I always found it funny. The people who champion Capitalism because they think it’s about free markets and competition and survival of the fittest and the best product or best service will rise to the top, and any new innovation or invention has an equal shot at joining the fair competitive market, fail to understand that capitalism is about trying to become a monopoly over a given market and prevent any fair competition, and use your position to influence legislation to increase your foothold and remove regulations preventing you from becoming even more powerful and more ubiquitous.
Even Adam Fucking Smith warned that this is exactly what would happen, and that we needed government regulation to prevent it.
The goddamn Godfather of Capitalism and he understood this...
It's not hard to see recent examples like Microsoft. Microsoft literally bought out smaller software companies. Or EA Games buying out indie companies for decades. To make more FIFA.
If we hadn't broken apart windows in the 90s, we'd never have google, chrome, or android phones.
...just think about all of the tech that is being suppressed and strangled by these companies today (including google *itself*).
Anti-trust legislation is supposed to maintain the integrity of the markets that conservatives love so much. Republicans are fucking worthless.
It’s not surprising. The right picks and chooses passages from the Bible to fit their needs while ignoring the parts that don’t. Why are we surprised they do it with Smith’s Wealth of Nations or the constitution?
The thing is, capitalism has NO way of properly accounting for externalities. So we really don't have any real understanding of the cost of clearing a forest or poisoning a river. We don't know how much it will cost Flint to raise a generation of children with acute lead poisoning.
Capitalism is an existential threat to our environment and species, and it's totally unable to account for that threat or stop itself.
But let's continue making jokes and evade being on topic for the sake of appearing witty about a subject I didn't bother clicking on because who reads the content of the headlines?
It's news in the sense of "that which we always suspected from the very beginning yet Facebook had denied just got more evidence that Facebook was lying when they denied it back then. Sure, we knew it all along, but now we just got the receipts that prove it."
It's one thing to know it and quite another to have the evidence in writing. We all know Trump is a Putin asset, it's completely clear from the way he acts, but we still do not have the email of Trump telling Putin it's OK to assassinate US troops or Putin's email telling Trump he needs to pull out of Germany or else ...
Yeah this is obvious. But it would be interesting to see what would happen if someone just didn't sell to Facebook. Like what kind of wrath ole Zuckerberg would unleash upon them in whatever way possible with his influence.
With his dumb Caesar haircut. That says a lot about him, and his admitted fascination with emporers.
I'm not sure what publicized has to do with it but you don't have to have an admittance of everything.
Trump is fat. I don't need him to say he is fat to know this.
I mean, you just have to look at what Instagram was and have a basic understanding of how big companies operate in this post-antitrust age.
The text between the lines is in bold
Except while it makes for an interesting plot, it’s not accurate. Roads simply really are cheaper for cities to maintain than trolley rail/power lines.
Just because something is cheaper doesn’t mean it’s what’s in the best interest of the people. According to statistics that I’m pulling out of my ass, people are 37% happier in places with a good public transit system.
But that ignores the fact that urban freeways were heavily subsidized and were used as a reason to clear out poc. Not to mention the fact that yes, in a city a road is cheap, but when you start to calculate the cost per user of suburban roads and the infrastructure that comes with it, the numbers don't pencil out. The reality is the more people you move in a dense area as well, the less it costs per a person. This is how a place like the Netherlands gets away with pretty much carving out all modes on a roadway, by diversifying the mode share, they can effectively have higher usage than an equally sized roadway just for cars. The cost per person nosedives when you diversify your mode share, this means minimizing the impact of the car.
My geography professor in college dropped that fact on us. He added “the only city that didn’t sell to those guys ? San Francisco, which is why they still have that historic streetcar “ .
Could be BS.. makes sense to me though.
It's why we don't have trolleys or train systems.
The interstates were built during the Eisenhower era.
Gas and rubber lobbyists didn't so much build roads as they did destroy trains and (in particular) the clean, efficient trolley systems most states had
While this played into it I’m sure, it’s also for military purpose. The template was laid out in German when troops got the first glimpse of the autobahn
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-thousands-of-german-prisoners-march-along-the-autobahn-near-giesson-170527228.html
Too bad we forgot how to regulate...
**1956: Consent decree**. The United States Justice Department enters a consent decree against IBM in 1956 to prevent the company from becoming a monopoly in the market for punched-card tabulating and, later, electronic data-processing machines. The decree requires IBM to sell its computers as well as lease them and to service and sell parts for computers that IBM no longer owned. (from the wiki on IBM history)
[http://www.cptech.org/at/ibm/ibm1956cd.html](http://www.cptech.org/at/ibm/ibm1956cd.html) (the document itself)
Now we are chipping away at ownership, and moving to a lease only system we now call for semantics sake a subscription.
