
Justice Department to Open Broad, New Antitrust Review of Big Tech Companies - mudil
https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-open-broad-new-antitrust-review-of-big-tech-companies-11563914235?mod=rsswn
======
lanrh1836
I just finished the Eric Weinstein/Peter Thiel podcast, and came away mostly
agreeing with their assessment that we’ve really stagnated when it has come to
progressing scientifically.

I definitely feel like there’s this illusion of tech innovation coming from
these big companies that suck up all the tech talent, but at end of day the
best and brightest are working on optimizing ad clicks (FB, Goog) or getting
people to buy crap (Amazon) or working on incremental hardware improvements
(Apple).

If anything, I would hope any outcome against big tech would level the playing
field when it comes to attracting talent, and create an environment where
working on true “moonshot” tech was not so risky.

~~~
Yoric
Historically, scientific progress has extremely rarely been made by companies.
Most of the time, it's the result of academic research. Most researchers
typically have neither time nor inclination to build a company/a product based
on their own research, and having great research is no guarantee that the
company/product will succeed. So the way research results become visible is
typically through publications and teaching.

When companies hire graduates who have learnt from researchers, some of these
graduates end up in position to "innovate", quite a few years after the actual
research has been done.

For instance, I'm going to talk about the field that I know best: programming
languages (to keep it simple, I'm not talking of VMs or compilers, just the
languages). Pretty much everything you see in Java, C#, Python or Go dates
back to the 70s (with broader testing and quality of life improvements, of
course), Swift gets a few improvements imported from the 80s, but not that
many. The only industrial languages that seem to have real innovations are F#,
Rust and Scala, which are three cases in which the actual researchers managed
to convince (or found) a company to support the language.

Anyway, it's really, really hard to measure scientific progress, and if you
look at companies to try and gauge it, you're looking at stuff that is
typically quite old.

~~~
blitmap
It has been asserted that the best innovations come from baser instincts - the
ability to go to war. Radar came from defense research. I hate this.

~~~
njarboe
Also during war patents are shared between all companies in one country or
ignored all together. I think this is an under appreciated fact of why wartime
creates all sorts of innovation.

~~~
trehalose
That's a very interesting point! I wonder if allowing free use of information
could result in the same benefits during peacetime.

~~~
uncletaco
Well that's how we got emacs so who knows.

------
mjevans
There are several places where I feel proper regulatory oversight would
improve the situation, however they can all be reduced to a single phrase.

Proprietary platforms that don't inter-operate are problematic.

Email is OK because like phone service providers anyone is free to run their
own, and choose to use the services of a competitor while still inter-
operating on a shared communications structure; much like actual postal
delivery.

IRC is OK as a protocol (from the fair and inter-operable test), but was never
designed to scale up to operate at this level.

Proprietary platforms, like Facebook, Discord, etc flavor of the week which
have strong market dominance but which are closed are actively problems.
That's an area where monopoly is clearly being used to keep out competitors
and restrict innovation.

In Google's defense in this area they did try XMPP, and (as I recall) that
experiment ended up as a failure since other platforms intentionally
implemented a very poor baseline minimal interoperablity in ways that made
communicating between platforms a very 'red headed step child' experience.
That's why I believe whatever does come next has got to check all the boxes
AND make them requirements of inter-operating, not 'extensions'.

~~~
dboreham
Hmm...as I remember it xmpp federation with Google worked just fine for us
until Google turned it off.

~~~
microcolonel
The problem with XMPP is that it set Google's IM products back by a decade in
terms of features. Google IMs still blow chunks.

It may _now_ be possible to make an _okay_ XMPP experience, but
proprietary/custom protocols continue to be simpler to implement, better-
performing, and less hassle overall. We need something completely unlike XMPP
if we want good federated IM to become a thing; something that isn't a
bloated, exotic, "extensible", "well-formed", streaming XML protocol.

~~~
echelon
While I agree with your characterization of XMPP, it can still function as a
gateway into richer platforms. There's no reason to turn off the lights. Chat
hasn't changed _that_ much in 40 years.

