
Big Tech Has Become Too Powerful - jrowley
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html
======
raldi
In what way does everyone "have to use Google's search engine"? There are no
barriers to switching; you could switch to Bing forever in about five seconds.

Unlike switching from Facebook, you don't need to get all your friends to come
along. Unlike switching from GMail, you don't need to move a bunch of data.
Unlike switching your company away from Windows, you don't need to buy all new
software, retrain all staff, or get your partners to change the format they
use to interchange data with you.

If someone were to build a better search engine, we would all just switch.
Like when everyone left Altavista in 1999.

~~~
giancarlostoro
I've tried switching from Google to reasonable alternatives, and I usually
have to go back to Google to search twice because the results are not what I
was expecting, nowhere near. I'm not sure if this is only my own experience,
no offence to other engines (and their engineers), but if you can't find what
I'm looking for I'm going somewhere else to find it.

~~~
_delirium
Getting a bit tangential: I've been trying Bing again recently out of
curiosity, and at least for my usage I find it now pretty reasonable. A few
years ago it was barely usable, but now I'm fairly happy with it. It also
feels slightly snappier to me than Google on loading results. The main problem
is that a small but significant number of sites have a robots.txt that
excludes all non-Google crawlers, making it impossible for other search
engines to display equally good results in cases where that site has something
relevant (unless they blatantly ignore robots.txt).

~~~
caseysoftware
Why would someone do that?

If a site owner wants traffic on their site - and most do - they want to make
their site as easily discoverable as possible. That means being in all the
search engines. Blocking one engine (or all except one) flies in the face of
most business models.

The only exception I can think of is Google properties. By blocking out
competitors, they can try to worsen the experience on other engines. Like
imagine a video search on Bing that didn't include YouTube? But even then, it
seems like someone finding a Google property via Bing still furthers their
interests.

~~~
_delirium
Few deliberately block Bing specifically, it's just a sloppy attempt to block
unwanted crawlers, like the billions of crawlers running on AWS and
DigitalOcean boxes. A quick-but-not-great hack is to have an entry blocking *
by default, and then specifically whitelist GoogleBot to avoid getting
delisted from Google. You could also whitelist other search engines, but that
requires you to know and care about them, and for a long period Google was the
only engine people really cared about, since it drove >95% of organic search
traffic. I do feel we're past the peak of that period, however, and site
owners are now getting more cognizant of non-Google search engines having at
least some value in driving traffic.

Related, "Please Don't Block Everything but Googlebot in robots.txt":
[http://danluu.com/googlebot-monopoly/](http://danluu.com/googlebot-monopoly/)

~~~
caseysoftware
So it's more out of ignorance than maliciousness. That makes sense.

Odds are the more troublesome scrapers are probably ignoring robots.txt
anyway, so I wonder how useful it is.

------
trouser_chili
What a joke. Big Tech too powerful? How about the military industrial complex?
Pharmaceutical companies? THE BANKS? THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ITSELF?

No, those are all OK because they fit the agenda of total control. Technology
is the only industry putting up a fight, the only industry that is solving
problems for people instead of creating them.

Can't have that.

~~~
danenania
This. Our society happily tolerates so many entrenched monopolies and cartels
that are actively hostile to their customers and blatantly manipulate
government to keep competitors out. The tech industry is the least of our
worries.

~~~
bsbechtel
While true, the main concern I have with tech companies becoming too powerful
is their access and control of personal data. This becomes even more
concerning when they're so big they have significant data on individuals who
actively avoid their services.

------
striking
I take issue with the characterizations of industries as "Big X". Big Pharma,
Big Tech... It's clearly an attempt at demonizing larger players in the tech
industry.

My opinion is that antitrust laws and such are not applicable here because
even though the companies in question have an effective monopoly on traffic,
it does not make it impossible for other players to create a profitable
business.

Google is not a domineering empire like Standard Oil or Ma Bell once were.
They do not have total control over everything. Even if they have a certain
product (for example, Google Drawings), it doesn't stop other smaller players
from making quality products that people buy (Sketch, Illustrator, Inkscape,
etc.)

I don't really think this is a problem. (And where it is, existing antitrust
laws are performing as they should.)