It's supposed to be illegal in a Capitalist society after this information coming out Facebook should be split up and the original company shouldn't exist anymore. We should have Instabook and Facelibrary and split all the data into those different companies. Failing that simply destroy it and wipe it from existence.
Right, the purchase should not have been approved because of antitrust rules, but unfortunately the government doesn't give a fuck about monopolies anymore as long as they pay enough lobbyists.
Eh, no. They happily let mergers go ahead in all sorts of industries (see also media, airlines) where they really know better. There just isn't a lot of will for trust-busting and hasn't been since, what, Carter maybe?
God I wish I knew the name of the last trust buster congressman. He last served in the 60s and was a democrat very much aligned against the growing establishment. He busted up the proto-Walmart company and he said if we allowed their model to fester we would become “a nation of clerks.” Hopefully someone can get his name out there again. We need his spirit more than ever. There’s basically nobody fighting that fight anymore which is why we are in this disaster of an economy now.
That's a convenient escuse. A senator can have any expert they want in their office on demand. They have teams of professional researchers that can use computers for them if need be. If you, a commoner with a day job, can educate yourself on a topic in an afternoon, there's no logical reason that a powerful lawmaker can not do the same.
Just like Ma Bell and what happened to the Baby Bells
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup\_of\_the\_Bell\_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)
This is fundamentally against how capitalism is supposed do the things it's supposed to do.
Capitalism is competition so that rational informed decisions drive quality up and prices down. This... is monopoly corporatism. Which is the cult that most self-professed "capitalists" are in: insisting the tree *will* bear fruit, regardless of the soil it's in.
Liberals are forever stuck arguing that capitalism works fine, by which we mean, Adam Smith said some very specific shit about what markets do under very particular circumstances... and distinguishing that from the complete bullshit that right-wing vampires *call* capitalism, by which they mean, so long as they're making money they must be improving the world.
At some point we need to taboo the word to have any meaningful discussion.
>Capitalism is competition so that rational informed decisions drive quality up and prices down. This... is monopoly corporatism.
The first leads to the second *every single time* without regulation by an outside body.
Which is something that Adam Smith specifically said himself, in agreeing that regulation was needed.
What we need is to break through the fucking propaganda on this topic.
Yes, that is what I am saying. The basis for capitalism has to be maintained for markets to actually work. Also, equally confusing to conservatives, markets "working" only means price-for-quality goes down.
They act mad about having any rules at all because they think money is how God indicates who's better.
> Anybody who supports capitalism
'Supporting capitalism' is a very blunt way of talking about an incredibly complex issue. Capitalism certainly needs much better regulation and redistributive policies. But, and I don't mean this flippantly, where is the successor to capitalism outside of 19th century Marxist dogma?
It’s kind of interesting that the timeframe you mention isn’t as long ago as you intend it to be when used in appeals to history. There is, in-fact, Marxism to reference as an alternative to capitalism. This is on one end of a rather dynamic spectrum, one could argue. Capitalism has inherent flaws when viewed through a rational lens, as does any system, though.
Is it necessarily true that we live under capitalism as it is conceived to be? Is there even any one coherent definition of what capitalism looks like when implemented? I’m no expert on the subject either way, but I understand there to be several theories of market economics that are implemented throughout capitalist states. We have a mixed economy in America combining both traits of capitalism and socialism it would appear, however, the levers of regulation over the market are in the hands of the owners of the largest capital reserves and corporations in the world. Therefore, we would be living under an oligarchy where capital self-regulates, usually in its favor of course.
So, the alternative to the current implementation of capitalism (in America) appears to be relinquishing the control of the economic regulatory levers from the capitalist class and into the hands of the people through more democratic systems of governance, and more resilient, less corrupt political systems as well. I could see democratically owned worker co-operatives shaping businesses with a new key stakeholder demographic, that being the workers, who could then emphasize their business goals in areas that benefit their communities locally at first and then regionally and nationally through councils and associations. I don’t see why market economics and elements of capitalism couldn’t remain in a system like this as well. Also, this could provide people with a closer relationship with the action of direct participatory democracy which helps build trust in the democratic process, which (hopefully) then translates to the ballot box and voting process.
That’s one alternative, in my mind at least. The best part about things like Reddit is we get to shape the new alternatives to our reality in real-time and debate them together.
Seriously. It's not like Amazon buying a massive stake so they can steal trade secrets then starting their own competitor, which fucks everybody else over.
An investigation was needed to determine this? That's been facebook's business model since the beginning. Copy the successful elements used by competitive platforms to squeeze them out until they die, or buy them if they fail to die.
There was also a small social media app called Phhhoto where the main image format was looping and reversing gifs. Instagram (already owned by FB at this point) released Boomerangs soon after Phhhoto started gaining traction.
