"To put it another way, no one in Silicon Valley is holding her breath ..."
It's so stupid that in 2019 I notice this use of feminine pronoun and end up so very grateful to see it...but I did and I am.
2
Please someone tell me why we need regulation. If so, how do u enforce it. The govt FAILED to build a website for Obamacare, and you expect them to regulate a highly complex platform. PLEASE
2
Facebook and Instagram LIED and TRICK and MISLED our government about the type of merger it was (horizontal) and the other potential buyers of Instagram to get their merger approved by our naive government.
https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/disruptions-instagram-testimony-doesnt-add-up-2/
learn how these 2 competitors came together
instagram already had 40m+ fast growing users when mark zuckerberg came fast to buy them because he was scared of competition.
3
If the editors of the New York Times had any guts, they would ask Kevin D. Williamson to summarize the chapter on corporations and social media in his new book, "The Smallest Minority." It's all there.
"...We have become cheap dates to tech platforms...
And prom kings are the new quarterbacks...
PS
There's a simple way to deal with this...
There was the Bell System – and its:
> Manufacturing arm, Western Electric
> R&D arm, the fabled Bell Laboratories
So, utilitize the Googleplex – and as its:
> R&D arm – consolidate all of its current R&D tentacles
> Manufacturing arm – consolidate the Library of
Congress into their cloud
Or would you rather have some sort of combined Democrat approach, like taxing 70% of their next ten trillion dollars...
PPS
Am dead serious...
There would be at least 10 Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals in the next half-century...
PPPS
Haven't forgotten about FB...
Consolidate all the three-letter agencies...
Am, again, dead serious...
As LBJ said – probably better to have them inside the tent peeking out, than outside peeking in...
Or something like that...
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/10/31/archives/the-vantage-point-perspectives-of-the-presidency-19631969-by-lyndon.html
The way to fight Facebook on hate speech isn’t to force FB to go through the motions of attempting to limit it, but to let it organically become such a cesspool a la Stormfront that members abandon it for a new startup that puts genuine hate speech controls in from Day One.
I'm more interested in having another passenger airplane manufacturer or two than another shopping platform. And I live where both Boeing and Amazon are significant players in our well being. The role of the Defense Department in pushing for consolidation of aircraft manufacturing has been malign and not fully appreciated by the public, the press or Congress.
23
Indeed, perhaps a new aircraft manufacturer that focuses on improved, quieter hypersonic technology.
6
@Andre Hoogeveen
Perhaps Musk could add wings to a Tesla?
1
Here’s the thing: Faceboook, Google and others currently have zero incentive to protect users’ privacy. That’s because their users don’t pay for the service. Advertisers do. Issues of size and power aside, here is one thing I urge regulators to do fast: require these companies to offer a service people pay for that comes with super-strict privacy protection. It is at least worth a try.
22
There is sledding from nature. It’s been shown that evolution in a continental context shows that species that get larger over time are favored; little herbivores become bigger herbivores. But on isolated islands, where resources are finite, evolution favors species that get smaller over time.
As we the earth reaches its limits there may be a benefit in promoting the small.
9
Yes ideas are squashed simply because consumers expect to get things for free; Facebook and Google certainly have a lot of defenders. I hear there's no shortage of venture capital funding to subsidize yet another app.
Still, a publishing platform as big and influential as Facebook must be regulated. In this day and age, it is inconceivable that volume of data is the excuse for not being able to moderate content.
9
Alexia, how do you propose regulating Facebook? That's the problem. The government has shown time and time again that its regulation causes more problems than it solves.
Innovation moves fast, the government moves slow. No one can accurately pick winners and losers, yet the government tries.
The free market magically corrects problems like this (in most cases) while governments struggle and seem only to score political points while making no real difference.
2
@John Smithson
Yup, having worked within federal, state, local govt. That is the reality.
2
When will we realize we don't need more "stuff" or gadgets to make us happy? Life is too short to focus on obsessive consumerism. Focus instead on relationship building, community cohesion and giving back. We're making oligarchs wealthier so they can continue to accumulate wealth and set agendas which don't benefit most of us.
15
This thinking should consider the collapse of the tumblr community at the end of last year. They instituted a new policy, and a huge part of their users simply deserted them in just a month or two.
They went to other sites, but they also created new sites essentially overnight.
This demonstrates that the market is right now capable of creating and destroying. The flexibility is there, proven just a few months ago.
That could be taken to mean that the giants exist on a knife edge.
Or, that could be taken to mean that the giants have not quite yet smothered every potential competitor.
Either way, something could still be done now. We just saw it done.
9
Americans have no idea of how their economy works. They are absolutely ignorant of the dishonesty of their biggest corporations, cheating all over the world and particularly in Europe where they make most benefice and pay zero taxes.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Starbucks, Netflix and others are not fiscally registered in the USA but in the EU, in Ireland. the repatriate the cash money via dubious banking system through London and the US offshore banks in the Caribbean.Without paying 1 $ of tax in Europe. They just invade the markets , steal private data without respecting the European laws.
