
Why Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Need to Be Disrupted - ForHackernews
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/amp15895746/bust-big-tech-silicon-valley/
======
wpasc
Working in tech (not companies listed), I get somewhat irked at the recent
barrage of "regulate/break them up" articles I keep seeing about tech
companies.

Not being a big fan of regulation in general, but if you're going to regulate,
should these companies be at the top of your list? There are plenty of wrongs
being committed by a variety of companies and industries right now. Not saying
these companies are as holier than thou than they preach to be, but they are
all innovative and good companies. While they have practices that merit
examination, so do many other companies that have histories of being far less
transparent and far less proactive about change.

I don't mean to say the world of tech doesn't need a fair amount of reflection
and self reflection, but this recent bandwagoning of "regulate tech!" seems
reactionary and hype driven as opposed to more well intentioned. This guy was
even mentioning his book... The media has covered tech in the last year in a
"if it bleeds it leads" capacity that I think undercuts many of the valid
points being raised. Idk, I could be wrong, but that's my two cents

~~~
Slansitartop
> if you're going to regulate, should these companies be at the top of your
> list

Yes. Two of them (Google and Facebook) basically control a huge fraction of
the information people are exposed to on a daily basis, either directly on
indirectly. They're so dominant and aloof, that they can make or break
businesses without even realizing it or caring. Their control over information
flow also has important civil society implications.

Amazon could conceivably control most American retail activity in the future,
though it has a few retail titans that could conceivably stand up to it if
they get their acts together [1]. At best, we seem to be headed towards a
retail oligopoly.

Personally, I'm much less worried about Apple, its control is much less
pervasive. Though I wish there were more alternatives to it other than
Android.

[1] [https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/01/amazon-
is-...](https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/01/01/amazon-is-
dominating-the-entire-retail-industry.aspx)

~~~
wpasc
Yes, they do both control a lot of information that people see, BUT Facebook
already changed their news feed algorithm and many tech companies are making
changes. Not saying they're doing it perfectly or even well, but still.

On the other hand

Tobacco companies for years lied about the risks and promoted false science

Energy companies regularly fund climate change denial organizations (see
Heartland Institute)

Monsanto sends detectives after farmers who get tangled with them
([https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/Monsanto/farme...](https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/Monsanto/farmerssued.php))

Tyson, Purdue regularly keep chicken farmers in poverty and silenced about
chicken farming conditions.

Volkswagen created emission cheating software to hide their emissions...

Again, tech companies aren't great and control a lot of information, but what
about the food we eat and the air we breathe?

~~~
Tyrek
While I do agree that all these areas need regulatory improvements, I feel
like you're falling into the what-about-ism trap. I personally feel like
increased regulatory scrutiny about tech companies (i.e. regulating
information) would be a strong first step in allowing society to _then_
regulate the other industries that you mentioned.

~~~
wpasc
I think you make a good point about what-about-ism. Unfortunately, the
attention of regulators, the U.S. government, and the media is a rival good
and areas of focus are definitely mutually exclusive.

It's a sad fact of the national attention span, but still likely a fact.

------
djrogers
Every time I see an article about this, I look for something to explain why
Apple is lumped in with Facebook and Google - something beyond 'they make the
piece of glass you look at facebook or google on', and I can't really find it.

This time around, the author points to an incorrect profit margin (he claims a
profit margin of over 250% for an iPhone, which is nearly an order of
magnitude too high), and one time that a Spotify update was rejected. Not
exactly compelling...

~~~
macintux
Agreed. One of these is definitely not like the others.

As has been pointed out previously, the only thing Apple has ever held a
monopoly on is taste.

~~~
cromwellian
They have 50% of the US market, and control 75% of the app store spend. (iOS
users spend 4x as much in aggregate), ergo, they are the gatekeepers of 75% of
the mobile software economy, take a 30% cut, are using their closed ecosystem
leverage to inflate an inferior music streaming competitor (Apple Music) vs
Spotify, etc. I mean, there's lots of current market power abuse or potential
market power abuse, and had it not been for Android, who knows how much of a
monopoly they'd have.