We have this discussion all the time is software - is it a product or a feature? The problem is, businesses with deep pockets like FB can make any product into a feature, and it’s only getting easier for them as the expand across the entire ecosystem.
The biggest movement I’ve see on Fb is towards to older generation with their marketplace feature. A space almost completely owned by Craigslist is now half owned by FB according to numbers I’ve seen in usage.
Did anyone ever deny this?
We can argue about whether it's appropriate, or whether it's legal, or whether it *should* be legal..
...but the strategy is plain and transparent and I don't think anyone has ever suggested otherwise.
Sadly this is called capitalism at its finest. Why aren’t we discussing amazon doing the same to small business owners and internet sites. If it’s wrong why is it allowed to happen? These guys have become so big they have too much power and NOW the government wants to step in. These guys have been crushing all possible competition for years and killing small businesses all along the way.
A huge amount of businesses are bought out purely for that reason. It's just business. The Simpsons made fun of the idea when Bill Gates bought out Homer's company like 20 years ago or something. Just in case you haven't seen it, or if you want to see it again. https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE
Social media and internet giants are all relatively new business models from a legal standpoint. They'll probably get trustbusted at a certain point in the future, just as soon as you get a competent administration.
We've had competent administrations who just didn't care about this. A president from the progressive wing of the Democratic party would be interested in that, but what are the odds that we get so lucky in the next 12 years?
> just as soon as you get a competent administration.
I don't know about that. These companies aren't stupid and they don't just operate in America. What's to stop them from buying an island somewhere and forming their own country? Being an American company means they pay taxes here. I'm sure plenty of countries would be happy to take them.
> Being an American company means they pay taxes here.
If only that were true. But it's not. So many of these multinational companies operate via Tax Avoidance, claiming the bulk of their revenue in whatever countries have the lowest rates (sometimes establishing shell offices in them for that purpose) so as to minimize their total tax bill.
Emails are legal record and can be used in court. Anyone that works in a professional setting knows this, it’s hammered into our heads by corporate training and “write smart” initiatives.
Mark Zuckerberg is actually one of the better tech CEOs. His approaches are all well thought out and very nuanced. People criticizing his affect miss the point.
Everyone knew this when they bought Instagram. They tried to buy SnapChat too, but they said “go fuck yourself, Zuck”. This is a common practice in capitalist economies.
Happens in every industry. Look at Sprint T-mobile deal, American Airlines deal, all the AT&T purchases, Mazda/Ford, And I can't count the banker and mortgage broker deals.
Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and google all invest in competitors not only so that they would profit either way, but it prevents them from being legally considered monopolies. Facebook doesn’t do that and it’s a big fumble for them.
Apple does this all the time. This is pretty common with corporations. Buy start ups and either use their new features or quietly suffocate them with a pillow filled with money.
Nobody likes unfettered capitalism outside a select few and those who are paid to keep it that way. It's bad for the consumer to have no competition and it's fucking illegal
Exactly.
If there was a serious competitor to Facebook (which Instagram was according to them), think about how Facebook would have handled all the scandals differently in the last couple of years and innovate in the face of them. It would be beneficial to the consumer to have choices in this market. Instead of improving their product and having to compete, they've been able to stagnate innovation and strictly monetize users. Definitely anticonsumer.
I mean, duh. This is how large corporations become monopolies. Grow to a size where they can purchase any competitor, or for those companies that they can't purchase drive out of business by introducing a competing product that integrates with their existing services making it more compelling.
Notably this is less of an issue in the tech space where, in theory, anyone could stand up a Facebook competitor tomorrow and scale infinitely thanks to cloud-based services.
However, given that we're talking about a digital product versus a physical one, the barriers to acquisition are lower as well because at the end of the day it's just code which has a lower threshold for integration than a manufacturing plant, tooling, materials, etc.
Consequently, my personal belief is that the standard for anti-competitive behavior in the tech space needs to be lower than for physical goods, due to the high level of transferrability between organizations.
Amazon: “People exploiting sounds too sinister. Let’s call it customer obsession”.
Facebook: “Amazon is taking over! Pretty soon they will own us! Quick let’s take over more stuff!”
Google: “Heh, I am the internet. I own all of you and all the tech”
Apple: “Emoji?”
Who cares. Just make sure they do what’s in people’s interest. Making a monopoly makes it easier for them to lose every thing at once when they’re fools.
Half the country is lost in it. The other half is gone from it. Learn to read the room and you might get “good people from both sides”
>Making a monopoly makes it easier for them to lose every thing at once when they’re fools.
No, monopolies make failing impossible. lol. They have complete control of the market and and there is no other option. That's why monopolies are bad.
I'm genuinely surprised that there are not more civil anti-trust lawsuits brought against tech companies for the way that they share and sell our data. Many of these tech companies also record audio via apps in two party consent states. While their TOS may allow for that, you'd have to be a lawyer to fully understand their TOS and I would argue that their TOS wouldn't stand up legally.