20
The market concentration described did not just happen because Facebook and Google have the best products in the whole wide world. Facebook was allowed to buy Instagram and What’s App, to name two notable acquisitions. Google bought up Waze, for example, and has incorporated its algorithms and data collection systems into Google Maps.
The antitrust regulators have been asleep for some time now, and we can witness the results. It is hard to prove why something, namely major innovations, did not happen. But when you see one company buying up new competitors and thereby increasing its market share and financial clout, it becomes a lot easier to connect the dots. The breakup of ATT is a good model for the abuses committed by a virtual monopoly and what happens when it is ended.
12
@Silas Greenback Do you have trouble with your NY Times print delivery. My paper does not come, or it is ripped, or half is missing. And of course it is wet when it rains.
Where our government is failing us terribly is a legislative branch composed of members, from both parties, who do not work their job. The growth of tech monopolies is just one glaring example of a economic phenomena that has gone largely ignored by Congress. There is a long list of problems in this country, from health care to climate control, that require purposeful approaches to both examining the problem and developing long-term plans to address the problem. Instead we have a Congress consumed with taking breaks so they can raise money, or running for office, or applying for a future lobbying job---while we in our communities drive across bridges ready to collapse, fly in dangerous planes, and cross our fingers on how much medical coverage our employer will grant us next year.
67
@Amanda Jones
Oh, our representatives in Congress DO work their jobs, yessiree . . . but their jobs are not to represent us. Their jobs are to deliver government goodies to individuals and businesses in order to get cash in their campaign chests.
4
@Amanda Jones Let's be honest. No monopoly exists except in the fevered brains progressives who want to file endless class-action suits. Just because Amazon isn't a "woke" company is no justification for all of this outrage. SJW will scream that Tech companies have too much power and need to be brought down a notch. This is demonstrably false. Here's the real issue. The so-called establishment simply wants a greater say in how Tech is run. They speak only for themselves. I don't hear a huge outcry for greater regulation from their users.
Maybe establishment institutions despise the fact that Silicon Valley is leaving them behind, obliterating their power & influence. Maybe they are horrified that the "people" who's will on Earth they posture for will need them less & less. Let's all pray that this very positive trend continues.
2
These don't seem to me like obvious cases for Antitrust enforcement. With Google, while it has huge market share, there are quite a number of other search engines one could freely use, it's just that no one seems interested in doing so. Social media is an even less obvious area for government to intervene. These are a whole range of discreet products. Regulations to spur innovation in these areas does not seem obviously better than having consumers and the market sort it out. So far, in any case, the market has, with no evidence that I can see of any harm to consumers. I am perfectly free to use Bing or any other search engine at no cost and also free to engage with whatever social media I choose with zero disadvantage financially or otherwise.
29
Yeah, right. The government is going to figure out "how the technology works and how to make a great industry more open to innovation by replacing inadequate self-regulation with some real regulation."
That sounds more like a job for Superman or Supergirl, with their superhuman powers. Or better yet, for the market.
Because regulation has never helped innovation. Regulation stifles innovation. It can't help but. Innovation requires trial and error. It requires taking risks and must offer rewards. Failure must be an option.
Regulation allows for none of those things. Regulators force companies to comply, not innovate. They punish failure, rather than reward risktakers. They want stability and predictability, not the chaos and uncertainty in which innovation thrives.
Only the market stimulates innovation. The market has its faults, and regulation does have its place, but the idea that the government can create innovation is as misguided as the idea that the government can create jobs. It can't.
2
@John Smithson Except, Monopoly is a market failure, and that is where we are. Government isn't creating innovation, it is correcting a distortion in the market that has crippled the market's ability to innovate.
6
@John Smithson Free-market clap-trap. Smart regulation creates breathing room for innovation that would otherwise be stifled by monopoly.
I witnessed one example. The Bell System wanted their monopoly to include the equipment inside customers homes and offices. Smaller companies -- Codex, Milgo, Paradyne, and later Hayes -- with brilliant insights into information theory arose in the '70s to develop modems for leased lines and dial up. At one point, a Bell Labs researcher opined that it was possible to transmit no more than 7200 bits per second over those facilities. When Codex came out with a 9600 bit per second modem, they embarrassed Bell Labs and were tremendously successful with the new modem.
The Bell System actively interfered with these companies, first by trying to deny their customers the right to connect to the network, then by sabotaging those customers' leased lines, then through false and misleading sales tactics and anti-competitive bundling. The FCC repeatedly intervened to force open the network and prohibit anti-competitive practices.
Were it not for the FCC's Rulemakings and enforcement actions, the Bell System would have been forced these companies out of business. Given a chance to thrive, they instead pioneered technologies that are foundational to all of modern digital communications. The Rules later provided breathing space for the development of the commercial Internet.
1
In 1968 the FCC handed down the Carterfone decision which allowed devices external to AT&T’s network to be attached to the AT&T network. Prior to that only phones made by Western Electric, AT&T’s manufacturing arm, were allowed to connect to its network. At that point in time the phone on your desk or in your house was the standard good old phone that was created in the 1930’s. From 1968 – 1972, conservatively 15 new phone manufacturers entered the market, creating new technologies and phones that did a ton of stuff beyond saying hello. It also created thousands of private companies across the country that served to sell, install and maintain these non-Western Electric phones and connect them to the AT&T network.
