FTC Chair Khan: Stop Monopolies Before They Happen - Slashdot

Posted by msmash

• • Re: Oblig

    I think Noonien Singh was more successful

• • Re:

    Because who doesn't want a handful of companies to own everything [imgur.com] so they can control the market and jack up prices while limiting selection [apnews.com]? We should be thankful for everything they do.

    Tell us you don't remember unfettered corporatism [wikipedia.org] without telling us you don't remember unfettered corporatism [wikipedia.org].

    • Re: government to the rescue!

      We are talking about free markets, not corporatism. Please let the adults talk.

      From the link you indicated: enriched themselves utilizing tax money and land grants
      OP is advocating against the use of government power that always create monopolies.

  • Re:

    That worked really well during the 1920s and gave us the Great Depression. And when the U.S. decided to let the world do its thing, we got WWII. More recently, the gov. decided to let Wall Street run amok and we got the Great Recession. Thems some mighty thick rose colored glasses you are sporting.

    And the inflation had more to do with the U.S. letting American business get tied up to China. When Covid hit, there went the supply chains and up went inflation. Companies decided an inflation is nothing to waste

    • Re:

      We got WWII because the double-talking Wilson broke his promise to keep us out of Europe's Great War.

      We then help negotiate a settlement the proved untenable...

      Just like what is happening right now. NATO has been obsolete in terms of purpose since 1991, but we kept expanding it; rather than letting Russia join the Western world in terms of trade and conflict management.

      Now we have a new Russian conflict over Ukraine and bunch of frozen conflicts in the former bloc, which of course realistically is all only

      • Re:

        but we kept expanding it; rather than letting Russia join the Western world in terms of trade and conflict management.

        Because that worked oh so well for China, right?

        Because all that happened was China got rich and started spreading its idea of "good government" around the world. One that generally involves being a dictator and crushing all dissent and opposition. But then again, maybe free speech is a pointless utility, or human rights. Let's re-enslave the population.

  • Re:

    The government, can't afford to allow businesses to too large or too powerful. You can just look at the banana republics [wikipedia.org] to see what happens when a private business gets too powerful. It isn't good for the government and it is isn't good for the inhabitants of the country.

    Businesses will naturally want to take every short cut or hack available to them, unless there is a law preventing them doing so. This is no different to how players are subjected to rules in a sports game. We could expect the market playe

    • Re: government to the rescue!

      All of the examples you cite are results of government meddling in business and you advocate for more.

  • Re:

    If you don’t like too much government in your life then why don’t you move to a country with less of a government? I hear they’re splendid and you get a new “president” pretty often.

• ›

  Yes, let's mess with a market that barely even exists yet. What could go wrong?

  • Re:

    Perhaps Khan doesn't want to end up with another Windows monopoly scenario? Sounds like welcome prescience to me.

    • Re: AI

      Do you know how Microsoft and Adobe became a monopoly?

      It was because the IRS demanded things to be encoded in Adobe proprietary PDF extensions, Microsoft Excel and Word documents, demands IE and ActiveX for tax filings etc. And thatâ(TM)s just the IRS, every regulatory agency ever will only accept bulk data in proprietary formats using proprietary mechanism (eg the entire MOVE-it fiasco), the FDA approval on software which excludes open source, the Navy still spends millions for Windows XP support.

  • Re:

    It's certainly worth trying after barely regulating the early Internet era of tech didn't exactly deflect monopolies (Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft control the planet). The "there's always a bigger fish" Capitalism of tech ends in one place -- with one or two companies controlling 100% of society. Monopolies on steroids.

    • Re:

      Isn't that what they said about US Steel? And Standard Oil? And IBM? And AltaVista?

      Crap I remember when people were worried that Motorola and Nokia were going to dominate the cell phone market. People were saying Microsoft was as good as dead ten years ago.

      As far as breaking up monopolies, go read up on how well the AT&T breakup went. The main effect on end consumers was that long distance phone calls got somewhat cheaper, but overall service was much worse.

      • Re:

        I would argue that the main effect of the first breakup was that the phone company was not allowed to manufacture phones, and had to allow other companies to manufacture phones, which is how modems faster than about 2400 baud became possible, which was a key driving force that made the Internet revolution possible.

      • Re:

        You fail to give monopoly-busting its fair due. When Ma-Bell was smashed after 1982 local calling remained exactly as it was... or mebby you were still a baby then and don't know the facts. Long distance cost went down by factor-of-10 with new provider service every bit as good, DARPA internet thrived. So much for the ever-wise fat-kat manipulated market. We won't talk about trust-busting at the turn of the 20-th Century. Oh yeah one-more thing... Egyptian phaeronic dynasties

  • Re:AI (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2024 @04:24PM (#64237350)

    Yes, let's mess with a market that barely even exists yet. What could go wrong?

    As opposed to letting companies buy up competitors so they can raise prices? Here's one for you. Kroger has "pledged" it will lower prices [marketwatch.com] if it is allowed to buy up its competitior, Albertson's. Why not lower prices now? Why not compete against Albertson's by offering lower prices? Why must people's choices be taken away and a "pledge" made to do something in the process?

  • Re:

    Why kiss market-azzwhole?  Some markets should be crushed in their infancy. Think about the child-trafficking market... think about the heroin-import market.... think about the crypto-coynboiz market. Psychopath soulless grifters run those markets , and  local willow-trees should stretch their necks. Any questions ?

• Put realistic limits on patents/copyrights.. and let's have compulsory licensing! But we'll never have it, because industry puppets always win reelection

• In the past, they would do things like, "We'll invest and hey here's our product/service at a rate you simply can't refuse!"

  As a startup, most money is good money so if FANG is going to invest under reasonable terms -and- give you cheap cloud or whatever, also, who would turn that down?

  More like "The Google cloud rate is 75% lower because they're a funder so we might as well use their cloud" than "required".

  It's still probably illegal but it isn't "required" per se is my guess.

• this seems to be a strangle-it-in-it's-crib strategy. Which is a bad idea. Thoughtful regulation is great, but the US should leave the anti-capitalist policies to the poorer European states and all those countries caught in the middle income trap. They can stay poor if they want, why should we join them?

  
  
  Economy isn't everything, but it matters a great deal. If this type of attitude prevails, the next generation of MS, FB, Tesla, SpaceX, Apple and the entire silicon valley construct will be based in some country other than the US. Or they won't form at all, because there isn't any country that can replicate the US economy. Not yet, at least, and probably not anytime soon.

  • Re:

    Rosemarys' baby needed to be strangles-in-its-crib. The list of current scabish USA mega-corps you give was/is in no way necessary or desirable. In the Silicon valley boom-days 1975-1995 I was in California and know fifty companies that could have evolved in world-leader tek companies beside your short-list.... they all had multi-page ad s in local newspapers egging for the slightest talent We had to fight keeping seniors at Uni-EE. Many of those compan