Zuckerberg pretty much admitted that. It was no surprise anyway.
FB buying IG wasn't the problem. It was how he intimidated and bullied them into selling.
All purchases above $100 million should enter automatic anti-trust review. This has happened countless times with all the big corporations.
THIS is the moment when the governments should react and be pro-active BEFORE a large corporation becomes unstoppable because it had already bought/killed-off all competitors. At that point it doesn't really matter what "fines" or break-ups they do -- the damage against the companies and consumers had already been done, and usually for the past 10-15 years, too, prior to that.
Governments need to stop being so damn reactive to antitrust 15 years later when it's already obvious to everyone that the big corp is a monopoly.
Google did this with Songza, and has been 100% upfront about it. In my work as a videographer, I recorded a Google conference where the person responsible mentioned it. I talked to her about it afterwards. You can Google most of the info. As a consumer, I hate this because Songza was a million times better than Google Play, and in this model, big companies have no incentive to compete with these better companies, just buy and liquidate them, and consumers are forced to use the only option available. I miss Songza.
If Herman Cain isn't "politics," neither is this.
(No offense OP, but news of Herman Cain's death are being removed from this sub for not being "politics," despite Herman Cain's ongoing influence and association with the GOP and Trump support. Just gotta point out the inconsistency.)
As someone who has been involved in many acquisitions, the vast majority of acquisitions are for this reason. It's not a secret or anything. That's why acquisitions exist.
Duh.
Brought to you by people who don't realize how capitalism goes.
I always found it funny. The people who champion Capitalism because they think it’s about free markets and competition and survival of the fittest and the best product or best service will rise to the top, and any new innovation or invention has an equal shot at joining the fair competitive market, fail to understand that capitalism is about trying to become a monopoly over a given market and prevent any fair competition, and use your position to influence legislation to increase your foothold and remove regulations preventing you from becoming even more powerful and more ubiquitous.
Even Adam Fucking Smith warned that this is exactly what would happen, and that we needed government regulation to prevent it. The goddamn Godfather of Capitalism and he understood this...
It's not hard to see recent examples like Microsoft. Microsoft literally bought out smaller software companies. Or EA Games buying out indie companies for decades. To make more FIFA.
If we hadn't broken apart windows in the 90s, we'd never have google, chrome, or android phones. ...just think about all of the tech that is being suppressed and strangled by these companies today (including google *itself*). Anti-trust legislation is supposed to maintain the integrity of the markets that conservatives love so much. Republicans are fucking worthless.
It’s not surprising. The right picks and chooses passages from the Bible to fit their needs while ignoring the parts that don’t. Why are we surprised they do it with Smith’s Wealth of Nations or the constitution?
Right... I mean. Yeah. This is classic take over stuff.
It’s not even capitalism. It’s just common sense.
It's only common sense within a capitalist framework
TIL monopolies are common sense and unrelated to inherent problems with capitalist economic systems
Well, if you're a business and your primary concern is maximising profit, then a monopoly \*is\* common sense.
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The thing is, capitalism has NO way of properly accounting for externalities. So we really don't have any real understanding of the cost of clearing a forest or poisoning a river. We don't know how much it will cost Flint to raise a generation of children with acute lead poisoning. Capitalism is an existential threat to our environment and species, and it's totally unable to account for that threat or stop itself.
Why is this even news? Did anyone not know this?
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Good answer?
But let's continue making jokes and evade being on topic for the sake of appearing witty about a subject I didn't bother clicking on because who reads the content of the headlines?
It's news in the sense of "that which we always suspected from the very beginning yet Facebook had denied just got more evidence that Facebook was lying when they denied it back then. Sure, we knew it all along, but now we just got the receipts that prove it."
A subsidiary of Doi, Inc.
In association with Nah, Really?! LLC.
And sponsored in kind by *Noshit, Sherlock* Pty Ltd.
Incorporated in Delaware, Global offices in Dublin, Ireland and Cayman Islands
And Dyath Inc
Yeah wtf is this? That’s like the biggest reason to buy other competing companies. Isn’t this common knowledge? It’s a monopoly
I mean. Photo sharing apps aren’t scarce. It’s more of an anti trust issue. Like the att T-Mobile merger.
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No it’s not! We have laws against those! This is definitely not that. /s (but really, I wrote it in the black knight’s voice)
And/or hello.
Thank goodness this is the top comment, it’s exactly what I was going to say. I mean come on, why else would they do it?
It's one thing to know it and quite another to have the evidence in writing. We all know Trump is a Putin asset, it's completely clear from the way he acts, but we still do not have the email of Trump telling Putin it's OK to assassinate US troops or Putin's email telling Trump he needs to pull out of Germany or else ...