That said, if Google wants to earn some much-needed goodwill, it could work on
a new federated chat protocol. Something binary and concise that handles all
of the modern emoji, stickers, outbound call initiation, bots, polls, etc. And
if you could use it to build all of {Slack, Messenger, Telegram, IRC,
Hangouts} on top of it, that would be amazing. Especially if it were federated
and had a reference implementation.

 _Commoditize your compliments_ , right? Anyone at Google looking for a
project for promotion?

------
scarface74
Anyone notice that the Justice Department under an administration who
supposedly doesn’t believe in regulation all of the sudden is interested in
regulating companies run by the “liberal elite”? Does it not worry anyone that
an administration that’s not exactly friendly to the states where these
companies are located are now all of the sudden cracking down on only certain
big businesses?

Every time I post about the government is rarely the answer I get push back.
Be careful what you ask for...

~~~
malvosenior
Maybe so, but in this case the consumer will benefit. These large companies
have been abusing their monopoly or near monopoly status to push their own
politics aggressively. It's no surprise that the other side of the political
spectrum would react negatively.

That's why issues like free speech for all are so important. Someday, your
enemies might be in charge and if you've been eroding human rights because
you're powerful enough to do so, someone more powerful may show up and use the
landscape you helped create against you.

The winning move for tech was to not become politicized and just focus on
being a neutral platform. Hopefully this threat of regulation will scare some
of the overt politics out of our industry and everyone will benefit.

~~~
nl
What politics?

I’m 100% behind the idea of deplatforming trolls, even if they claim it’s a
political message. “Don’t Troll” has been a good rule since Usenet days, and I
don’t see why it should be otherwise.

~~~
malvosenior
Who gets to decide who's a "troll" and who's not? That's political.

~~~
scarface74
Whoever owns the platform. If enough people don’t like the policies of the
platform. They are free to create their own. I have no problem with Facebook
and Twitter deciding how their platforms should be used.

I do however think that infrastructure companies like ISPs should be neutral.
I don’t even consider hosting companies as infrastructure companies. As long
as I have an internet connection, I can host whatever I want to.

------
MichaelApproved
> The Justice Department is opening a broad antitrust review into whether
> dominant technology firms are unlawfully stifling competition, according to
> department officials, adding a new Washington threat for companies such as
> Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. ’s Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc.

> The review is geared toward examining the practices of online platforms that
> dominate internet search, social media and retail services, the officials
> said.

Interesting that Microsoft, the only company worth over $1 trillion, isn't
mentioned.

The focus is on online platforms and they don't have anything dominating in
that field. I wonder if it'll stay isolated to those companies or if Microsoft
will get looped into this because they're so large.

~~~
lettergram
One thing Microsoft has going for it - they’ve been through this process in
the 90s / early 2000s. Plus, their OS is clearly not a monopoly, their web
browser is now based on Chrome, their a distant #2 in the cloud space, their a
very distant #2 in search, etc

Literally, I can’t think of one thing Microsoft is top dog in besides OS.

~~~
favorited
MS Office. They're 100% dominant in word processing, spreadsheets, and
presentations.

~~~
Fnoord
..but they don't leverage their MS Office dominance to harm the market. You
can access MS Office with the open HTTP(S) standard. MS Office works on
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and in WINE. It follows the OOXML standard which
you can open in LibreOffice as well.

Apple -> These $%^&ers don't allow anyone to repair their own devices, they
don't allow a different distribution method on iOS/iPodOS devices hence
quickly evolve to unfair market advantage.

Amazon -> Undercut anyone at any cost while having the worst review system on
our planet.

Facebook -> RIP privacy, just see the recent scandals.

Google -> Probably something involving Android...

Microsoft? Oh I can write a book about my terrible experiences with that
company. I hated this company and everything it stood for for about 15+ years
or so (at least 1995-2010). Recently though? Not so much.

~~~
eitland
> Google -> Probably something involving Android...

Hopefully IE^h^h Chrome as well.