In 1984 AT&T itself was broken up. All of a sudden other networks, starting with MCI, started to offer dial tone. From there network companies sprung up, offering technologies never imagined, creating new companies, new jobs, individual wealth and choice.
These companies have owned the “network” long enough, break them up and watch innovation flourish.
31
When was the last significant oil & gas company founded? the last airline? the last car company? the last aerospace company?
Tesla was founded over 15 yrs ago.
I know Kara hates tech companies the way Trump appointees hate the environment.
However, maybe we don't need the ceaseless drum-beating for increased regulation by legislators who don't even know how FB or Google make money.
2
Without a real choice for consumers who don't like their do-nothing attitude toward a hostile power's manipulation of our elections, Facebook just goes right on letting it happen. Without a real choice for consumers who don't like their failure to shut down fake videos of our politicians, Twitter just goes right on letting it happen.
Eliminate Facebook, Amazon, and Google for one week, and there will be riots in the street. Unemployment will skyrocket, and you will be out of a job without a soapbox. There is always a price for improved communication, especially among those in abject poverty, enhanced productivity, and technological advancement.
@Edward
Nonsense. If Facebook is off line for a week, people can email, text or call. If Amazon is off line, there are other stores, media offerings, etc. Google has a near monopoly on search and is used to research information ranging from scientific studies to where's a plumber --- so, yeah, losing Google might hurt.
But the solution to companies that have a monopoly is not to blithely accept it.
8
So this government cares about too much market concentration? Yeah, right.
How about going after the big banks? The cable companies? Wireless providers?
Going after Amazon has more to do with Trump's intense dislike of Jeff Bezos than market dominance. Going after Facebook is a warning shot; don't look too hard for Russian interference in the upcoming election.
3
Thank you for this editorial. It makes me think.
1
Do you ever stop and think how having umpteen search engines and social media apps would spread your info even farther afield? those apps have to stay in business - how? - by selling your data. I know I don't want to have many logons, or try to guess where my friends are. I've tried other engines, social media platforms, they all seem to be written for and targeted to tech elites. Us common folk get by just fine with what's out there, if something better comes along we'll migrate. Miss Swisher sometimes resembles a hurricane blowing milkweeds.
1
The new gilded age robber baron malefactors of great wealth in tech are bent on harvesting all of our private information for maximum profitable return before it is too late.
Compared to a Mark Zuckerberg aka Big Brother a man like John D. Rockefeller was a gnat.
Swisher is a thoughtful and well informed writer, but referring to Barr's speech on encryption as "fatuous" shows the drunken nature of the lack of diversity in silicon valley. Crime is serious stuff, and the need to have access to the phones of criminals is hardly fatuous.
4
Don't expect anything from Congress, since the Republicans will fight against anything that helps consumers.
8
@ron
It's more that they don't want to touch things that help themselves.
1
Any monopoly is a concern but tech is not the only area which should be examined. There are smaller everyday ones which factor into American lives, e.g., eyeglasses. Would be interesting to read about those as well.
4
@Heartland. And hearing aids!
The government is failing us, but they're not alone. Our national obsession with turning anything possible into a profit center is a huge part of the problem. We fail ourselves, too.
Today I learned of what I'm calling PatheticTech, which includes Invisible Boyfriend, a company that will invent a fake boyfriend or girlfriend for you. Your fake love will send you "up to 200 text messages a month and one personalized note" for only $25 a month. I'm saddened that people resort to this kind of thing, but it helps explain Facebook scammers. If people will knowingly pay a monthly fee for a love who explicitly doesn't even exist, how hard can it be to persuade others like them to spend thousands on a fake love who, at least, is a real person?
So it's not just the government failing to regulate. The fault is in ourselves as well.
But regulations would definitely help a lot.
6
I mean, I understand how giving away stuff to buy votes is despicable...u know, like free food, free housing, free phones, free cars...but I just don't find anything despicable about receiving free maps and free communication thru G-mail (& can u imagine if the post office, the USPS, managed e-mail, or can u imagine if NY's MTA engineers designed the internet ---- bravo to private industry [with an assist from NASA] and the engineers who built the internet and designed all these apps). I know it's sooo terrible --- oooh, que tragique!!! --- that Trump employed the very same Obama election strategy; that is, to target potential voters...and for this --- break-up FB!!!... PJS
3
If you were to give President Xi the ability to influence a single, non-military issue in the United States, I think he might ask for the destruction of our tech giants.
The NYT needs to balance out the recent anti-tech onslaught with some articles that make the case for why we're better off with a strong American tech sector with strong leading players. This is a global game, and in typical American fashion, the rise of Alibaba, WeChat, Tencent, Baidu, Xiaomi, etc aren't mentioned at all.
Maybe that doesn't generate as many clicks, but it might generate a bit more thinking on an important issue.