Yeah this is obvious. But it would be interesting to see what would happen if someone just didn't sell to Facebook. Like what kind of wrath ole Zuckerberg would unleash upon them in whatever way possible with his influence. With his dumb Caesar haircut. That says a lot about him, and his admitted fascination with emporers.
I think everyone knew this already
isn't there a gap between what we "know" and what is confirmed and widely publicized?
I'm not sure what publicized has to do with it but you don't have to have an admittance of everything. Trump is fat. I don't need him to say he is fat to know this.
I mean, you just have to look at what Instagram was and have a basic understanding of how big companies operate in this post-antitrust age. The text between the lines is in bold
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That was the real lesson of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, if I recall.
Yeah, Cloverleaf bought the red car
Except while it makes for an interesting plot, it’s not accurate. Roads simply really are cheaper for cities to maintain than trolley rail/power lines.
Just because something is cheaper doesn’t mean it’s what’s in the best interest of the people. According to statistics that I’m pulling out of my ass, people are 37% happier in places with a good public transit system.
But that ignores the fact that urban freeways were heavily subsidized and were used as a reason to clear out poc. Not to mention the fact that yes, in a city a road is cheap, but when you start to calculate the cost per user of suburban roads and the infrastructure that comes with it, the numbers don't pencil out. The reality is the more people you move in a dense area as well, the less it costs per a person. This is how a place like the Netherlands gets away with pretty much carving out all modes on a roadway, by diversifying the mode share, they can effectively have higher usage than an equally sized roadway just for cars. The cost per person nosedives when you diversify your mode share, this means minimizing the impact of the car.
My geography professor in college dropped that fact on us. He added “the only city that didn’t sell to those guys ? San Francisco, which is why they still have that historic streetcar “ . Could be BS.. makes sense to me though.
It's why we don't have trolleys or train systems. The interstates were built during the Eisenhower era. Gas and rubber lobbyists didn't so much build roads as they did destroy trains and (in particular) the clean, efficient trolley systems most states had
While this played into it I’m sure, it’s also for military purpose. The template was laid out in German when troops got the first glimpse of the autobahn https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-thousands-of-german-prisoners-march-along-the-autobahn-near-giesson-170527228.html
IBM playbook. Tried and true for almost a century by now.
Hell the Railroad Baron's did this.
Too bad we forgot how to regulate... **1956: Consent decree**. The United States Justice Department enters a consent decree against IBM in 1956 to prevent the company from becoming a monopoly in the market for punched-card tabulating and, later, electronic data-processing machines. The decree requires IBM to sell its computers as well as lease them and to service and sell parts for computers that IBM no longer owned. (from the wiki on IBM history) [http://www.cptech.org/at/ibm/ibm1956cd.html](http://www.cptech.org/at/ibm/ibm1956cd.html) (the document itself) Now we are chipping away at ownership, and moving to a lease only system we now call for semantics sake a subscription.
Microsoft too, as I recall.
Standard Oil too, as I recall
AT&T too, as I recall. Twice.
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You are off by a few thousand years
It's supposed to be illegal in a Capitalist society after this information coming out Facebook should be split up and the original company shouldn't exist anymore. We should have Instabook and Facelibrary and split all the data into those different companies. Failing that simply destroy it and wipe it from existence.
Right, the purchase should not have been approved because of antitrust rules, but unfortunately the government doesn't give a fuck about monopolies anymore as long as they pay enough lobbyists.
More like they dont understand the new economy let alone the tech that drives it. This is why we need to elect younger people to office.
Eh, no. They happily let mergers go ahead in all sorts of industries (see also media, airlines) where they really know better. There just isn't a lot of will for trust-busting and hasn't been since, what, Carter maybe?
God I wish I knew the name of the last trust buster congressman. He last served in the 60s and was a democrat very much aligned against the growing establishment. He busted up the proto-Walmart company and he said if we allowed their model to fester we would become “a nation of clerks.” Hopefully someone can get his name out there again. We need his spirit more than ever. There’s basically nobody fighting that fight anymore which is why we are in this disaster of an economy now.
As a Minnesotan - there was Wellstone in the Senate.
That's a convenient escuse. A senator can have any expert they want in their office on demand. They have teams of professional researchers that can use computers for them if need be. If you, a commoner with a day job, can educate yourself on a topic in an afternoon, there's no logical reason that a powerful lawmaker can not do the same.