That said, I don't think they need to be broken up, nor do I think Amazon,
Microsoft, Facebook, or Google do. The problems of wage stagnation in the
advanced economies have nothing to do with tech.

The "whataboutism" this time is correct, because we're quit literally talking
about spending political capital to break up these companies on mostly
theoretical harm, with unknown consequences, while ignoring decades of much
much nastier abuses by other corporations that have actually killed lots of
people.

You're not going to seriously get me triggered over Amazon blowing away
Walmart, at the same time, you have chemical companies dumping toxic waste
into streams. On the scale of needs, I'm worried about Amazon last.

There's a tendency of #firstworldproblems, of people in cushy white collar
desk jobs, to hyperbolize relatively minor effects on their own life, while
they consume products from companies that ship misery abroad, overseas.

You lose your shit when someone removes a feature from Snapchat because it
affects you directly, but continue to enjoy your Sweatshop manufactured
clothing, or your durable goods made with blood minerals because you don't see
who it's hurting.

No good deed goes unpunished it seems. Many of the tech companies have been at
the forefront of corporate responsibility compared to old industries, have
reliably contributed to progressive causes, have responded to publish
criticism and pressure without needs to be sued into it, and yet, all of the
focus is on them.

I mean, good lord, Paul Manafort worked with defense contractors, right wing
think ranks, and Congress and shipped small arms to a Angola, which was in the
middle of a peace talks to end a civil war, and re-ignited a fight that got
100,000 people killed. Whataboutism in this case is justified, if you're going
to spend your time lobbying for something, spend it on something that's going
to help save people in actual danger.

~~~
macintux
That’s an impassioned argument against something no one else in this
particular thread is discussing, but ok.

~~~
cromwellian
Actually, other comments did reference "what-about-ism"

Also, if you say Google has an too large an effect on your business because of
tweaks to search ranking, you can't say Apple doesn't have too large an effect
due to tweaks in their T&C, app review policies, or outright bans if your app.
Lots of startups have been hurt by App Store bans, removals, and delays.

------
lnino
This article has a lot of economical misconceptions.

To name just one of the most blatant: the author complains about wages not
growing enough, but also that tech giants are "less efficient" in job
creation, having more market value per employee, and requiring less employees
to generate the same revenue and profit.

How the heck is a company supposed to pay more it's employees without being
able to make more money per employee? And if it's making more money per
employee, then obviously they will have more market value per employee. This
is not a company being inefficient at "creating jobs" but actually being
efficient at creating high quality jobs with wages that keep growing over
time.

That's just basic math and economics, but seems to be beyond the understanding
of the author.

All the part about the economic impact of the big four is quite nonsensical,
and reads like the proverbial rant of light bulb makers that they can't
compete with a free source of light like the sun.

As with most of the current zeitgeist the idea of the article seems to be that
success is the problem. The problem with the big four is not that they exist,
but why there aren't more of them? Why not the big 100 or 1000? What's
hindering other companies from being as successful in generating profits and
high-paying jobs? Maybe the big four are doing a lot of evil things to prevent
others from joining the club. Maybe the government is also to blame. Maybe
both big government and big companies are together in this (anyone knows the
meaning of the word "lobbyist"?).

If you keep asking the wrong questions and ignoring basic economic reality
you'll never get to know the answer.

~~~
pedro_hab
On the math part, I see a lot of complaints on the rich, in these case the big
four are indeed huge, but compared to what?

Last time I check none of these had reach $ 1T value, compared to the US
government that expends $ 3T a year.

No one of those same people seem to be concerned with the harms of the a
government expending so much money.

~~~
lnino
People think the government is their fairy godmother.