> Microsoft? Oh I can write a book about my terrible experiences with that
> company. I hated this company and everything it stood for for about 15+
> years or so (at least 1995-2010). Recently though? Not so much.

Don't count on me for a book, but otherwise I think I agree to a large extent.

I still don't trust them though, and from time to time they tend to remind me
not to let my guard down.

------
ngngngng
I'm happy that antitrust is being explored. I do think free markets need to be
protected, and the last few decades attitude of "if it's good for consumers
it's legal" is short sighted. Something can be good for consumers right now,
but stifle competition and be bad for consumers eventually.

~~~
jtr_47
They should first take a look at the Telco/Cable companies and the lack of
competition and upgrades. Plus they need to look at the laws these companies
are writing to prevent municipal Fibre etc. from seeing the light of day too.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
The cable companies are a natural monopoly, just like electricity providers et
al. It doesn't make sense for two companies to lay two separate sets of cable
in the ground.

ISP competition isn't going to happen, at least not in the wired/cable space.
They need to be regulated with that reality in mind.

~~~
ngngngng
I disagree, I am a customer of a unique _not quite_ municipal network called
Utopia. I pay Utopia a monthly fee for my dedicated fiber connection, and I
have about 10 ISPs to choose from offering speeds of up to 10Gb/s. It feels
like this model is spreading like wildfire here in Utah. I hope it catches on
elsewhere.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Discussions about monopolies aside, why do it this way? What service do the
ISPs actually provide?

Wouldn't it make more sense for Utopia to just provide internet, given that
they run _and are directly charging you for_ the infrastructure?

------
andrewstuart
Tech companies have failed to buy enough politicians over the years.

That message is clear.

The need to employ the lobbyists who not only put big petroleum in a
completely unassailable position, but got the government paying vast amounts
of money to that industry.

~~~
GeekyBear
When the career antitrust officials at the FTC recommend antitrust action
against Google back in 2012, it was the political appointees (from both
parties) who shut that action down.

>The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday faced renewed questions about its
handling of its antitrust investigation into Google, after documents revealed
that an internal report had recommended stronger action.

The 2012 report, from the agency’s bureau of competition, said that the agency
should sue the Internet search company for anticompetitive practices

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/technology/take-google-
to...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/20/technology/take-google-to-court-
staff-report-urged-ftc.html)

I'd say the bribes for both parties had been working as intended.

~~~
bduerst
It wasn't shut down, a deal was settled between the FTC and Google. You can
mince words and call it a political conspiracy, but saying it was shut down is
misleading when Google changed how it handles mobile patents to appease the
FTC:

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2013/01/googl...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2013/01/google-agrees-change-its-business-practices-resolve-ftc)

------
40acres
The #1 issue with big tech is that the major players are under-utilizing their
talent base. It's never been easier to start a software company (idea, laptop,
Stripe Atlas, AWS/Azure/GCP.. GO!), and yet the over-all number of new
business in America is declining.

The threat of anti-trust, and perhaps trust busting, will spur competition and
innovation. The US owes it to it's future citizens that STEM talent is not
underutilized before it's too late, I support efforts to end this stagnation.

~~~
TrackerFF
For many startups, the only goal is to get acquired by the big players. We
know fully well that acquiring competition is a perfectly viable strategy to
reduce competition. It's a win-win situation for founders, investors, and the
big companies.

The founders and investors get a huge payday, the big companies get useful IP
and employees, and are free to bury the product (see google graveyard).

It's sad. When startups release amazing stuff, they put pressure on the whole
industry to up their game; consumers get better products, companies are forced
to innovate, and good by-products come along.

But in the end, money talks.

------
gerash
It sounds like tech. hasn't bought enough Republicans yet. That's all these
investigations are about apparently. Otherwise Sinclair media, for example,
should be investigated for having an actual monopoly over US local news TV
stations.

~~~
djmips
I'd guess that Trump has an axe to grind with the 'liberal' tech industry. I'm
sure Amazon is in the crosshairs.

------
JaimeThompson
I somehow doubt that the review of the major telcos, which are tech companies,
will be all that involved.