9
@Tim Mosk
"a strong American tech sector with strong leading players"..
While complaining, we benefit enormously from these services (actually, mostly Google IMHO) in many ways and I agree, need to support strong American players. On the other hand, however, it seems to me, we need to recognize that, increasingly, those players are being perceived as the proverbial "ugly American". Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are taking strong stands by enforcing legal and governmental actions curtailing what they feel are the actions of bad actors.
While, admittedly, the actions by some governments are censorship thinly veiled as public interest issues, the scrutiny some of the tech sector is receiving here at home regarding privacy seems to be spreading doubts abroad.
I'm amazed the big tech companies are not being more proactive in improving their image without intervention. Each day, it seems, another shoe drops regarding some questionable business practice. In any event, it's all about money. I too, would like to see the issue covered in a broader context as it is very complex.
The only way you can have anti-trust enfrocement in an industry where network effects are so strong (i.e. the value of something like a social network to someone depends on the number of users) is to force platforms to be inter-connected. There will be no other Facebook unless either a critical mass of users migrates at the same time, or the new network can operate seamlessly with Facebook.
Its the same idea as forcing cable companies to grant access to their networks to content providers or forcing electricity distributors to open their networks to all suppliers.
@NH There were social networks before Facebook, remember Friendster and MySpace? Facebook grew without being inter-connected. Any Facebook challenger needs to be different enough that seamless interoperability would probably be more of a liability than an asset.
2
There have been only two great computer inventions in past 20 years. One is the kindle so that we can read books w/o carrying them all over the place.
The second invention is the NANO ipod which I hear has been discontinued. Nothing in social media has been worth buying or using.
2
A wonderful, long overdue column! Thank you, Ms. Swisher!
2
I fully agree with this point of view.
The big tech aggressive market share growth, flowing over into ever more adjacent businesses, is a direct result of the US government's policy to stop antitrust enforcement.
The big tech companies of course have us fooled that they're giving us free services and therefore are not a typical mono/oligopoly with predatory pricing, that their services are the future and crucial for America, that they need scale to dominate worldwide against European and Chinese competitors (some merit), etc.
App developers and content providers used to be able to choose ad platforms who paid most per click/view at a given moment, but after Google and Facebook (now also Amazon) cornered the market, dev and content provider share of the ad revenue has dropped.
3
I fear that the only reason the current administration is finally getting around to “regulating” tech companies is to try to hijack Facebook, Google etc to enforce conservative thought — “Fox News reality.” DJT wants Google searches about him to come up with “America’s greatest President” as the results. In other words, it’s a Putin move - control the media, you control the country.
12
Left facebook years ago. Won't buy anything from Amazon (the avaricious Walmart of the day.) No longer shop at Whole Foods (too bad, I enjoyed the good stuff at "Whole Paycheck.") Happy to live informed by the NYT and other media. Your Comments sections and my email are social enough for me (too bad it has to be gmail.) The concept of monopolies and oligarchies escapes the minds of today's governments and even the people. Goodbye to our democratically capitalist economy.
10
@Pathfox You don't have to use gmail. The most common alternative is www.fastmail.com, which I use. If you don't pay for it you're not the customer.
2
@Pathfox Am with you. Add Netflix to the list of what I've cancelled or won't use as well.
As soon as I saw Amazon and Netflix paid no federal taxes, that was it for me. Haven't set foot in a Whole Foods in 2 years. Big deal.
I don't use gmail either. And am using non-Google browsers.
No one has to buy into any of this.
1
What about a car company? Power utility? Cable conglomerate? Why pick on tech?
3
@Mike A fair point to take the larger perspective. Antitrust is failing in the US and the resulting excess corporate consolidation is hurting competition, innovation and consumer prices.
This is true of the airline industry (oligopoly divided by airport), mobile telco (expensive compared to EU), ISPs (quid fiber rollout), ...
5
@Mike
Your examples are all highly capital intensive companies. Writing software is not.
10 software engineers can build a search engine or a social network from scratch, requiring no more capital than the cost of their computers.
The fact that none has done so in recent years says more than the fact that a new power utility wasn't created in 10 years.
It says that the current social networking and search companies have become network monopolies with too much power.
5
"Everything has to happen right away for puppies, small children and reformers of all ages" - H.Beam Piper.
When you invent something, you often dominate it. Google et al happen to be supremely good at what they do. Their dominance is hardly surprising given the "fat dumb and happy" approach to business in established commerce. It's also worthy of note that even in the tech business the level of ineptitude is mind-boggling.
In time, these dominators will fade, as they usually do. People will move towards something new and shiny, and the leviathans will lumber on without noticing until it's too late for them. Microsoft are re-inventing themselves after realizing that their operating system and office software business peaked a long time ago. Apple grew, retreated, grew again, and is now in a "where do we go now?" period, more than a little FD&H after the Genius passed away.
2
@Daedalus "When you invent something, you often dominate it." Evidence?
"Google et al happen to be supremely good at what they do." Again, evidence?