------
maxxxxx
I think there should be disincentives for any company to grow beyond a certain
size. Huge companies provide a short-term benefit to the consumer but in the
ling run they cause a lot of damage to innovation and the economy.

~~~
wpasc
This idea somewhat pre-empts the possibility of achieving certain economies of
scale. If a large company can achieve great economies of scale and pass that
on to a consumer, who benefits from the onerous regulation that costs the tax
payer money to enforce as well as money to pay for the increased cost of the
good?

Anti-trust in the U.S. has not been super strongly enforced in recent decades
(perhaps since the Ma Bell breakup and Glass Steagall before it was
repealed?). But if the consumer is not being harmed, why get in the way of a
company that has truly earned market dominance?

~~~
aareet
> But if the consumer is not being harmed, why get in the way of a company
> that has truly earned market dominance?

Presumably the anti-trust regulation exists to determine the consumer harm.

~~~
wpasc
I believe it does, but the commenter said size should be the determining
factor. I disagreed with that area, but harm to consumer should absolutely be
regulated by anti-trust

~~~
maxxxxx
It's hard to determine consumer harm. For example Walmart is often considered
as beneficial to the consumer because of price but you could also argue that
harm is done by limiting choice and innovation.

------
malvosenior
The "big 4" should be disrupted by the market, not the government. Of those
firms listed, only Amazon seems to be in a position of solid, lasting
strength.

Don't believe it? Remember Microsoft? They used to dominate our industry and
crush innovation. Their tactics made Uber's seem soft and fuzzy. Sure the
government gave them a knock but that didn't slow them down. Do you know what
did? Apple and iOS. They missed the boat on mobile and now they're still
valuable but not an existential threat to the industry.

It's _really_ hard for a tech company to dominate over the decades. Apple has
been near death multiple times in the past and while they have a ton of money,
they aren't exactly innovating anymore. It will happen again, it's in their
DNA.

Facebook is just Myspace 2.0 that was smart enough to snatch up Instagram
(starting to show its age), and Whatsapp. Acquisitions != innovation.

None of these companies are threats to technological progress in the long
term. Something new will show up a that disrupts their entire model. It's
happened with every boom cycle in tech history.

The trick is to look for the next big thing and ride the wave and _not_ look
to the single most regressive institution in existence (the government) to
come help you.

~~~
djsumdog
Microsoft is still huge though. Sure they've lost server share to Linux (which
they're embracing in some ways now) and desktop share to Apple, but they're
still massive.

The trouble is, how do you compete with Google, now, today. We use to have
Lycos, Hotbot, Yahoo, Dogpile ... Duckduckgo is far from even approaching
Google's share.

I don't think the future is the free market. The future is developers making
distributed platforms that everyone can support. The next YouTube won't be
centralized. The next search won't have removable results, because they'll be
cached among all the computers that contribute to that search.

~~~
rock_hard
I am not sure that’s gonna work as we all want it to.

If there is no central governing body (like FB or Google) then these
decentralized networks will be pure anarchy...in which case it won’t take long
for government to jump in and mess everything up with a bunch of nonsensical
regulations...just look what happened with BitTorrent and now Crypto
currencies.

You seriously think the government is gonna do a better job at regulating
Google or Facebook then these companies themselves? The incentives are simply
not aligned...it’s all gonna go to hell my friend :(

------
ryandrake
Article criticizing Facebook’s dominance has a link to share on Facebook. Be
the change you want to see?

~~~
Slansitartop
> Article criticizing Facebook’s dominance has a link to share on Facebook. Be
> the change you want to see?

I'm _sure_ article-author Scott Galloway, NYU Professor of Marketing, has the
authority to change Esquire's social media strategy, on account of writing an
article for it.

------
neo4sure
The articles have such misplaced attitudes. Healthcare is eating up GDP and no
articles about disrupting pharmaceutical companies.

Global warming is threatening the entire world no articles about disrupting
the energy industry.

Give me break.

------
stevenicr
Google is the worst of these right now IMO, only because fbook has agreed to
change some things recently.

I am looking for a group of people to start a competing search portal to take
about 20% of the google search and do it better. I've been watching the big G
slide into more and more censorship and it's looking like it's going the
direction of "wacky safe".

If anyone can help make a more mature portal for search, please contact me.
The time is right for this disruption.

The disruption of fbook is so easy that I'm not too worried about it, when it
happens it will be swift.

Eventually google will just be the new yellow pages, with a bunch of
unregulated tv channels (unless youtube is split off from it)

~~~
pythonaut_16
Do you think Google is willingly sliding into censorship with their core
search product?