------
WalterBright
The big tech companies are a major asset to the economy, driving growth and
jobs. Breaking them up is a pretty risky proposition.

~~~
vharuck
I think the economy is resilient enough to bounce back. And the point of
antitrust prosecutions is to prevent long-term damage to the economy.

~~~
WalterBright
Any other country would dearly love to have even one of the FAANG companies.
Big companies are what drive economies, prosperity, employment and tax
revenue, not mom-and-pop companies. Small companies are the future, but big
companies are the now.

(That doesn't mean I propose government action to prop up big companies. Just
that one needs to think twice about breaking them.)

------
tuxxy
Is there anything keeping this out of the anti-encryption debate?

Is it possible that AG Barr could say, "We will go after you for anti-trust
issues _unless_ you agree to weaken your privacy tooling", etc?

------
lifeisstillgood
Matt Levine (Bloomberg news letter) was good in this today: roughly speaking,
if "we" as a society want to regulate Tech companies we can just pass laws to
do it - stop relying on handfuls of poachers-turned-gamekeepers to extend
their remits and just legislate properly

And if our legislators cannot do it, then that's is we the voters problem.

It's all in our hands.

Now - what is the vision? :-)

------
omarhaneef
Q: Does anyone know if it is typical for antitrust action to last into a new
administration once it has started?

~~~
tick_tock_tick
The DOJ normally acts with some degree of freedom with new administrations
merely refocusing its most visible efforts. A large scale probe would be
extremely unlikely to get dropped completely but could be marginalized.

~~~
User23
The DOJ is not an independent agency, despite what the media attempts to lead
people to believe. The Constitution clearly states that the executive power,
which includes law enforcement, is vested in the President. The DOJ has no
authority to enforce laws except that of the President.

That said, political considerations do mean that Presidents are hesitant to
overtly step in on specific cases and usually prefer to set general
objectives. However the President can step in on a specific case if he wishes
and that is actually explicitly part of our system. The President can set
aside a conviction with a pardon or prevent it from being prosecuted in the
first place.

~~~
bobsil1
>The President can… prevent it from being prosecuted in the first place

No.

~~~
User23
You are completely incorrect. The President can pardon before a prosecution
even begins so long as the pardon is after the act itself[1]. He can also
direct his Attorney General or US attorneys to drop a case because he is their
boss and they serve at his pleasure.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland)

------
dredmorbius
Additional coverage:

Justice Department Opens Antitrust Review of Big Tech Companies

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/technology/justice-
depart...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/technology/justice-department-
tech-antitrust.html)

Matt Levine: Facebook Negotiated Its Rules

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-23/facebo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-23/facebook-
negotiated-its-rules)

DoJ opens review into Big Tech’s market power

[https://www.ft.com/content/4f008ab0-ad8c-11e9-8030-530adfa87...](https://www.ft.com/content/4f008ab0-ad8c-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2)
([http://archive.is/ktmWP](http://archive.is/ktmWP)) Also/earlier:
[http://archive.is/xQ0hI](http://archive.is/xQ0hI)
[http://archive.is/Nt7kl](http://archive.is/Nt7kl)
[http://archive.is/TiDIB](http://archive.is/TiDIB)

Big Tech Hit With Broad U.S. Antitrust Probe as Scrutiny Mounts

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-23/u-s-
opens...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-23/u-s-opens-probe-
of-online-platforms-over-competition-harm?srnd=politics-vp)

Also worth revisiting: "Fred Turner: Silicon Valley Thinks Politics Doesn’t
Exist"

[https://032c.com/fred-turner-silicon-valley-thinks-
politics-...](https://032c.com/fred-turner-silicon-valley-thinks-politics-
doesnt-exist)
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17669745](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17669745))

------
d1zzy
I would imagine that each of the investigated companies cases is a multi-year
effort with dozens/hundreds of specialists gathering evidence, processing it,
etc. It seems rather weird to start such a gigantic effort against all
companies at once because anti-trust law is very complex and for each of these
companies there will be completely different criteria and circumstances to
make the case against.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I suspect this to take decades to
reach some conclusion. By then I'm not even sure how much of the original goal
to the investigation will be reached.