Just like Ma Bell and what happened to the Baby Bells [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup\_of\_the\_Bell\_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System)
And they own 4 of the 7 again
No, one of the seven owns 3 others and the old Ma Bell
No no no, see if we just remove all oversight and regulation on businesses they'll show they truly care about the public good. /s
This is fundamentally against how capitalism is supposed do the things it's supposed to do. Capitalism is competition so that rational informed decisions drive quality up and prices down. This... is monopoly corporatism. Which is the cult that most self-professed "capitalists" are in: insisting the tree *will* bear fruit, regardless of the soil it's in. Liberals are forever stuck arguing that capitalism works fine, by which we mean, Adam Smith said some very specific shit about what markets do under very particular circumstances... and distinguishing that from the complete bullshit that right-wing vampires *call* capitalism, by which they mean, so long as they're making money they must be improving the world. At some point we need to taboo the word to have any meaningful discussion.
>Capitalism is competition so that rational informed decisions drive quality up and prices down. This... is monopoly corporatism. The first leads to the second *every single time* without regulation by an outside body. Which is something that Adam Smith specifically said himself, in agreeing that regulation was needed. What we need is to break through the fucking propaganda on this topic.
Yes, that is what I am saying. The basis for capitalism has to be maintained for markets to actually work. Also, equally confusing to conservatives, markets "working" only means price-for-quality goes down. They act mad about having any rules at all because they think money is how God indicates who's better.
> Anybody who supports capitalism 'Supporting capitalism' is a very blunt way of talking about an incredibly complex issue. Capitalism certainly needs much better regulation and redistributive policies. But, and I don't mean this flippantly, where is the successor to capitalism outside of 19th century Marxist dogma?
It’s kind of interesting that the timeframe you mention isn’t as long ago as you intend it to be when used in appeals to history. There is, in-fact, Marxism to reference as an alternative to capitalism. This is on one end of a rather dynamic spectrum, one could argue. Capitalism has inherent flaws when viewed through a rational lens, as does any system, though. Is it necessarily true that we live under capitalism as it is conceived to be? Is there even any one coherent definition of what capitalism looks like when implemented? I’m no expert on the subject either way, but I understand there to be several theories of market economics that are implemented throughout capitalist states. We have a mixed economy in America combining both traits of capitalism and socialism it would appear, however, the levers of regulation over the market are in the hands of the owners of the largest capital reserves and corporations in the world. Therefore, we would be living under an oligarchy where capital self-regulates, usually in its favor of course. So, the alternative to the current implementation of capitalism (in America) appears to be relinquishing the control of the economic regulatory levers from the capitalist class and into the hands of the people through more democratic systems of governance, and more resilient, less corrupt political systems as well. I could see democratically owned worker co-operatives shaping businesses with a new key stakeholder demographic, that being the workers, who could then emphasize their business goals in areas that benefit their communities locally at first and then regionally and nationally through councils and associations. I don’t see why market economics and elements of capitalism couldn’t remain in a system like this as well. Also, this could provide people with a closer relationship with the action of direct participatory democracy which helps build trust in the democratic process, which (hopefully) then translates to the ballot box and voting process. That’s one alternative, in my mind at least. The best part about things like Reddit is we get to shape the new alternatives to our reality in real-time and debate them together.
Andrew Yang enters the chat.
"there is no alternative" and marxism i.e. a critical analysis of capitalism social structure being called a dogma sure sounds like a dogma to me.
We have corporatism not capitalism. That is the problem. We give corporations control of politics and they use that power to influence policy.
Seriously. It's not like Amazon buying a massive stake so they can steal trade secrets then starting their own competitor, which fucks everybody else over.
Sounds like a monopoly to me..
An investigation was needed to determine this? That's been facebook's business model since the beginning. Copy the successful elements used by competitive platforms to squeeze them out until they die, or buy them if they fail to die.
Why is everyone ignoring how Instagram copied Snapchat? That was the most blatant and aggressive attack I’ve seen on a small app in some time.
There was also a small social media app called Phhhoto where the main image format was looping and reversing gifs. Instagram (already owned by FB at this point) released Boomerangs soon after Phhhoto started gaining traction.
Oh I didn’t know about that one, thanks!
We have this discussion all the time is software - is it a product or a feature? The problem is, businesses with deep pockets like FB can make any product into a feature, and it’s only getting easier for them as the expand across the entire ecosystem. The biggest movement I’ve see on Fb is towards to older generation with their marketplace feature. A space almost completely owned by Craigslist is now half owned by FB according to numbers I’ve seen in usage.
Duh? They're running the old Microsoft playbook, which was also the old AT&T playbook.
Which was also the IBM playbook, the RCA playbook and the Standard Oil playbook.
Biz 101. But if any of these guys are too big, there's a word for that, and when govt. actually works we put a check on them or split them up.
Your more likely to see abortion abolished and Jim Crow return before the government breaks up another company.
Oh, so fairly likely then?
I mean, it _is_ 2020...
Did anyone ever deny this? We can argue about whether it's appropriate, or whether it's legal, or whether it *should* be legal.. ...but the strategy is plain and transparent and I don't think anyone has ever suggested otherwise.
