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Comment by eli_gottlieb | Hacker News Reader

I feel like these kinds of Valley-flattering articles can only continue as long as the Department of Justice and Department of Labor continue to enforce antitrust and labor laws leniently. Google and Facebook are monopolies, Uber's profit margins shrink whenever the drivers decide to stick up for themselves and demand legal rights and status as employees, and a who's-who list of tech companies have been declared guilty in court of colluding to suppress engineers' salaries and bargaining power.

I look forward to seeing the interesting technologies the tech sector will concoct and market when the strong arm of the law finally forces it to concoct and market technologies rather than collecting monopoly rents or exploiting disadvantaged labor.

http://thebaffler.com/videos/graeber-thiel#.VxPmqyZyhyQ

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Another question that's coming up more and more is whether companies like Facebook and Twitter need to be regulated by the FCC as broadcasters or telecoms. Facebook and Twitter have been blatantly influencing feeds and content for political ends and at some point people are probably going to decide they shouldn't be allowed to do that.

It is mixed regulation. The FCC relies as much on the presence of Nielsen, which is private, as broadcasters do.

Twitter, Facebook, et al, don't have a Nielsen.

Uber is a bad example because it's losing billions every year. It may just evaporate when the current bubble pops. In my opinion, they are mistreating employees because they are getting desperate to find a way to make the business profitable.

>Uber is a bad example because it's losing billions every year.

IMHO, that's what makes it a good example. It can only make money by driving its drivers' wages well below what they themselves will accept or what competing, traditional taxi companies currently pay. With the spigot of VC cash turned off, Uber is exposed as having little viable business model besides straightforward exploitation. There's basically nothing innovative or original about them that lets them make money off nothing but an app for coordinating other agents' labor. The drivers are either incredibly exploited wage-workers or independent contractors who therefore don't need Uber, but can't be both.

Has anyone explored why Uber is hemorrhaging so much money? Is it just over expansion?

They are in a battle for China.

The problem with your narrative is that:

(1) Traditional taxi companies don't usually have employees. They mostly have independent contractors - just like Uber

(2) In many areas, taxi drivers actually pay the taxi company for the right to use the taxi. They do so because the taxi company owns or rents a government license required to operate a taxi.

If the exercise is to compare being a taxi driver for Uber or a taxi driver for a traditional taxi company, in many areas, there is no case to be made that Uber offers worse working conditions.

Well in that case, app or no app, it's a good thing taxi drivers' godawful working conditions have come under public scrutiny.

Are you advocating making the US government larger in order to force the US private sector to shrink?

Because that is heresy.

Heretical though it may be, yes, I am in fact suggesting that the US government enforce its existing competition laws, which are already on the books, in order to force a few megacorps down to a size where they will be subject to fair market competition and will have to come up with a business model besides monopoly rent.

> Google and Facebook are monopolies

Which markets are Google and Facebook monopolizing?

Google seems to recognize they are at, or near, a monopoly in search.

Senator Herb Kohl: "But you do recognize that in the words that are used and antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant -- special power dominant for a monopoly firm. You recognize you're in that area?"

Eric Schmidt: "I would agree, sir, that we’re in that area....I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of monopoly findings is this is a judicial process."

Search, and nonprofessional social networking, respectively. As noted below, Eric Schmidt has already de facto admitted to Google holding a monopoly position.

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