------
tasty_freeze
I believe the US could do more with antitrust oversight. The DOJ under Clinton
was pursuing Microsoft up until 2001, when the new Bush administration carried
through on a campaign promise and took the bite out of the investigation.

This isn't to point the blame just at conservatives, who have historically
been of the mindset that the government shouldn't interfere with business.
Democrats haven't spent much political capital towards those ends either.

For 2.5 years president Trump has been raging at Bezos because he owns the
Washington Post, and that has extended to Trump raging that Amazon needs to be
taxed heavily. Despite playing the social media angle for all it is worth,
Trump has been claiming that Facebook/Twitter/Google have been filtering out
conservative opinions.

So pardon me for being suspicious that now the DOJ cares about looking into
all of these companies. I'm for anti-trust regulation, but not when it is
applied selectively for political gain.

~~~
jdgoesmarching
Eh I mean, if Trump throwing a tantrum is how we stumble into anti-trust
legislation I’m still for it.

~~~
tasty_freeze
No, that is a dangerous position. If the laws are applied only to political
enemies, it is not justice. It also degrades the law, erodes public trust, and
undermines democracy.

Here is a counter example. 501(c)(4) organizations [1] are non-profits which
have certain reporting requirements that are not allowed to do political work.
Laws were changed, ostensibly to allow them to do some activities that were in
the gray area -- the law said as long as they were mostly doing welfare/social
work, then they could keep their status. PACs abused this by claiming they
were 501(c)(4) organizations, which allowed them to shield who was bankrolling
them.

When this was noticed, the IRS started looking into them. The right screamed
bloody murder, saying the IRS was being used as a political tool of the Obama
administration. And if that had been true, they would have been right to
complain, even those the vast majority of those PACs were not really
501(c)(4)s. To this day it is claimed that this is what actually went down,
when in fact the IRS looked into PACs from both parties. [2]

[1] [https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-the-irs-classifies-
nonprof...](https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-the-irs-classifies-nonprofit-
organizations-2501798)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy)

------
awinder

      “I don’t think big is   
      necessarily bad, but I think a 
      lot of people wonder how such 
      huge behemoths that now exist 
      in Silicon Valley have taken 
      shape under the nose of the 
      antitrust enforcers,” Mr. Barr 
      told senators
    

What hasn’t been occurring in broad daylight? This excuse is purpose-made to
escape blame but these issues have been discussed for years while SEC has
allowed acquisitions and mergers through on the anti-competition side of this
argument...

~~~
scarface74
But not a peep about telecom, media, oil companies, Monsanto....

------
ryeights
Buy the fear on this news. Various governmental bodies (Congress, the FTC,
etc.) have shown that they're more talk than walk on the issue of antitrust
litigation

------
thomasjudge
Hasn't antitrust enforcement/actions been pretty toothless over the past, say,
15 years at least? Think of telco mergers, airline mergers, ...

------
root_axis
Why doesn't the topic of data privacy laws ever enter this discussion? Data
privacy laws would apply to _everyone_ instead of targeting whoever happens to
be at the top of the alexa rankings. Most of the big tech companies are not in
violation of anti-trust regulations, so why don't we actually pass _new laws_
to tackle the actual problem (systematic abuse of user data for profit)?

------
Railsify
I don't understand how google could be split up, would they redirect traffic
from google.com to another search engine?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
One split that comes to mind is:

1\. Google Search+search ads

2\. YouTube

3\. Chrome

4\. Android

5\. Content ads

~~~
m0zg
Whereupon parts 2 through 5 promptly die out due to insufficient revenue and
talent exodus.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
YouTube would be a Fortune 500 company on its own.

Mozilla seems to be doing just fine. I'm sure Chrome, Inc. could figure out
some way to monetize itself.

Android is installed on over 2.5 billion devices worldwide. If they couldn't
figure out how to monetize that, then they would have no business being in
business.