Amazon Prime is the product of our super fast smartphones. Gotta have that item ASAP. More FEDEX, UPS traffic and now those thin, Amazon delivery trucks roaming the suburban streets and emailing you an it-was-delivered photo. Overworked, underpaid drivers. More pollutants for our overwhelmed air. OK I signed onto Prime for the movie and series libraries. I choose the I-can-wait-extra-days delivery option tho!
3
Please, try to get Amazon's attention, to RE-USE the cardboard boxes sent from their fulfillment centers in the thousands every day. They could collect them at their drop-off stores and I volunteered to set up a pilot program in my town, to tear off labels, tape, and sort them by size (they are encoded and have the Amazon logo printed on them). Why try to recycle countless brand-new boxes? The Amazon 'sustainability' pages are of no help here. Ms. Swisher, I hope you read this!
17
@Lev Agree. But I'm way more interested in getting them to pay federal taxes. Now, that would be something!
3
It seems the only criterion that the Federal Government uses to act is whether or not the company pander to Trump. And that's fine with our Republican Senate.
8
The debate was already in Europe since several years, when it was completely absent from the US press. Americans are always behind.
The EU has voted a set of laws to fight the dishonesty of the US corporations in Europe .But they are already trying to cheat through other platforms after they agreed to respect the laws.
Barely a year after the law was implemented there are new investigations directed by Margarethe Vestager , the head of competition.
That is the typical American culture, always trying to abuse and find shortcuts to pass in front of the others or cheat from behind.
While pretending in the face to do things legally.
5
Facebook is the slum of the earth. A crime site. Size is not the main concern here. Our security and stability are. Without a warning or our permission, Facebook exposed us to the worst that the planet has to offer. Not content with that, they sold our information, used and manipulated us. While most had no idea that all of this was happening. Facebook situation needs to be addressed urgently and effectively.
13
Igbi, how so? I never use Facebook, but I don't see how it could possibly be as evil as you say.
1
@Igbi. I agree. I deleted my Facebook account several years ago, and am happy to have done so.
We also have only one commercial airplane manufacturer. Even more scandalous.
13
As long as Republicans pull the strings - including the Republican Supreme Court - the monsters will get their way like Facebook just did. Translation: the only way and I mean the only way is thus: Democratic President, Democratic House, Democratic Senate. Okay, get depressed again.
6
This could be used as an object lesson in the failure of the unregulated 'free" market
Unfortunately it is a lesson on stock valuation and obscene wealth and influence.
6
I watched THE GREAT HACK last night. Cambridge Analytica folded but where is all their files? Trump's 2016 digital strategist is his 2020 campaign manager. There is every reason to believe they will employ the same tactics abaddon on Facebook and, what's worse, the brains of the "persuadables" have already been hacked.
Watch Carol Cadwalladr's TED Talk.
8
Thanks for that. Karen gets read every time. I hold out absolutely no hope for the consumer getting a fair shake. So keep selling out your soul to the company store, they already own it, and as they say, you can't get blood out of rock. As for the gutless politicians on both sides of the aisle, a pox on yours.
TikTok was founded in 2016 and seems to be a popular social media company. Snap Inc has an ad platform which would have started sometime after 2011. Jet was founded in 2014, although it was acquired by Walmart.
1
ms. swisher seems eager to grind something, but i'm not sure which axe she has in mind. there's no consumer harm, that's conceded, there's angst and agita distributed here and there, no question 'bout it, but -- what's your point?
isn't "partial satisfaction" what the modern corporate digital enterprise is selling? apart from the craven hole in our souls carved by the hunger for selfies and twitter likes, isn't the point that the consumer always desire more -- more selfies, more twitter likes? and hath not the digital corporate state delivered unto thee the more that was promised?
swisher wants more companies to do more innovation. but innovation in what?
if you aren't already aware that the point of all this digital innovation is the complete capture and control of the consumer mind and wallet, then you haven't been paying attention. and, surely, under the guise of "more convenience for you," future innovation will make corporate tracking and data analysis smarter, more seamless, more integrated, more -- heck, the corporations have all kinds of buzzwords for consumer capture and control. i can't remember them all, i'm retired.
so let's hoist a feelgood buzzword like "innovation", and let's salute it valiantly. onward, innovators, into the future! innovate a better all encompassing digital corporate state! track me, control me, feel me! feel my pain! sell me something! sell it to me now! i need it! i need it now!
2
The EU is able to do more because the profits of these companies do not flow to their governments. If these companies were based in another country, our government would do more to protect our citizens. Money talks and, even though these companies pay less taxes than the rest of us, they have the lobbyists and contributions to get what they want. The government will do the minimal they can get away with to make them look good enough.
1
@Publicus All the US corporations of Tech but not only , are fiscally registered in the EU but cheat to pay zero taxes.
1
I'd as soon see the government investigate the fast-food industry, the coffee-shop industry, the soft-drink industry, the petroleum industry, the cable-TV industry, and all European companies operating in the US that make a profit.