The reality is, Google is in a tough place legally with certain content. How
will your proposed search disruptor handle these same legal and ethical issues
differently from Google?

~~~
stevenicr
I think in some areas google is being pressured by various govts. However in
many areas they are self censoring for different reasons by different people
and groups of people within the G sphere. Both are bad and are going to far
IMO.

I understand the reality you speak of, I've read a lot of news regarding this
for years.

My proposed search disruptor idea is to have it vary the top results on
various verticals and the results as a whole based upon region, even state by
state, city by city. Some of this due the regulatory pressures that exist,
some due to the community standards that exist and vary town by town, state by
sate, country by country.. but also as a wise business move.. as getting the
accepted content to those in city X and ads that city X is likely to enjoy is
a win win, and keeps the san fran ads from freaking out the small town groups
on the other side of the state will bring less pressure..

So yes it's possible to do this much better. I know big G could do it - but
they are thinking on a bigger more scale-able and move on issues, so a niche
nimble engine can do this better..

There also appears to be groups at G that want to censor more and more things
that are not illegal, what was the term for the last ceo? Make them grow up
and adult or need a babysitter or something?

Anyhow, they are censoring a LOT of results based on negative push down
factors from their hatred of SEO from years back - and that is making the
engine server a lot less of what people are looking for as well - no pressure
from and regulatory there - just a moby dick thing where they are cutting
their nose off despite their adwords..

There is money on the table, it's a problem that could use fixing, and we can
do it better than they can. It will only effectively target 20% of G's
searches..

and we'd probably only get about 8% of the adwords type money that G is
getting.. but I think a nimble search portal could provide a decent living for
a group of coders and investors on that kind of money for a while.

------
jmull
This is so dumb.

If you haven't already but are feeling tempted, save yourself some time and
don't bother reading this article. It's pure unthinking big-company-hate
without any substance.

Well, I guess the gimmick -- that each of these large tech companies
corresponds to a bodily region and appeals to us for a related reason -- is
nice, but even that doesn't really make much sense.

I don't want to begrudge Scott Galloway his living... If this is what it takes
to get a publication like Esquire to pay then I guess this is what it takes. I
just seems like the guy should be able to make a living in some non-
embarrassing way.

------
preordained
An e-commerce site, glossy UIs, friend connector, and a searching
utility...honestly our tech "giants" are just the the last guys standing from
the Internet boom of the nineties

------
dalbasal
I think our "anti-trust" principles are due a major reform, booth theoretical
and legal.

There is more to take into account than "trusts" or (in most cases)
monopolies. We're not dealing with trains and resource transport anymore.
Barriers to entry and societally harmful consequences of scale work totally
differently.

Google & FB have absolute control of online advertising (in most markets), and
significant control of online media. Their decisions vis-a-vis surveilance
deterrmine the level of privacy most people have. If Youtube demonetizes
certain content (for immodesty, politcal views, etc.), then these are the
standards of the internet. If Google and FB agree that an article is important
(via whatever employees, users, algorithims or combination make the
"decision"), then it is. If they agree a position is propogandist or dangerous
& should be silenced, then it is. Youtube's fair use implementation is what
fair use is in normative practice.

That is just a lot of power. It's unchecked, and IMO scary.

This is not about good and evil. It's not a trial of Alphabet & FB. I'm not
accusing them of wanting to censor media^. Not accusing them of being worse
than others. Their size itself is a problem,

^ _Ad-surveilance though, that is probably worth $100bn pa to them, maybe
more. Here their interests are pathological, imo. Completely at odds with
their users ' interests_

Meanwhile, These companies (again particularly Google & FB) just take up a lot
of "space," and are not always gret custodians of the territory they occupy.

Lets play what-if. What if Tinder dissappeared today. I see a decent chance
that something will take its place by tomorrow. I wouldn't be surprised if
it's something better. Tinder isn't hard to make. What's hard to do is draw
the network, which is where the value of Tinder is. Full credit to Tinder for
the concept and implementation but that does not guarantee that they are the
best custodians of that space.

Giants have more moat than Tinder. FB have over half the population logging in
daily and subscribed to IMs/notifications. .

Google controls my phone, my browser, my TV... It controls the network of
advertisers, the eyeballs, the app store, the user profiling data.... Good
luck competing with youtube.

Youtube is important. It _is_ online video, which may be the most important
media channel in the world.

The WWW (culturally and technically) gives users a platform to be their own
media, have their own show, expand and free and democratize media. IMO,
podcasting is an interesting space. It's very decentralized and free, running
on bare metal protocols, more or less. They negotiate directly with
advertisers and deliver directly to users. The stuff that succeeds seems to be
much better quality. Spam doesn't exist. Clickbait is minimal.

Video though.. video goes through Google & FB. If FB decide that 30s videos
are the s--t, that's what people see. If youtube decides that original content
is less valuable than random mashups of content (bordering on spam, imo), then
they are. If youtube's comment section sucks, then online discussions of
videos suck. If Google decides that the platform/content revenue split is
50-50, then it is. If they think science is boring, it is.

(Personally, I think Youtube is mismanaged, and that is a big let down. You
can probably tell.)

But if Youtube disappears tomorrow... We'd still have online video. New
platforms would appear. Competition would (for a time) take place. The
internet would be better off.

I've got no idea how these (half baked) ideas sould be implmented into
regulation, to pre-empt the comment. Obviously, it's tricky.

But, I don't think this can be improved via the normal antitrust concepts. the
problem isn't price fixing or "artificial" barriers to entry. The problem is a
lack creative destruction and an accumulation of power.

------
siliconviking
You knpw the saying "can't beat something with nothing"?

Don't regulate! Come up with something better.