Adsense/Doubleclick/whatever they're calling it right now makes billions of
dollars per year.

All five parts would be monstrously large, powerful businesses on their own.
The fact that they're all smooshed together stifles competition and
innovation.

~~~
m0zg
I kinda doubt YT will be anything if it needs to build and maintain its own
infrastructure, run its own datacenters, have its own fiber links, etc. Their
cost structure assumes that they get all of those things from Google at a
fraction of the cost they'd pay if they had to roll their own or host their
stuff in the public cloud.

Android could be something, maybe, but if you remove Google's services and AI
on the backend it's just a third rate iOS rip-off.

Content ads likewise rely on low cost networks, infrastructure, and having
everyone's profiles available to them for ads targeting. Remove access to
profile and make them fend for themselves, and it's an open question whether
they'll survive.

I do agree with your last point though: having all these things as a single
monolith presents an insurmountable obstacle for other companies to enter the
corresponding markets.

~~~
fjp
> if you remove Google's services and AI on the backend it's just a third rate
> iOS rip-off.

yes! they would have to improve or die! that's one of the points of anti-
monopoly legislation and enforcement

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Well said. I love it when people unintentionally back into arguments for why a
real free market is good by arguing that a not-actually-free market is better.

------
rrivers
Warren and Sanders are proposing breaking up these organizations (Google,
Amazon, and FB) - but I believe they are pulling out of the Gilded Age
playbook that won't necessarily transfer to today's age. How do you break up
virtual assets and realistically stifle their power?

I don't believe the same old anti-trust is the most effective method for
dealing with these and future monopolies. Instead, a more tiered social
responsibility program may be the ideal solution to continue and incentivize
innovation while allowing society to reap the benefits of organizations that
reach network monopolies.

If you're interested in exploring this line of thought I've published a brief
article about it: [https://bit.ly/2Yc57iS](https://bit.ly/2Yc57iS)

------
thwythwy
Broad, new headline same as every other headline for past years, new quotes
from unattributed Justice Department official sources. Fear.

~~~
katttrrr
It seems that a lot of this anti-trust content solely focuses on national
competition, rather than then international playing field; even though the US
is in onging direct competition with an extremely global and readily availble
international tech market. I feel we need to start looking at things from a
global perspective and what impact splitting up US companies would have on
their growth relative to the internaional market competitors.

------
stock_toaster
I wonder if the timing on this is just a level for trying to get backdoor
encryption accepted by the major players.

------
nodesocket
Google and Facebook; sure makes sense and considering their track records I am
for regulation.

However Apple? They have the best record on privacy and clearly iPhone and Mac
are not a monopoly. Thanks to Tim Cooks deplomacy they also happen to be in
the good grace of Trump unlike the others.

~~~
Qwertystop
There is an argument to be made that, since Apple is fairly restrictive of
what software can be made for their platforms, Apple has a monopoly on...
software for Apple devices? App stores for Apple devices? Something of that
sort. It is difficult-to-impossible to make, distribute, run, or sell iPhone
software without giving Apple a cut of your earnings and a hook to force
changes, and this has been claimed to lead to anti-competitive effects (see
Spotify's recent complaints).

I've seen the argument made here and there, but I am not a lawyer and I don't
recall well enough who I saw it from, so I don't know whether this is a _good_
argument. But it's an argument being made by at least one company that
presumably does hire lawyers, so it's probably not a _terrible_ one.

Their record on privacy is unrelated as far as I can tell to antitrust,
though; I'm not sure why you brought it up in this context.

~~~
scarface74
_There is an argument to be made that, since Apple is fairly restrictive of
what software can be made for their platforms, Apple has a monopoly on...
software for Apple devices? App stores for Apple devices?_

In that case, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have “monopolies” on their
platforms?

~~~
greycol
Sure they have monopolies on their platforms, but the key point is how they
act within their monopolies

The argument is that what Apple's doing inside there 'monopoly' is egregious
enough to run afoul of these laws. Whether creating a music app on their
system that is by default at a 30% revenue advantage compared to their
competitors runs afoul of these laws is the question.