2
Penalizing bigness is passe. Who does not want services that are easily known to be global? Our approach to such entities should recognize design and scale as fundamental rules that must apply. I personally believe that creating a scale on the basis of 10K > 100K and so forth suggests the responsibilities of all major services. This thinking sees the big change as ubiquity and suggests that the power of regulation acquire an equality with those it must help organize properly. Private or public are losing their old senses in today's world.
1
Remember AOL Time Warner? Pretty big that. Was. How about Disney? Dominates the movie and theme park industry and is rich. Remember when there were just three free television networks? Facebook is wildly popular entertainment that sells advertising but cleverly produces no content. It can’t help but make money. Google and Amazon are different, but let’s face it they are pretty convenient - good at what they do. Do they actually stop other companies from rising up and performing better or is this proposing that we simply punish companies for being good at what they do?
7
@AG Well, yes. Amazon definitely does. That's been a major plank of Elizabeth Warren's platform.
1
@AG
They have become network monopolies. Everyone now uses them only because everyone else uses them, not necessarily because they are superior to all future upstarts. That is especially the case for social networks. Right now, Google and Facebook seem reasonably customer-focused and "nice." Once everyone is locked in, a future Facebook or Google might no longer play so nice. This a textbook case for regulation.
3
There is no solution to this problem except one... don't use them. I simply don't use google to search / shop for personal items. I don't share pics except via email or text. I use linkedin only for job search. I don't tweet or instagram or use facebook at all. That's what the rest of you need to do. It'll be fine. And you won't have to worry about any of this stuff. Good luck.
35
For search, duckduckgo is just as good as google and has no tracking. Most stuff that is sold on Amazon can be found on other sites with a small amount of effort.
23
@Ed I am afraid duckduckgo is nowhere near Google Search. It is a great effort, nevertheless. A good search engine requires massive resources and gets better the more it is used. Those two attributes are not within the grasp of duckduckgo. But I truly admire their efforts.
8
@Ed
Your facts are right, but I disagree with your result. Duckduckgo may provide slightly fewer results on any given topic, but when you understand how Google operates, and how it makes money, I find myself with an easy decision. Remember too that DDG will get better faster as it approaches critical mass.
Apple maps is not as good as Google maps, but they don't keep your history, while Google does. That too makes the choice easy.
I've functioned quite well for two years now with minimal Google, and I think I'm better off for it in the long run.
6
@Ed. I completely agree with you re DuckDuckgo. I have been using it for well over a year.
In additition, I use Firefox for my browser which is quite good at blocking trackers. (On NYT site this morning, it has blocked 10 trackers, 9 NYT cookies and one third party tracking cookie). It also has a nifty button if you want to delete all cookies over optional periods of time - 5 minutes to 24 hours.
Gmail and youtube still a problem though.
5
Will the gov help these companies? Not unless they have an army of lobbyists and plenty of cash for campaign contributions.
3
@Philip Getson
Exactly, lobbyists rule congress and the voters have no say!
Surely the biggest harm to "consumers" would be the loss of their democracy.
Facebook's deep user data allowed Russia (and who knows who else) to affect the outcome of our elections. Even without the involvement of a foreign power, the kind of political ads that Facebook enables are a corrosive influence on politics.
And social media has replaced traditional journalism as a news source for many people. The conspiracy theories and outright lies that proliferate on social media platforms are often indistinguishable from real news.
They know everything about us. And they have the power to control public opinion. Isn't that enough to require government action?
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Elizabeth A, what would you expect the government to do? Decide what ads we see? Decide what speech we hear?
Despite the problems with these big companies, I'd rather decide myself what I see and hear than have the government do it for me.
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@John Smithson There's a long history of regulation in the news and advertising industries. The Fairness Doctrine (once upon a time), the ban on tobacco advertising, the requirements for disclosure in political ads, FCC curbs on ownership of news outlets. You may think you're deciding what to see and hear, but once every outlet is controlled by big tech, how will you know that what you're choosing from is all there is see and hear?
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Elizabeth A, I've been a lawyer for 35 years working with and for companies in high tech, both here and for 10 years in Japan. I was general counsel at a company that went from a three-person startup to a public company with a billion dollars in revenue. I've dealt with regulators and been in charge of "compliance" and seen how all this regulation works.
To oversimplify things a bit, I'd say that regulation stifles innovation rather than helps it. Regulation stifles competition rather than helps it. The freer the market, the more innovation and the more competition. Free as in free from government interference.
Many seem to think that government always has the solution to problems like this. I disagree. Not only does government not have the solution, government makes the problem worse. In many cases, government creates the problem.
Kara Swisher is like a politician who surveys a complex situation and comes up with a pithy policy proposal that will get her clicks and views and make her some money. It won't do a darn thing to help.
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Most of the comments argue that no consumer harm occurs if they use Google and FaceBook willingly, and hence no anti trust action is needed. But that is not the only effect of a monopoly or near monopoly; they blunt an increase in consumer welfare by stifling innovation. And that is the point Ms. Swisher is making.
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Chickenlover, how does having a monopoly or near monopoly stifle innovation? That's the key. If a monopolist does not innovate, consumers can switch to a company that does innovate. In that sense, the problem is self-correcting.
