... they deserve to be highly profitable and successful," Warren said. "But the opportunity to compete must remain open for new entrants and smaller competitors that want their chance to change the world again."
Business 101 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Business 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Business 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.
Perhaps she might also lecture her colleagues regarding what they should be focussing on - stuff like this - instead of them devoting their energies towards hobbling encryption and trying to remove their citizen's constitutional rights.
Re:Business 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.
:head scratch: So Amazon, Apple, and Google should encourage their competition?
You mean like how the two major political parties have rigged the board so as to discourage political parties outside of the two majors?
Re: Business 101 (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't be obtuse.
Government steps on to restrict the big players' ability to prevent competition.
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Businesses under 50 people are exempt from most regulations to begin with. And by being small they usually have nothing even close to a monopoly.
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What does that have to do with the subject at hand? Are you trying to say that she has no standing to talk about government regulation? Or are you just randomly railing against political parties?
Perhaps it is rather tongue-in-cheek, but even you have to admit the Pot calling the Kettle black comes across like a cinder block to the face.
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Perhaps it is rather tongue-in-cheek, but even you have to admit the Pot calling the Kettle black comes across like a cinder block to the face.
Nah, I can't admit to that because they aren't mutually exclusive. The existence of a two-party system doesn't invalidate government action against corporate monopolies. I think the better idiom is "Throw the baby out with the bathwater".
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That doesn't matter. Government and corporations should perform checks and balances to one another. Each player tries to check the other in order to stay ahead, but the balances should keep them from ever truly taking control over the other.
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Any place in your universe for individual humans?
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The accusation against Apple seems to kind of make sense but only because I tend to be naturally biased against them. I don't really know if it's BS or not and I will reserve judgement until I see something convincing. The accusation against Amazon just seems weird. I don't see how they could manage that even with their dominant position. The Google thing I have not even heard of. This also seems like something that you really can't "muscle into".
Size tends to be an inherent problem but I don't think Warren
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amazon controls the market. They are the 800 lb gorilla in online sales, just like Microsoft once was.
google is the same in the online ad space.
While Apple sells lots of phones & computers, they aren't the 800 lb gorilla anywhere except in Apple world. They have a much less than 50% share in phones & computers.
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She also seems to understand the role that government should play in combating that first rule.
:head scratch: So Amazon, Apple, and Google should encourage their competition?
Because not doing something bad, is doing self sacrifice? How about going from doing bad, to not doing bad? Or how about just keep status quo, and lets us teach fanboys and libertarians how the real work works?
Re:Business 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad to see she understands the first rule of business.
Honestly, I don't know what you are getting at. Is it, "Make money?" Or perhaps "Grow your business?" Maybe you mean "Don't talk about Fight Club."
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Why is this a troll? these companies have been doing this for years.
The main reason the web needs to remain open (Score:4, Informative)
Well yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.
Not just tech company leadership.
A *lot* of people have had a good long drink of the greed is good/reagonomics/greenspan business philosophy koolaid.
No amount of failure seems to convince them of the problems with it.
Re: Well yeah (Score:4, Insightful)
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So saith the armchair generals.
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Er, considering that we seem to have not been operating on an ideal version of any system, anyone could argue "well if things were done right, they would be good."
The first step towards doing things right is realizing that what we're doing now isn't working and trying to find a solution.
Corruption in general and regulatory capture specifically are completely out of control.
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Re:Well yeah (Score:5, Insightful)
Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of the current tech company leadership.
I think you meant, "Pulling up the ladder behind you is a STAPLE of every company and government in the history of the universe."
Academic and member of the Democratic Party? (Score:5, Insightful)
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She was a law professor before she became a senator.
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She was a law professor before she became a senator.
And before that she was 1/32nd Native American
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It's interesting that a US Senator would advocate for Sweden's Spotify against American companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon.
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Re:Academic and member of the Democratic Party? (Score:4, Informative)
The Warren numbers are easy to find. She has become the most popular politician in Massachusetts, with a 52/39 approval over disapproval rating. She will easily be re-elected. She appears to be the 12th most popular Senator in the US.