Monopolies by themselves aren't necessarily a problem it's when they leverage
their monopoly position that there are issues.

~~~
scarface74
_Sure they have monopolies on their platforms, but the key point is how they
act within their monopolies_

Everything that people complain about with Apple us even worse with the
consoles.

1\. People complain about having to buy a Mac and pay $99 a year to develop
for iOS. You can’t even develop on a PlayStation without signing an NDA and I
couldn’t find anywhere reputable that knew the price.

2\. The console makers also get a cut of every game sold on their platform -
either physical or digital.

3\. The platform owners - especially Nintendo - are much stricter about what
they will allow on their platforms.

4\. It’s much harder to “sideload” console games.

5\. All of the console makers have first party games where they don’t have to
pay a fee to themselves.

 _Whether creating a music app on their system that is by default at a 30%
revenue advantage compared to their competitors runs afoul of these laws is
the question._

Spotify hasn’t allowed in app subscriptions for years so they don’t pay a fee.

But on the other hand, I can “sideload” my own music and integrate it with my
Apple Music library without paying Apple anything. Can I do that with Spotify?
It seems like Spotify has more of a walled garden than Apple...

------
shmerl
I'm surprised Microsoft isn't mentioned. It can be a good initiative, if it
will for example force breaking lock-in, free up standards and reduce the
likes of MS monopoly of Windows on preinstalled computers.

------
taurath
Some mirrors/other posts

(Paywall) [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/technology/justice-
depart...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/technology/justice-department-
tech-antitrust.html)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/doj-reportedly-to-open-
broad...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/doj-reportedly-to-open-broad-
antitrust-review-of-big-tech-tech-stocks-dip.html)

[https://apnews.com/e334256d27254a28a3b5d6db041ec5b1?utm_medi...](https://apnews.com/e334256d27254a28a3b5d6db041ec5b1?utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter)

------
happypeter
Loved big these tech giants before, because I believed they were the only way
to bring trust. Now I see them as bugs to fix, since trust can be done in a
p2p way.

------
marmada
I think there's too much backlash against big tech companies.

Yes FAANG companies have occasionally done bad things, but they contribute
immense value. Gmail, Google Maps, Android, Amazon, AWS, etc. have provided
immense value to billions of people.

I also think these companies are advancing state of the art software
development, tons of open source software has been released Facebook, Google,
etc. Google is doing cool things with AI, etc.

I suspect a lot of this action against big tech companies is the result of a
politicized justice department that wants to take down "liberal elites". Why
haven't we seen more action against other arguably even more harmful
companies? (Larger companies, companies that destroy the environment, etc.)

I think people on HN are getting duped. In this case, their interests
(enhanced consumer privacy) and Trump's interests (sticking it to the liberal
elites), align on the surface, but the actual motivation of the Justice
Department is much more insidious.

------
ilaksh
The way to replace their large networks is decentralized systems.

------
guelo
This is so scary because of the highly politicized nature of Trump's DOJ. This
feels like it's all about settling political scores that the right wing has
against Google and Facebook's functions as gate keepers against fake news. In
fact Steve Bannon announced this attack on tech shortly after the election. It
is scary because they're now using the power of the federal government against
their political enemies, where does that end? And they see an opening for
their nakedly political attack because there is a lot of truth to the
anticompetitive market, and liberals like Elizabeth Warren have floated
similar ideas.

------
prepend
I’m not sure what will come of the investigation, but I hope it clarifies the
privately owned public space (POPS) aspect of these companies.

Currently google, facebook, twitter and others alternate between being common
carriers and private networks depending on what best suits them, and limits
competition, I think.

Regulation will be hard, but just clarifying the duty and liability to provide
service and level of service. Currently, firms apply “terms of service” and
don’t typically provide much insight into particular bans or limitations. If
the phone company operated this way, it’s clear which regulator could
intervene. Currently that’s not possible, but the platforms also aren’t liable
for infringing content. It seems hard to practice selective enforcement, but
not be liable when there is illegal material.

