Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

This probe doesn't make any sense. Lawmakers are either seriously misguided, or have an agenda against specific tech companies.

One aspect of the investigation claims that tech companies are stifling competition and that the big names are monopolistic. I'd argue that's as far from reality as possible - it's never been easier to start a tech company, and the barrier to entry is extremely low. You know a market with a high barrier to entry, and literal laws preventing new competition? Internet service providers. Investigate the ISPs instead.

The second aspect of the probe surrounds concerns about personal data and its aggregation. But why bother investigating how Google et al are handling this data when there are clear offenders who have behaved with gross negligence and suffered no consequences (Equifax)? If those companies are not investigated, what possible reason could there be to investigate Google (who have not suffered a large-scale data breach) other than politically-motivated harassment? You know what would be more productive than investigating big tech companies - passing actual legislation like the GDPR to set up a framework to prevent the kind of privacy issue these legislators are supposedly concerned with.

have you ever tried to start a competitor to facebook? plenty of platforms have, and you haven’t ever heard of them because whilst better, facebook has a monopoly by way of critical mass... it’s almost impossible to pull significant populations away from their platform: not even google could, and google plus was an excellent product; far better than facebook in almost every way

I've heard of plenty of social media platforms (Diaspora, G+, LiveJournal) that have failed to gain traction for various reasons. I'm not convinced that it's because one of their competitors was just too big. The same argument could have been made that MySpace would never be dethroned a decade ago.

And I've also witnessed many successful social media platforms evolve in the post-Facebook era (Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok). There are also a plethora of small communities like DeviantArt, image boards, and specialty forums. My point is, of course cloning an existing platform won't pull populations away from it - users are sticky. That's true with any product. Folks need a reason to move, and once they have that reason, they're happy to do so. The beauty of social media is you don't even have to move, you can just have accounts in both places.

So I don't think the fact that a Facebook clone failed means that Facebook has a monopoly on social media. They might have a strong momentum with users that prefer Facebook-flavored social media, but given the market of all the different available platforms, it doesn't seem like there is a lot of demand for Facebook #2. Having a differentiator is the killer, and that makes the difference between G+ and TikTok.

What about Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Slack, LinkedIn, Reddit? There’s countless social media/chat/video/news aggregation competitors to FB. In what category of business do you think it has a monopoly?

Just two kinds of smartphones have substantial market share, Android and iOS. Even Microsoft didn't manage to break the duopoly.

Edit: incoherence

That was Microsoft’s fault. No one asked Microsoft to shovel ads in my operating system, no one told them to force telemetry, it was Microsoft's choice not to open up retail stores everywhere with trained staff who can handle a broken or replacement device immediately. They didn’t provide a curated App Store where I didn’t have to worry about malware.

Microsoft did nothing to earn the trust (instead the broke the trust) and business of customers, why should they have succeeded?

I don't disagree with your points. And I don't like Microsoft either. But there's still no alternative to Android and iOS.

It's pretty clear that this is just a battle between the big tech and their enemies. However I don't think the government will support this attack: it needs the big tech as much as it needs its aircraft carriers and a petty dispute between two generals isn't a reason to sink half the ships.

> it needs the big tech as much as it needs its aircraft carriers

not if 'big tech' enables (russians|the people) to pick unfavored generals and upset the status quo

Your first point isn’t a matter of opinion. Competition and innovation have been steadily declining, and monopsony (wage-setting power) concentrating. These aren’t just the musings of some random know-it-all on some tech board, they are reality. Look it up.

Your second point is just whataboutism. Investigating Google now doesn’t mean Equifax can’t be investigated later.

Happy to look it up. Can you point me to some sources that measure competition and innovation? One yardstick could be the number of new businesses per year, which is increasing per this article from two years ago [0].

I am not trying to what-about around Google possibly having some skeletons in their closet - just pointing out that the company screaming "hey, I'm handling data irresponsibly" is not being investigated, but the ones that have been the target of techno-fear-mongering smear campaigns are. Makes me question that the motivation of the investigation is not actually to benefit the average consumer.

[0] https://fortune.com/2017/02/22/startups-2017-challenger/

This is somewhat incorrect. There are finite resources in the US justice system. Investigating Google now does hinder investigation of Equifax. Furthermore, momentum for prosecution in a class of business begets greater public support for prosecution of other businesses in that class. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there is a substantial belief that tech companies deprioritize Conservative opinions and content. We should not ignore the political component to these prosecutions.

Your first point is correct, however. Competition in some fields is declining; Amazon is the dominant internet retailer by a large margin. Google has even larger dominion over the online ad space, save for walled gardens. Investigation of large tech companies is justified on its merits. It is likely that some companies have not broken any laws, but there is value to investigation.

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