Re:Academic and member of the Democratic Party? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are those numbers from before or after she backed Hillary? Because based on my Facebook feed, she's pissed off a ton her supporters by pulling that non-sequitur.
By tying herself to the Clinton ticket, she's effectively tied her political career to Clinton. If Clinton fails to win the election, Warren's political career is over. Keep in mind her next election is a mid-term election - which means that a good chunk of her supporters simply won't show up to vote.
Not to mention that if there's one thing the Massachusetts electorate has shown, it's that they hate being taken for granted and will happily elect a moderate Republican if they think that the Democratic candidate is ignoring them.
Of course, if she ends up the VP candidate for Clinton, all of this is moot and her future Senate career would be over regardless.
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Statewide elections don't behave the same way as national elections. She will easily win her next election bid.
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Everyone likes their particular bit of scum.
Congressmen in the aggregate are hated, but most of them keep on getting re-elected term after term.
The big guys try to freeze out the small guys (Score:2)
No duh (Score:3, Insightful)
"...Apple, Amazon and Google Are Trying To 'Lock Out' Competition"
Oh my gawd, say it isn't so.
Seriously, no shit, of COURSE they're trying to lock out competition. In the "Quest For More Dollars" game they'd send death squads around to the other company's Boards Of Directors if they thought they could get away with it. It's all about the benjamins, and killing off the competition (or stifling them) by whatever means necessary is Job One.
This is "news" in the same way that "water is wet" or "criminals commit crimes" is "news".
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Of course the more interesting question is whether enough there's enough there to sustain a successful prosecution under the Anti-Trust act and what happens if the Feds win?
Pocahontas is on the warpath (Score:3, Insightful)
Big tech execs are in big heap trouble...until they share wampum with Democrats.
Re:Pocahontas is on the warpath (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news.... (Score:2)
Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
While I will steer clear of accusations of intent here; in terms of service and innovation, oligopolies usually end up sucking rotting eggs in the longer term such that we should have policies and/or regulations in place to encourage competition in key services and technologies.
I know most conservatives will balk at such, but it contradicts their usual push for competition, and oligopolies have insufficient competition. Having a slightly bigger gov't is the least evil compared to letting oligopolies rot progress and choices.
Using Google Plus to dominate?? (Score:5, Funny)
Pot meet kettle (Score:2)
"But the opportunity to compete must remain open for new entrants and smaller competitors that want their chance to change the world again."
This sounds an awful lot like how our political landscape is currently setup. Two giants doing everything in their power to ensure that a 3rd party has absolutely no chance at competing. Apparently, it's the American way :|
Watch out. The DNC needs that money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google and Apple are big supporters of liberal causes. Someone better get Warren back on the reservation.
Re:Watch out. The DNC needs that money. (Score:4, Funny)
get Warren back on the reservation.
I see what you did there.............
How to lose the CA vote (Score:2)
So if she joins up with Hillary we'll have a ticket that can boast its prowess as
- all women yay
- anti encryption yay
- anti google, amazon, and apple yay
Pretty much a big clue for California voters to go vote for someone else.
What will they come up with next to piss of New York voters?
E
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Do you seriously think California will vote for Trump?
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About the only thing that could get California to vote Trump is if it was Palin instead of Warren on Clinton's ticket.
Well (Score:5, Funny)
It's always nice to see the American Indian perspective on these things.
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Yeah, she's an expert on Amazon.
You're killing me! (Score:2)
They get better every day!
Elizabeth Warren, an American academic and member of the Democratic Party
This is like saying "Paul Ryan, an American academic and member of the Republican Party"
Bail out GM, Chrysler and Ford (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe I'd take what Senators say more seriously if D.C. didn't have a history of bailing out big monopolies that lock out smaller competitors like the big three. It just comes off as disingenuous to me, as there is some ulterior motive at play.
The cynic in me wonders if these tech companies aren't greasing the palms of the right people on the east coast.
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Gotta do something about the $ infuence... (Score:2)
http://www.movetoamend.org/ [movetoamend.org] Check 'em out...
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Rope-a-dope (Score:2, Insightful)
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I think you have to define a line for "individual liberty". That is, where does individual liberty meet the collective (arrangement)?
Re: she's a hypocrit (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that a collective (like a society) is more than just a bunch of people crammed together.
