Comment by dlss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dlss | Hacker News Reader

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Yes?

I get the feeling you're being rhetorical, but if I remove the tone in my head then: yes, clearly.

> out of control with everyone poaching each other's customers blatantly

Corporations shouldn't own customers... Like, the way you poach one is by offering a better deal (more features, better price, better service, etc). I think the way an economist would see the situation you are describing there is a "functioning market" -- the way that an economy improves customers life.

If AMD releases a new processor and "steals" a ton of Intel customers that's a good thing. The customers get better processors which they use in their own economic contributions. If Intel steals them back by releasing an even better processor, that's also fantastic. If that process repeats it's not "out of control" -- it's the world becoming better.

This dynamic (competition) is the reason why capitalistic societies have done so well in the last two centuries. It's the reason why the quality of the goods you use continues to increase while the price drops.

When corporations make an agreement to stop competing on any dimension, that dimension suffers. Maybe you're saying you don't care about this particular dimension. If that was true in general (ie no consumers care about the dimension), then the agreement wouldn't be necessary since competing on that basis would have no effect.

I guess our disagreement is in the word "offering".

I can advertise an offer in many places, but just because I agree not to advertise an offer in a particular place (eg right outside a rival movie theater, and vice versa) doesn't mean I don't OFFER something. It may mean that we agree not to degrade the experience for one another's customers.

Are you saying that a world where people are hit with AMD ads as soon as they exit the Intel store is a better world? Well why don't companies go the other way then -- agree to tell each other every time you purchase something and share your purchase data without your consent. I hope you like to receive spam mail every time you buy something, from competitors.

Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives.

> Are you saying that a world where people are hit with AMD ads as soon as they exit the Intel store is a better world?

Assuming the ad runs profitably, yep. Customers are changing their buying patterns for a reason.

> Well why don't companies go the other way then -- agree to tell each other every time you purchase something and share your purchase data without your consent.

You answered your own question by including "without your consent". The with consent version does happen though -- it's not unheard of for a knowledgable salesperson to recommend a different product than the one they are selling.

> I hope you like to receive spam mail every time you buy something, from competitors.

This is quite a leap from your previous example. Did you grow tired of it?

> Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives.

Please explain why women get remarried.

>> Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives.

>Please explain why women get remarried.

Answering a question with a question? This is a non-sequitur. While there are many reasons for women to get remarried, to make your point you have to show that it's better for women when men actively try to seduce each other's wives at every opportunity. After all, women are perfectly capable of discovering other men themselves, especially if the men advertise their availability and offers in various well-known places. The men don't need to cold-call other men's wives specifically trying to poach them. There's a big difference.

Illustrate to me economically why the world where men are specifically cold-calling other men's wives is a better world due to the increased "competition" by men.

If we take this logic even further, perhaps ever-more-clever ways of men sabotaging the others' relationships with their wives would have even BETTER results for the wives, because they are more "competitive"? Doesn't this have diminishing returns?

> to make your point you have to show that it's better for women when men actively try to seduce each other's wives at every opportunity

Not really. The point actually should read "men making an agreement not to flirt with married women would be worse for married women as a whole".

Note this differs from your version in two important ways:

A1. The group that is benefited is not women, but married women

A2. "Every opportunity" is replaced with "where the man in question believes it is a good idea"

And the version with those modifications is clearly true.

High level argument:

B1. the cost to happily married women isn't particularly high (they stay in their relationship, feel flattered, have a fun conversation, etc)

B2. the cost to unhappily married women would be particularly high (since they have less knowledge about potential alternatives / may stay in a bad situation longer due to lack of information)

I'm not sure what the exact population sizes are for those two groups, but by using the divorce rate as a quick proxy we can see it's a high enough ratio to be net positive. Hence it would be better.

(If you are thinking about talking about obnoxious flirting, I will point you to A2 above)

FWIW "Please explain why women get remarried" is just a shorter version of the above argument -- the reason men not flirting with married women is bad for married women as a whole is because some would get remarried.

> If we take this logic even further, perhaps ever-more-clever ways of men sabotaging the others' relationships with their wives would have even BETTER results for the wives, because they are more "competitive"? Doesn't this have diminishing returns?