The market always regulates better than the government. The government is too blind (aided in its blindness by lobbyists) and too slow to regulate these industries. Free the market (as antitrust lawyer Gary Reback says) rather than try to replace it with government oversight.
I don't want to oversimplify a complex problem. But it does help if consumers let companies like Google and Facebook know of their displeasure by not using their services. Use their competitors instead. That's what I do.
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@John Smithson The barrier to entry can be too high for new competitors.
If the technology roadmap of ISPs in the early 2000s had been followed for example, we would almost all have fiber broadband in the cities by now. Instead, the overly powerful broadband providers chose to milk xDSL and cable Internet, slow walking fiber rollout and overpricing their services, because there are no challengers.
I too have deleted Facebook, but the price of getting around WhatsApp would be too high as most of my contacts (especially in Europe) aren't on any other networks.
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I like the analogy with a cheap date, Ms. Swisher, but I wish I thought that the platforms even gave us as much consideration as that.
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If Trump were not president, I would say that straightening out the Tech business monopolies was serious. With him as president, I would suggest fighting those monopolies is a marginal endeavor.
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Capitalism is a completely rigged system as it is presently applied, whereas all tax incentives are geared to accelerate, the MORE money that you make or have. This is truly for private individuals as much as it is for corporations - especially with inversion of profits.
Ask yourself if the government would step in (and whether it would be still called a capitalism) if there were only 3 or 4 shirt companies with only a couple of colors ? How about bread making companies ? How about pharmaceutical companies ?
alright, scratch that last one, because the level of monopoly is almost as much (if not worse) than some tech companies.
In many ways, the economy (global that is now with tentacles everywhere that work in the shadows and the ''grey'' areas) is FAR more gilded than it ever was in the gilded age and in Roosevelt's time.
He was a Progressive AND a republican, and he broke up all of the trusts without blinking an eye. A few Democratic candidates have been promoting to do the same their entire careers, but only in the last decade has there been any traction at all. It might take another decade or two before anything is remotely done again.
However, by then there might be only a few companies producing or offering a service for all manner of thing, and by then, it will be too late to do anything.
Time to wake up, people.
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Nothing the Trump administration does is not self-serving.
The probe into tech companies is intended as a threat to extort campaign money from them.
Don’t expect results. Republicans stopped serving non-capital income people a long time ago.
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Antitrust law does NOT prohibit monopolies. A company that wins 100% of the market because it makes a product that consumers want has not done anything illegal thereby. Antitrust prohibits the *abuse* of market power to inhibit competition or earn unfair profits.
There may be some good arguments for antitrust action against major tech companies, but Ms. Swisher offers none of them. To simply complain that a company has won a large market share is irrelevant as a legal matter. If people prefer Google and choose to use it, it would be absurd for the federal government to attempt to change that state of affairs. If Google is abusing its power to prevent others from offering competing products that customers might otherwise choose, THAT is a problem--and that is a story this column never even seeks to tell.
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@J Well put. Also when was the last time someone started up a new railroad? Her beginning argument are flawed too.
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@J this is the traditional interpretation of anti-trust law, certainly. Consumer harm is the central tenet - no harm to consumers, no reason to invoke anti-trust.
But a growing number of lawyers and other experts have been raising questions, even right here in the NYT, about whether or not this is the correct way to approach antitrust in an era when network effects can shape marketplaces in ways that simply don't exist for, say, gasoline or railroads.
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The state of high tech and the state of our national government demonstrate that the notion of democracy, rule by people, is no longer the face of the U.S. Instead, we are governed by greed -- anything goes as long as it is measured solely by dollars and cents -- and racism -- anything goes if it perpetuates the power of white Christian males.
We have faced similar challenges before and the electorate has risen to them. It does not look promising this time.
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"continuous partial satisfaction" - hilariously apt.
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I wonder who will benefit if we crack down on Google while leaving Comcast, VZW and AT&T underregulated? Who can actually collect all our data, all the time?
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Correction: Jet.com was founded in 2014 and was the last wide-ranging e-commerce start-up. It was just gobbled up by Walmart in 2016 for $3B.
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the hostility is clear. The do what, why and how are lacking. Regulations a la Europe are possible but both too much and too little (eg the right to be forgotten worldwide is too much, and unconstitutional here). Data controls and antitrust law, perhaps combined with public service commission oversight are the right tools, rightly combined. She should have said that.
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"Facebook and its Instagram unit have close to 50 percent of the social media market, dwarfing all the other companies in monthly active users tenfold."
This is liking whining about the fact that there hasn't been a new entity that blings up our mobile with rhinestones in the last 10 years. Who cares? These things have zero value. In 20 years we won't believe we ever wasted so much time at them.
Amazon has 50% of the online retail market because they do it better than anyone else. It's that simple. Should they have that large a market share? Probably not. But in a gov that just let T-mobile and Sprint merge where we have 3 domestic airlines... well you get the picture.
The answer to all of this was blindingly simple 50 years ago. Anti-trust laws.
hum. But recognize most internet "things" are not stuff we need. They are a manufactured need. So first, let's figure out how to manage that.