It is a bunch of people who have to cooperate with each other. Cooperation requires limiting selfish indulgences, and defining where one person's rights end, and another's begins. Eg, if I am a home owner who is a lazy slob who harbors trash, my freedom to be a willful slob creates a haven for vermin that accosted my neighbors, bease the vermin don't stay put. To satisfy the neighbor's rights to keep their homes free of vermin, my right to be a slob has to be infringed.
We do not live in a universe where ideal fantasies about personal liberty can be realistically entertained.
That is what people try to tell you. You are the one not understanding.
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What you've stumbled upon there are basic health and sanitation rules as opposed to the more modern HOA restrictions. Chances are that all we really need is the "old and obsolete stuff" and the new "shiny shiny" really isn't the least bit useful.
Also, these old school restrictions are really limited to real damages that would be actionable in a civil court.
"Your vermin ate my air conditioner"
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What you've stumbled upon there are basic health and sanitation rules as opposed to the more modern HOA restrictions. Chances are that all we really need is the "old and obsolete stuff" and the new "shiny shiny" really isn't the least bit useful.
Also, these old school restrictions are really limited to real damages that would be actionable in a civil court.
"Your vermin ate my air conditioner"
It is not his vermin and he is not responsible for it. It is vermin. He would only be responsible if he kept them as pets. So no, a civil court would not help.
Re:she's a hypocrit (Score:4, Insightful)
so her posturing against companies that use government to shut the door behind them to keep competition out are a bit disingenuous
No, it is not. The only way a monopoly can exist is through government protection. Her "posturing" is spot on.
Re:she's a hypocrit (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way a monopoly can exist is through government protection.
You have it exactly backwards. The only way competition exists in certain (most?) sectors is due to government protection.
Re:she's a hypocrit (Score:4, Insightful)
Both are correct.
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I guess we're at a stalemate then.
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Not if the state is willing to sell favor. Then it becomes the head of the protection racket.
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Re:she's a hypocrit (Score:5, Insightful)
>> The only way competition exists in certain (most?) sectors is due to government protection.
>
> That's a baldfaced lie.
This is why the Sherman anti-trust act exists. Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy. Even Smith acknowledged this fact.
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But the economy was never "unregulated". The big railroad and oil monopolies were a direct result of government protection and corruption that provided exclusive contracts and closed the market to the upstarts. This is the same reason we have no competition in pharmaceuticals, communications, media, internet service, etc. today
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Sherman act exists to destroy private property rights and provide governments with ammunition to destroy individuals who are so good at providing excellent products and services that they take over an industry by doing the best of all of them.
Since Standard Oil was dismantled, oil never went down in price, only up, while government never shrunk in size, it only grew.
How about applying Sherman act where it actually matters: to the government itself?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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You don't mean the same Rockefeller who used worker gangs to shake down the competition into selling out and buying government officials to look the other way, do you? You make him sound so innocent :-)
Re:she's a hypocrit (Score:5, Informative)
Monopolies are very easy to create in an unregulated economy.
Nope. In an unregulated economy, the only way to make a monopoly is by offering your products or services at a better price than your competition. Rockefeller came close, and he did so by drastically reducing his costs *and* prices.
Nope. The fastest and cheapest way to become a monopoly in an unregulated economy is to bring in the Pinkertons [wikipedia.org], establish a company town [wikipedia.org], and extract all of the profit for any and all economic activity for yourself. Rockefeller reduced his costs by murdering strikers [wikipedia.org] using every armed force he could get his hands on, which was most of them. The tricks and techniques utilized by unregulated monopolies to extend and enhance their dominance are many and varied, and it is historical fact that a sufficiently advanced monopoly can and will arrogate the nominal government monopoly on force unto itself, either explicitly using some organization like the Pinkerton Agency or covertly, in the case of Rockefeller getting the Colorado National Guard called out for his benefit.
Even Smith acknowledged this fact.
Smith subscribed to a common misconception. That doesn't make him right.