You talk about straw men in other threads. Do you really not see the straw man in your last two replies to me? No one is arguing that Apple should seek to harm the way that Google's employees feel about Google except in true ways ("Google is paying you 20% less than market" is good if true in much the same way as "Greg is cheating on you" is good if true. Both are of course bad if false)

Well let's take this context of married women for example. The reality is that there are many men who do not have any qualms about "trying to seduce" a married woman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKfMqwSMI4U (I just had to link this :-)

These men do not "respect" the institution of marriage or the religious views on adultery etc.

There are entire forums on the internet devoted to "how to get a girl in a relationship" with "boyfriend destroyer routines" or whatever.

The idea is that an institution employing experts with lots of experience in poaching employees, is going to have an unequal advantage over the employee, and is likely to entice them either through souring their relationship with their current employer (maybe telling an employee about how Apple's workers are treated in China, for example) as well as using psychological tricks to lure them away.

Flirting is one thing. Blatantly propositioning in front of the husband when he's ware of it is something else. Most people draw a line not because they want to flaunt some antitrust law, but because of biological / economic emergent actions.

http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.3798

So you're saying in your mind accepting a job is like committing to a marriage? "Till death do us part" and all that?

You can moonlight as an employee, so at the very least you have to agree it's like a swinger/open marriage. I don't know the protocol there, but I'm guessing blatantly propositioning someone in an open marriage falls in to a different category than a closed one. It's much closer to talking to someone who's single.

re: unequal recruiting skill level vs the employee. Are you now taking the position that recruiting is immoral in and of itself?

Recruiting involves many things and what is considered moral is relative. An HR dept will pay recruiters to advertise in APPROPRIATE places and screen candidates, do background checks, set up a pipeline etc.

If the recruiter is instructed not to advertise the company's openings in strip clubs or porn sites, that isn't illegal or immoral. This is how I view instructing the recruiters not to advertise on their competitor's website or target other company's employees. Perhaps they think the cost of bad reputation or reprisals from those companies was too high. It doesn't have to be a "conspiracy". As I posted, an arxiv article shows that cartels are a natural emergent phenomenon of markets.

As far as marriage - there was a time when people worked decades for a company and earned a pension. These days esp in the tech industry those days are long gone. Poaching is an additional cost of hiring employees. You want to increase this cost - fine, and it will be passed on to the employees and depress their salaries. Your argument that the correlation is the other way is sofar without basis. I am not arguing that it is not illegal - the courts should decide that. I am saying this enforcement goes contrary to the purpse of the law and no one wins.

So you're saying other companies offering tech workers high salaries will lower their salaries? I think you're missing the point.

Yes if we're still talking about poaching, it creates downward pressure on the salaries of everyone else.

There are certain costs associated with hiring someone. Such as:

1) Recruiting 2) Interviewing 3) Onboarding and introducing to team 4) Provisioning equipment, office, etc. 5) Ramping up and getting integrated

Now, if these costs are paid per employee, then the longer this employee works with us, the more valuable they become and the more money they can make.

BUT

Those employees that get poached, or "fail upwards" into other companies, or whatever, actually make that position cost more. Way more. And I am not just talking about the fact that they might leave mid-project or have a moral hazard of screwing up a project knowing they'll have their next job to fail upwards into. But something even more basic.

For example if I have to pay the cost of 1-5 once every 3 years, that's 3 times less than if I have to pay it every year. So will I bear the full cost of 1-5 every time or pass it on to the employees I hire into that position? Of course I would pass it on, and moreover I can justify it by saying that they don't have "seniority within the organization" or that we are a meritocracy.

So you are completely neglecting this side of the phenomena, and blindly claiming that salaries will go up because poaching increases. It's not at all obvious that they would!

You're neglecting the fact that not every "poaching" attempt is successful and the fact that companies like Google have an incentive to keep salaries high in order to prevent poaching.

I didn't neglect that. How do these facts rule out that successful poaching imposes an additional cost per employee on companies? Paying employees a larger salary doesn't prevent poaching if your opponent can do the same. People are more likely to fail upwards and projects are more likely to cost more and be finished later because of successful poaching. Who bears this cost and how?

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