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Comment by oceanstone | Hacker News Reader

> The key components of the Warren plan include passing legislation that would designate companies with annual global revenue above $25 billion that provide marketplace, exchange, or third-party connectivity as “platform utilities” and prohibit those companies from owning participants on their platforms.

As a Googler, speaking for myself, this seems like an interesting idea that could positively impact the tech scene.

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I wonder how people’s perspectives might change if the largest and most influential companies of the next century aren’t American.

I bet China isn’t as keen to see its powerhouses broken up. Because it’s holding the leashe.

Spoiler alert: They probably won't be either way. Our population is too small by comparison, we just lucked out in that it took China/India longer to industrialize.

Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. If you attribute America industrializing before China/India as luck, then I will lose trust in anything else you say.

By 1915 America had higher GDP per capita than most of Western Europe - BEFORE WW1. Western Europe had higher GDP per capita than China/India by like 1200 AD. You are so so far off the mark.

Also, India's population only started exponentially growing in the late 1800s. By that point America had already industralized and was already the richest.

Go ahead and put your money where you mouth is, sell all of your US stock, and invest in African stocks since population growth is apparently the only thing that matters.

The funny thing is that is actually a decent if risky strategy - they have more room to grow as they develop. Essentially diminishing returns run backwards".

"We were fortunate that we industrialized sooner," not "rate of industrialization is totally random and unpredictable."

Edit: Also, the predictions are for next century. Even if they were making the straw claim you believe they are, they probably won't be around to collect on the super-long-term investment you suggest.

Edit #2: Checked out your comment history, looks like you're just a garden-variety racist who thinks that white people are better than everyone else.

That's a very bigoted way of interpreting my comment

Alright slow down there, chief. I'm making a comment on the internet, I'm not trying to sell your firstborn or something.

I said that the US _lucked out_ in that China didn't industrialize first. I didn't say that industrialization was a product of luck.

If China were to develop to the extent that the US has, which it's on a path to do, then population will absolutely matter. An American company with a market of 650 million potential customers isn't going to hold a candle to a market with 1.4 Billion.

I'd absolutely divest in the US and invest in China if I were going to be alive for another 100 years. Africa wouldn't be a bad bet either... which is why China is already making significant investments there.

American products get used all around the world. China’s market is hard to penetrate for US tech but on the flip side, Chinese tech doesn’t typically fare well outside China either. Maybe TikTok is the only exception. Wechat is used by overseas Chinese or people who want to talk to Chinese people.

Why the $25 billion restriction, I wonder? Is it just to make this more of a "bill of attainder" aimed at the specific companies in question, or there some principled reasoning behind it?

I could get behind something like this if it also presented these platforms with a consistent framework for moderating content. They reach levels where they are more akin to public spaces than digital communities, and should have moderation strategies which mirror this.

Moderation of public utilities would be unconstitutional.

I also see Elizabeth Warren has created a set of powerful enemies way too early that will do much to stop her from becoming America's first woman president. If you wanna do something like this wait until you are in office. These are not issues that your average American cares about.

Unfortunately I agree. Since Silicon Valley leans left so heavily this is the sort of thing you sit on until much later in the process. I personally feel that Google, Facebook, et al are too big and powerful now, this is going to immediately set those companies against her so she's kneecapping her campaign before it even gets started.

> Since Silicon Valley leans left so heavily

I really believe it doesn't. No serious concentration of wealth ever does. Yes, personal attitudes in SV are often liberal, but the economic outlook most common in the place is akin to Andrew Carnegie with a git repo. It's this economic outlook where her proposal targets.

With all due respect, I don’t think you speak for the average American.

edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted, since I basically stated the truth: the parent poster doesn't speak for the average American.

Ii that really a thing though?

Have we seen tech company lobbyists really push a lot of weight around? Companies that seemed to genuinely support net neutrality didn't seem to have much of any impact / participate all that much.

> Companies that seemed to genuinely support net neutrality

Which companies were those? Netflix and google both made statements that they support net neutrality, but I didn't see them lift a finger to do anything about it: it seems to have been mostly a pr move.

That's my point. I don't feel like we've seen tech companies really lobby on a level where there is any impact on the national level.

FAANG are outlobbying most other industries, they're just doing it to influence issues that aren't currently gathering much scrutiny or media attention.

> Google said it lobbied on dozens of issues, reflecting how integral its services have become to American lives and commerce. The filing cited privacy, data security, antitrust, taxes, tariffs, trade, the opioid crisis, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, autonomous vehicles, immigration, the future of work, encryption and national security.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-22/google-se...

Netflix added banners promoting net neutrality to their website if I remember correctly.

>>These are not issues that your average American cares about.

Why not? I think there are wings of both the major parties that feel that there is an "us vs the big bad corporations". Both sides feel there are inherent flaws with the current economics, but would solve it in very different ways.

Employment and how multinationals run themselves are things many people care about. They just can't agree on how to fix it.

That said, I don't disagree that pissing off a group of megacorps this early in the race seems like it's just begging for powerful enemies. But it also seems like it's possible this becomes a point that many of the primary candidates pick up. In that case, it basically becomes a moot point since there's no candidate for the pro-FAANG lobby to back in the field that will align closer with their goals. And when it the game becomes <Democrat> Vs. Trump, everything changes.

No one can make an informed claim about the correct timing here, and to do so and say we should wait smells of concern trolling.

No, it wouldn't make sense for Warren to wait if she wants progress. She should introduce the idea to the public as soon as possible, move the overton window, and if the idea has merit it'll be easier for someone in the future to carry it forward.

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