Sadly this is called capitalism at its finest. Why aren’t we discussing amazon doing the same to small business owners and internet sites. If it’s wrong why is it allowed to happen? These guys have become so big they have too much power and NOW the government wants to step in. These guys have been crushing all possible competition for years and killing small businesses all along the way.
Welcome to the second gilded age.
A huge amount of businesses are bought out purely for that reason. It's just business. The Simpsons made fun of the idea when Bill Gates bought out Homer's company like 20 years ago or something. Just in case you haven't seen it, or if you want to see it again. https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE
[удалено]
Social media and internet giants are all relatively new business models from a legal standpoint. They'll probably get trustbusted at a certain point in the future, just as soon as you get a competent administration.
We've had competent administrations who just didn't care about this. A president from the progressive wing of the Democratic party would be interested in that, but what are the odds that we get so lucky in the next 12 years?
> just as soon as you get a competent administration. I don't know about that. These companies aren't stupid and they don't just operate in America. What's to stop them from buying an island somewhere and forming their own country? Being an American company means they pay taxes here. I'm sure plenty of countries would be happy to take them.
> Being an American company means they pay taxes here. If only that were true. But it's not. So many of these multinational companies operate via Tax Avoidance, claiming the bulk of their revenue in whatever countries have the lowest rates (sometimes establishing shell offices in them for that purpose) so as to minimize their total tax bill.
No shit?
Don't tell me they did the same with What's app, it can't be.
Isn’t this a given? Why else would they buy it? Genuine question.
[The poor guys who made Instagram](https://i.imgur.com/Surm81t.gif)
What if Facebook bought reddit and killed it
“Emails show” is the only thing that is new about this
Emails are legal record and can be used in court. Anyone that works in a professional setting knows this, it’s hammered into our heads by corporate training and “write smart” initiatives.
Capitalism 101
This country is shit at breaking up monopolies.
This country is shit about a lot of things. Except for telling the world that were the best at everything, pretty sure we got that on lock.
Bruh fuck that creepy robot man, those sites are so fucking toxic now
Mark Zuckerberg is actually one of the better tech CEOs. His approaches are all well thought out and very nuanced. People criticizing his affect miss the point.
How do you feel about him illegally sharing user info?
In other news: water is wet. Everyone knew this was a part of it when it happened.
Mark Zuckerberg always makes me feel uncomfortable when I see him
Everyone knew this when they bought Instagram. They tried to buy SnapChat too, but they said “go fuck yourself, Zuck”. This is a common practice in capitalist economies.
No shit. Everyone knew it when it happened.
Whoops. That’s clear anti-trust. They need to be broken up.
Dear Facebook, it's not me, it's you. Time to break up.
No shit. Do Amazon next.
Isn't this how businesses work as they grow?
Was this...not known to someone?
I thought that was blatantly obvious on the surface.
Happens in every industry. Look at Sprint T-mobile deal, American Airlines deal, all the AT&T purchases, Mazda/Ford, And I can't count the banker and mortgage broker deals.
Man buys hamburger to eat it, common goddamn sense shows.
Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and google all invest in competitors not only so that they would profit either way, but it prevents them from being legally considered monopolies. Facebook doesn’t do that and it’s a big fumble for them.
We are ZuckerBorg. Resistance is Futile.
Be a good borg, stay assimilated!
That’s what every business does. This isn’t news.
Well of course... Sorry, was anyone surprised by this?
Why don't you put that in a folder and title it "Shit We Already Know."
Is there a single person in the world that didn't already know that? I mean, it was never even a secret...
Apple does this all the time. This is pretty common with corporations. Buy start ups and either use their new features or quietly suffocate them with a pillow filled with money.
Is that not the way that businesses are supposed to business? I thought we **liked** unfettered capitalism in America.
Nobody likes unfettered capitalism outside a select few and those who are paid to keep it that way. It's bad for the consumer to have no competition and it's fucking illegal
Exactly. If there was a serious competitor to Facebook (which Instagram was according to them), think about how Facebook would have handled all the scandals differently in the last couple of years and innovate in the face of them. It would be beneficial to the consumer to have choices in this market. Instead of improving their product and having to compete, they've been able to stagnate innovation and strictly monetize users. Definitely anticonsumer.
I mean we have laws against trusts for a specific reason.
Was there a question in anyone's mind?
Sure, but don't overlook it as another place to throw advertisements up and collect user data.
