The techlash against Amazon, Facebook and Google, and what they can do | Hacker News Reader

The techlash against Amazon, Facebook and Google, and what they can do

economist.com

90 pointsknown27 comments

You know writing has missed the mark when the only discussion is around the literary conceit.

Also let's please not start saying "techlash".

Honestly the whole concept seems like a media push by vested interests even considering my own bubbles and biases. I have encountered little of it from actual commenters - not even in areas where astroturfing and axe grinding is rampant. Anti-Facebook people usually just say delete your Facebook account not trust bust it. Anti-Amazon usually object to warehouse conditions and complain of counterfit products. Small business owners use it to project their reach. I have purchased comics from Amazon before and it was shipped directly from a neighboring state's comic book shop for one.

The concept of splitting is inane really - what would make a good division?

The selective condemnation is also highly suspicious - Comcast is one of the most hated companies and yet they don't talk about splitting them up or their defacto actual monopolies?

Journalism would be better off not taking liberties just so they can push their PoV.

Yes, there may be reasons to regulate some aspects of tech, and we can have discussions about the merits of breaking companies up.

However, the tendency to gang up and form public opinion on the public’s behalf is concerning and rightfully leads to suspicion on the media, their intentions and allegiance (truth, narrative, etc.)

Good job to Larry Page for side stepping and putting Sundar under the spotlight.

https://archive.st/3mp8

Tangental, but the mobile experience is terrible: https://i.imgur.com/yW4VZNV.png

http://archive.fo/rjUB3

Note that this is from January.

> what they can do

I do find the presumptiousness of this type of clickbaity headline amusing, as if those three utter behemoths don't likely have vast amounts of brainpower deployed at corporate strategy already!

Do you think the CC'd recipients actually email each other or participate in elite email chains like this?

That'd be something else.

I'm not sure those email addresses are real. This seems more like a PR piece for the consulting company.

But they so write each other from time to time, at least I remember something along those lines from the no-poaching emails that surfaced in a lawsuit about agreed salary caps (My memory might be corrupted here, I'm not sure about it)

The address are not real, just like the email exchange. I think the consulting company is fake as well; the email format is just a stylistic choice to dress up the article in a different way.

I'm sure they do. Not all of them at once, probably, but they do things like dine together: https://www.cultofmac.com/471423/tim-cook-spotted-dining-wit...

You might be surprised, it is a matter of public record that they do just that.

Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, Sergei Brin, and others illegally conspired -- via email -- to avoid competing for labor, suppressing employee pay. It resulted in a (somewhat) successful class-action lawsuit against Google and Apple for their violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

If you'd like to read some of the emails that the un-convicted criminals who operate these companies exchange:

https://www.wired.com/2009/08/palm-ceo-rejected-jobs-anti-po...

If anyone ought to be savvy enough to not trust crimes to the privacy of email, it ought to be those people.

Yep, criminals often make foolish mistakes.

It makes one wonder other crimes might turn up with a good discovery process. There might be enough for a Fox show: America's Dumbest Tech Executive Criminals.

Isn't that article just corporate propaganda?

Not, if you think it is suggesting giants to slow down a little.

Ah right, thanks for pointing that out. For some reason I read it as several emails sent from tech giants addressing the public concerns about themselves.

Ehh, I'm not sure if I liked this piece that much. I think it's grossly oversimplifying the issues and presenting the solution as "do this, not that, and everything will be ok". Also:

> Tim Cook <timcook@apple.com>

That's not his real email.

It's a literary conceit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceit ergo fictional addresses have been used, and madey-uppy corporate name referencing key idea from economist Adam Smith.

edit: Well, I liked it. I don't think it grossly oversimplified the issues.

Clearly big tech operates monopolies. Probably Google/Alphabet should never have been allowed top buy DoubleClick. Facebook definitely should not have been allowed to buy Instagram and WhatsApp. Microsoft still has a desktop monopoly. As the article says Amazon controls 40% of online commerce (in the US). Imagine controlling 40% of bricks and mortar trade. The mind boggles. Apple has competition in every area but they lock their users in to their ecosystem in a way that is not seen in other markets. Imagine if you bought a car and then you had to keep buying cars from that manufacturer because switching brands was too much of a hassle. Or banks. Or whatever. Netflix has competition so they're fine.

It's not a crime to have huge valuations. It should make people sit up and take notice. I don't think FAAAM will reform themselves. If it wasn't for open source and Linux things would be way way worse. If the regulators don't do their job it'll be up to people like us to build open source products to neuter these companies. Probably we should be doing that anyway.

lots of people do exactly that do. brand loyalty has some element of perception of difficulty in switching built in. you buy an iPhone coz you think finding all the apps you use will be too difficult. you buy a Toyota coz you think buying anything else would be a waste of money. you stick with a bank coz the thought of re-doing the documentation and talking to customer care is repulsive

companies spend a lot of time and money on enforcing that perception sometimes even acquiring other companies to do so.

That's not her real email either: evesmith@invisiblehandstrategies.com

I suspect that the memo was not even written by her, the real author being her husband Adam.

It's a PR piece for invisible hand consulting.

…"Invisible Hand" being a fictional firm, created for this article, with its name taken from the "invisible hand" that drives the market.

The irony about all of this is that you can live a perfectly normal life without Amazon, Facebook or Google these days. We sat around and watched in fascination and then horror as these companies became the "BAADD" companies they are today. Why does anyone expect them to self regulate? When you grow a business to this size, you not only learn a lot about your product and business but you also learn a lot about manhandling DC. As long as lobbying is a thing (FB has spent around $7 million this year alone), this is the shit sandwich we're all going to be eating for awhile.

>The irony about all of this is that you can live a perfectly normal life without Amazon, Facebook or Google these days.

What is considered 'Normal'. If I want users to find my website, they use google.

If I want to buy all of my components for a project and get them in 2 days, I use Amazon.

I suppose these are avoidable, I'd lose about 200 users a day + use digikey and spend more on 2 day shipping...

To be competitive I need to use these services.

I cant say the same about Facebook, Apple, and Netflix. I dont use those services.

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