Adam Smith knew it was a fact because he had already seen it happen with the East India Company, which had operated as a monopoly in every market in which it did business and as de facto government of India for over 150 years at the time he wrote Wealth of Nations. He was not reciting some bullshit academic theory like the one you spout. The consequences of monopoly in an unregulated economy were the reality on the ground for his entire lifetime. Mr. Smith was busy writing his book as East India Company tea was being dumped into Boston harbor. Fortunately for him, he was living in Paris at the time, so his afternoon tea was not interrupted. Still, he knew exactly what an unregulated monopoly was capable of. The later activities of Carnegie and Rockefeller and other Gilded Age robber barons were a pale imitation of their predecessor.
Reducing costs... Pfft. Where do you get this crap, The Toddler's Guide to the Republican Party Platform?
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Can you prove this in a general sense, or are you just guessing?
Re:what do people expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Probably because of all the activist shareholders who sue (and win) companies for not maximizing profits above all else.
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The corporate raiders of the 1970's and 1980's, who turned boring businesses into high-risk operations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_raid [wikipedia.org]
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Exactly as Marx predicted. I'm not sayin'. I'm just sayin', you know?
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No corporation has ever felt shame. You're dancing on the essence of why Citizen's United must be reversed.
http://www.movetoamend.org/ [movetoamend.org]
How do you justify management going private? (Score:2)
If the directors' job is to maximize revenue, how do you justify them approving management buying the shares and taking the company private?
Clearly, if management has some idea on how to run the corporation more profitably they should be doing it *now*, not hoarding the idea and waiting to buy the company out and then increase profits.
Directors that tolerate that kind of self-dealing from management or for their own profit are abrogating their fiduciary duty to shareholders.
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This is not true.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor... [nytimes.com]
Re:I don't believe that to be true!! (Score:5, Informative)
As a great teacher once said, "Go educate thyself!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren#Academic [wikipedia.org]
Re:I don't believe that to be true!! (Score:5, Insightful)
This fallacy rich quote proves that.
What fallacy exactly? Businesses — or individuals — don't exist separately from society and government. We're all in this together as a country for the last 240 years.
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Many are the long-bread-lined nations on the ash heap of history that revolved around the primacy of government central planning.
So what does that have to do with Warren and Obama? They're Democrats, not Communists or Socialists.
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Re:I don't believe that to be true!! (Score:5, Informative)
Who is world would call Elizabeth warren an academic?
Apparently, the University of Texas, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard as she taught at each of their Law Schools. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Warren was formerly a professor of law, and taught at the University of Texas School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and most recently at Harvard Law School. A prominent scholar specializing in bankruptcy law, Warren was among the most cited in the field of commercial law before starting her political career.
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And also by the University of Texas Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, proving that everybody's an idiot but not you, no sir, you can see right through their "consensus reality". Your mama didn't raise no fools, by-golly.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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^does not appear to understand how named chairs work^
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Anonimo Coward...
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All business seek to lock/snuff out competition.
And what makes a better tool than a government hammer?
Re:Just like the DNC an GOP (Score:5, Informative)
Do you think they even realize the deep hypocritical irony?
Although HRC and others have accepted millions in "speaking fees" from Wall Street and big pharma, Elizabeth Warren has not. She is not being hypocritical, since she has also spoken out about the influence of big money on politics.
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You don't need to get into the money for the hypocrisy.
Both the DNC and the GOP are quite guilty of using their dominant positions in politics to keep other parties from gaining any kind of traction.
Re:Just like the DNC an GOP (Score:5, Interesting)
Both the DNC and the GOP are quite guilty of using their dominant positions in politics to keep other parties from gaining any kind of traction.
That is an inherent characteristic of winner-take-all plurality voting. 2016 is a strange year to be complaining that the establishment locks out other voices. An insurgent won the nomination of one major party, and another insurgent came close in the other party.
Re:Just like the DNC an GOP (Score:5, Insightful)
She is not being hypocritical, since she has also spoken out about the influence of big money on politics.
And then she gets on the stage with the biggest Big Money candidate there is, and shouts, "I'm with her!"
I'm fine with people donating to campaigns. I'm not fine with blatant hypocrisy.
Dont vote for either evil (Score:3)
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Ye she is endorsing Clinton instead of Sanders, hmmm...
Maybe that is because Sanders will not be on the ballot.
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Re: And Microsoft? (Score:3)