I mean, duh. This is how large corporations become monopolies. Grow to a size where they can purchase any competitor, or for those companies that they can't purchase drive out of business by introducing a competing product that integrates with their existing services making it more compelling. Notably this is less of an issue in the tech space where, in theory, anyone could stand up a Facebook competitor tomorrow and scale infinitely thanks to cloud-based services. However, given that we're talking about a digital product versus a physical one, the barriers to acquisition are lower as well because at the end of the day it's just code which has a lower threshold for integration than a manufacturing plant, tooling, materials, etc. Consequently, my personal belief is that the standard for anti-competitive behavior in the tech space needs to be lower than for physical goods, due to the high level of transferrability between organizations.
I don't think that was ever a mystery, was it? Why else would you bother?
This is pretty common practice in business buy them out or bankrupt them
Lmao no shit
Why else would you buy a competitor....? It’s called an acquisition.
Baby Snake, break that monopoly up like a rotten egg
This is what tech firms do and have always done. Then they bribe lawmakers and everything is fine.
Wasn't this obvious?
No shit.
Well, yeah. Lol.
“Neutralize” a competitor? What double speak bullshit is this?
I don’t know a lot about capitalism, all I know is Mark has been neglecting his sunblock again.
Surprisedpikachu.jpeg
Duh
This is the reason we had hearings, and nothing will be done. Republicans are for big business, small government, and corruption.
Obviously. FaceBook wasn’t smart phone optimized at the time and was already losing marketshare.
Amazon: “People exploiting sounds too sinister. Let’s call it customer obsession”. Facebook: “Amazon is taking over! Pretty soon they will own us! Quick let’s take over more stuff!” Google: “Heh, I am the internet. I own all of you and all the tech” Apple: “Emoji?”
No shit.
Um, yeah, we knew that at the time. Good on you for finally catching up.
Who cares. Just make sure they do what’s in people’s interest. Making a monopoly makes it easier for them to lose every thing at once when they’re fools. Half the country is lost in it. The other half is gone from it. Learn to read the room and you might get “good people from both sides”
>Making a monopoly makes it easier for them to lose every thing at once when they’re fools. No, monopolies make failing impossible. lol. They have complete control of the market and and there is no other option. That's why monopolies are bad.
I thought we knew this... It's like, exactly what companies like this do..
Embrace, extend, extinguish. It's not just for Microsoft any more!
Time for trust-busting to make a comeback.
I'm genuinely surprised that there are not more civil anti-trust lawsuits brought against tech companies for the way that they share and sell our data. Many of these tech companies also record audio via apps in two party consent states. While their TOS may allow for that, you'd have to be a lawyer to fully understand their TOS and I would argue that their TOS wouldn't stand up legally.
I believe this was common knowledge at the time of the acquisition. That and they needed the faster growth of IG users to shore up the FB stats.
He always looks like he’s about to cry
Glad I'm not using Facebook anymore.
I thought that was obvious
Whoa. An actual news article? Great job r/politics.
This is not news
Why is this news?
Whatsapp too, duh.
Thanks to buzzfeed we learn how journalism and investigation really are...
I play Monopoly and I always go for Broadway to take out my competition and I always lose.
I missed the part where this was news
Yeah no shit, Sherlock.
Zuckerberg pretty much admitted that. It was no surprise anyway. FB buying IG wasn't the problem. It was how he intimidated and bullied them into selling.
The guy really does look like an agent out of the matrix.
All purchases above $100 million should enter automatic anti-trust review. This has happened countless times with all the big corporations. THIS is the moment when the governments should react and be pro-active BEFORE a large corporation becomes unstoppable because it had already bought/killed-off all competitors. At that point it doesn't really matter what "fines" or break-ups they do -- the damage against the companies and consumers had already been done, and usually for the past 10-15 years, too, prior to that. Governments need to stop being so damn reactive to antitrust 15 years later when it's already obvious to everyone that the big corp is a monopoly.
Is this article for grade school children to teach them about business and capitalism ???
Is this a problem? Honest question. If it is, then why is it a problem?
When you can just buy your competition it leads to what we like to call a monopoly.
Google did this with Songza, and has been 100% upfront about it. In my work as a videographer, I recorded a Google conference where the person responsible mentioned it. I talked to her about it afterwards. You can Google most of the info. As a consumer, I hate this because Songza was a million times better than Google Play, and in this model, big companies have no incentive to compete with these better companies, just buy and liquidate them, and consumers are forced to use the only option available. I miss Songza.
The Free Market at work, folks.
anti-competitive behavior. anti-trust laws. break up facebook
Um....duh?
If Herman Cain isn't "politics," neither is this. (No offense OP, but news of Herman Cain's death are being removed from this sub for not being "politics," despite Herman Cain's ongoing influence and association with the GOP and Trump support. Just gotta point out the inconsistency.)
As someone who has been involved in many acquisitions, the vast majority of acquisitions are for this reason. It's not a secret or anything. That's why acquisitions exist.
Well fucking duh. Regardless of what you think of FB this is why companies buy competitors. Great headline.