~~~
vernie
No, I don't know that saying.

------
devit
The big issue is that the companies have absolute power over facilities that
should be mankind's possession and thus managed with explicit laws and a
justice-like system offering due process.

Google is managing mankind's search engine with a secret algorithm and they
can arbitrarily decide your site's presence or position in search queries with
no recourse (granted, it's hard to define a fair way to do this, but still).

Facebook is managing mankind's person-to-person communication system and you
have no recourse if you are banned, if your content is removed, or if you are
trying to publicize some content and the newsfeed algorithms are unfavorable
to you.

Amazon is managing mankind's delivery system and you have no recourse if they
refuse to carry your products.

[Apple is less of a problem because they are merely monopolizing iOS devices,
and there's an easy fix in terms of forcing them to open source iOS and
license any related patents, so that iOS apps can be made to run on Android
devices]

Reddit is another huge problem as they manage (and especially allow random
moderators to manage) mankind's discussion forums with no regard to free
speech, with arbitrary bans and no enforced transparency.

One option is to enforce competition: this could be done for Google by only
allowing them to operate their search engine for up to a few consecutive hours
per day, can be done for Amazon by allowing them to operate only a few days
per month, for Facebook by forcing them to federate their social graph, so
that people can host their accounts on any service and still have the same
interaction and for Reddit to also federate their forums like Usenet is
federated.

The other option is to be force them to manage all these facilities in the
public interest, with explicit and published rules of operation (e.g. Google
and Facebook must publish their ranking algorithms) and with all protections
like free speech applying, according to well-defined rules and providing due
process for any decisions that are adverse to anyone.

Obviously these should be as much as possible be general laws, like extending
free speech to apply private spaces as well, forcing to put any software that
can generate lock-in (e.g. because it implements a proprietary widely used API
or manages a proprietary widely used file format) in the public domain and
forcing to federate any service that benefits from network effects.