And Beyond Meat and Zoom are both excellent products but I'm missing how they relate to this story...
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I have to differ. We had two centuries of newspapers that were free to print their biases, targeting adds at folks who agreed. It’s no different now. I stopped using Facebook about a year ago, nothing happened, I just don’t have to look at headlines meant to pull me into some online bar fight. What would be more useful is to start taxing online giants so we can pay for infrastructure and share costs for health care.
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@Gary, Exactly. Most of these companies pay zero federal taxes and the same is true in a number of states like mine, Wisconsin. Meanwhile, middle and lower middle class individuals and families shoulder a significant tax burden. It's time that tax codes be changed so that Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc., pay their fair share.
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@Gary I don't see an equivalency between newspapers and Facebook or Google. Facebook has 2 billion users. Google has a 90% + worldwide market share. The scale and reach of these services are unprecedented. Newspapers are mostly based in cities and -- in fairly recent history -- had local competitors.
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Generally, the federal government is filled with Barr's that don't know the first thing about these companies. But, they shouldn't have to know anything about the companies in order to control them. Competition is good for consumers and good for the market place. This is grade school stuff. Indeed, we have fallen asleep to the control big tech has in our lives. We all pay exorbitant prices for phones and plans which seem necessary in today's world when thirty years ago we paid nearly nothing for these things because these things didn't exist. And, you know what, we survived just fine. Big tech not only controls the market but they have convinced us that we need them. A little competition would be nice, to say the least.
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We are at the point in any disruptive innovation where regulation is needed and utilities typically form as part of the regulatory impulse. But in this case we might still be too early. Effective utility formation requires more and deeper standards which would start at the top with bread and butter information technology or IT. IT needs to be the first to become a utility to support others. We are so far from that happening that the Defense Department is making a sole source purchase worth
$10 billion in an effort to bypass all of the confusion and finger-pointing that would result from a multi-vendor selection. Only Microsoft and Amazon are left in contention leaving some well-established mega companies like Oracle on the sidelines. Ironically by some measures Oracle might be closest to pulling off the first phase of utilization. Meanwhile all we can do is regulate and maybe a good place to start would be to force all players to provide unambiguous identification of all users.
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@Denis What do you mean about Oracle pulling off the first phase of utilization? Aren't AWS and Azure pretty much utilities?
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@Ernie Cohen The autonomous DB, security, and Datawarehouse give ORCL an important lead. Also, the June announcement between ORCL and MSFT concerning interoperability between Azure and ORCL, to me, put ORCL ahead. AWS doesn't really keep up with MSFT or ORCL.
Instead of hoping the government bails them out, perhaps Reddit should just build a good product that the masses actually want to use. Reddit isn't Facebook because of Facebook. Reddit isn't Facebook, because of Reddit. There's certainly enough jealousy and spite to go around in San Francisco. They were all going to be Zuckerberg, until they weren't. Meanwhile, the only reason we are having this discussion is because Democrats are still bitter that Hillary Clinton lost the election, and now both parties want to neutralize Facebook and Google as political advertising channels. They still believe Facebook gave up user info to Cambridge Analytica, which they used to target Americans with Facebook ads benefiting Trump. I am sure Brad Parscale enjoys the mythology, but he'd probably admit it's not really that hard to target a Facebook ad, and not much targeting was needed. Facebook has dramatically overhauled their policies and practices around data and political advertising, but Democrats are still fighting 2016's war.
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Spoken lime a silicon valley lobbyist / apologist. The distractions are obvious. Without a zillion addicted users FB, Google, Netflix, Amazon, App,e would be out of business.
Building great products! Ha, that’s a laugh. Once you’ve got the addicts, all you need to do is be the supplier.
These companies are in clear violation of anti trust kaw.
Talking about products is a red herring
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All this is good in theory, but there need to competitors worthy of use.
I remember the mid to late nineties when there were at least 7 search engines before Google came along. I wasn't happy with any of them. Metacrawler was better as it collated from different search engines such as Altavista and Yahoo.
Search is a hard space, requiring good algorithms and scale. Wanting competition does not make it happen. We are still a free market and the government can't dictate people to use different search engines.
The goal of anti trust regulation is to make sure that there is room for competition, not to help competitors. So if there is a worthy adversary the FTC needs to make sure that they can compete fairly.
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There's a curious and rather unholy dynamic at work here in that Republicans seem captive to a liberal-markets ideology under which they cannot touch any private enterprise's inner workings lest they set a dangerous precedent for their corporate financial backers. And yet these big tech companies by the nature of their company cultures swing decidedly towards the yuppie social-liberalism of the Democratic Party - a trend which is increasingly reflected in large corporations across many other sectors as well - so much so that the Democrats can scarcely dispense with their support. Not to mention, the single largest and arguably most reliably Democratic state in the Union - California - is now at the point of depending entirely on these companies to keep it afloat. With industry hollowed out and Hollywood reeling under declining ticket sales and international pressure, Silicon Valley is all California's got.
So what will it take to break through and finally end the orgy for these Silicon Valley behemoths?
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