~~~
aurelianito
I do have a problem with Apple forcing the iPhone app developers to use
MacBooks, given that about 90% of the purchases from cellphone app stores are
made using iPhones (as far as I remember). This is the kind of anti
competitive behavior that an anti trust law is supposed to punish. I don't
know the legal technicality they are using to avoid it.

Big Tech also formed a cartel to lower engineers salaries. This is also
something that should be punished by law (and AFAIK, they did win a class
action suit).

I do think this is a problem and needs to be addressed.

~~~
superuser2
Antitrust law can't force you to develop your products for platforms you don't
want to target. You will never see an antitrust decision that Apple _must_
develop a Windows version of XCode, and in fact doing so would probably
require a total re-architecture of the iOS platform.

You _might_ see antitrust law force Apple to allow sideloading, including apps
built by toolchains third parties have hacked together.

You're also not required to use a Macbook; the Mini is $500.

~~~
aurelianito
Why not?

If a monopoly is allowed to choose, it can use its domination in one vertical
to influence another vertical.

Anyway, I would prefer a Linux version of the iPhone SDK. I do not use neither
Windows nor OSX normally.

------
varelse
I think this problem takes care of itself, but it takes time, more time
perhaps than people are willing to allow.

1\. As organizations metastasize, the negative tail of the competence
distribution becomes more and more populated. In response, the organization
clamps down with restrictive rules that retard its innovation in exchange for
protecting itself from the invisible stupid within. See Microsoft, see IBM,
and see increasingly Google and Facebook as they turn to acqui-hires over
internal expertise.

2\. It's nice to rant yet again about 20-year patent cycles, but when are we
going to fix the copyright system? Or will we eternally be Mickey Mouse's
beeyotch? At this point, I'd be happy with a Mickey Mouse Forever
Amendment(tm) to the constitution if it would free up all the other
copyrights.

3\. Working around patents is what clever people do best. Make more or import
more clever people and you'll eventually get the companies that knock Google
and Facebook onto their increasingly lethargic keesters. And free bonus, if
you make more technically literate young adults, they'll have a lot less to
fear from looming technological unemployment.

~~~
spydum
i recently was having a discussion about #1 with some folks. I'm not sure its
about the competence fall off, i think it's the desire to draw on productivity
gains by orienting themselves in a process-centric fashion, versus the
original product-centric design. Process centric makes sense for
specialization and squeezing productivity gains out (standardized
tooling/platforms, bureacracy, layers of middle management to bring it all
together). Product-centric makes sense for innovation, but its inefficient in
the long-term (small teams, wide range of responsibility).

~~~
varelse
So unless you want your core talent to flee for startups and begin the cycle
anew, one has to find a middle ground, no? The moonshots seem like a
reasonable attempt to do so to me.

But perhaps that because I'm 100% progress-driven. Process drives me nuts.
It's great to have someone who can drive your progress through the channels of
process, but I find that talent exceedingly rare. That said, my best work has
happened the few times I've found that magic combo.

------
brianlweiner
It's interesting he points to acquisition of patent portfolios of the big 3
(Apple, Amazon, Google) but no real mention of their defensive necessity given
the current patent climate (vs using them offensively to sue competitors)

~~~
jMyles
Seriously. This is possibly the most important comment in the thread. End
software patents, restrict the use of other patents, and then watch the rate
of portfolio expansion plummet.

------
Xorlev
Apple rolls out ad blocking because modern ads are hugely invasive and slow
down the experience.

Those most impacted by this proclaim that big tech is too powerful. Throw in
Google to skirt the thrust of the issue.

Color me unimpressed by the Times' "value-added" coverage.

------
gozo
If there's anything I take away from this discussion, it is that I miss the
days when technology was about technology and people where skeptical about big
corporations rather than having some weird personal relationship with them.
Things have overall gotten better and better for people that want to create
rather than consume, but I'm not sure it's going to last. It's weird to me
that people put forward disruption as something prevalent in the industry, but
they assume everything will somehow magically only get better.

------
cryptoz
OT, but important I think. It's interesting that the article title is

> Big Tech Has Become Way Too Powerful

but on HN it was changed into a question:

> Is Big Tech Too Powerful?

~~~
unfasten
Take a look at the URL slug:

    
    
        nytimes.com/2015/09/20/opinion/is-big-tech-too-powerful-ask-google.html
    

It looks like they changed the headline on the website. The slug usually
reflects the original headline and they don't want to change it later to keep
links working. (I'm assuming this is the case here since I didn't personally
see the original headline).

News sites are much too fond playing with their headlines to drum up hits, and
with New York Times in particular I can't help but think of this quote from
one of their editors:

    
    
        I often hear from readers that they would prefer a straight, neutral
        treatment — just the facts. But The Times has moved away from that,
        reflecting editors’ reasonable belief that the basics can be found in
        many news outlets, every minute of the day. They want to provide
        “value-added” coverage.
    

source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/sunday-review/did-
reddit-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/sunday-review/did-reddit-boss-
coverage-cross-a-line-ellen-pao.html)

~~~
plonh
That's awesome, the editors spitting in the face of their readers and the
graves of their ancestors. It puts a clear point on what's wrong the Times,
though: rich kid rambligs in a classic font.

------
YorkianTones
Consolidation of resources and broadness of ecosystem produces synergistic
effects that advance tech. Google benefits in its pursuit of self-driving cars
and drone delivery from existing investments in maps, AI, machine learning,
and data centers. Plus, the ad revenue stream funds R&D.

------
11thEarlOfMar
This is backwards. More of humanity is empowered to go into business and
compete today than ever in history.

There are forces that level the playing field: Open source; Utility-Grade
Internet services (where Google and Amazon compete head-to-head); cheap,
ubiquitous connected computers; billions of Internet-connected customers...

It has never been easier for a couple of people to build and launch an app or
online business and sell to the entire planet. If you consider anyone who has
done this a 'business' I am skeptical that there are in fact fewer businesses
being created.

------
RyanZAG
Big Tech is a total monster. But it's not the current Google, Apple, Amazon
who are the monsters of Big Tech. It's the company being born today that will
be the Big Tech of the future that will be the true monster. I'm not looking
forward to it...

EDIT: Or maybe I am. Is it better to live in a cage if the cage is nice
enough? Who knows. Humanity possibly just hasn't developed a good enough cage
yet.

------
sabrinaleblanc
The monopoly concern is legitimate, especially if the accusations against
Apple, Google and Amazon have validaty in them. I think the real issue at hand
is the bullying that is taking place for new entrants. Google arm restling a
new entrant is like a child trying to wrestle with a boxer. There should be
better policies in place to prevent frivilous litigations from tech giants.

------
malthaus
Unfortunately they are big enough to fuel a lot of the irrational valuation
exuberance in the startup world as exiting to e.g. Facebook is a valid exit
strategy instead of building a standalone (and profitable) business.

Besides, the giants diversifying into experimental R&D moonshot projects is a
bad sign too. Shareholders should not support that and probably wont in the
mid- to long-term.

~~~
ido

        Besides, the giants diversifying into experimental 
        R&D moonshot projects is a bad sign too.
    

Isn't that how society gets technological advances?

~~~
varelse
So right now the moonshots are privatized and the liberals are unhappy about
it. When the pendulum shifts, the moonshots will be publicly funded again and
the conservatives will be unhappy. Takeaway: happiness is unattainable.

~~~
carboncopy
> the moonshots are privatized and the liberals are unhappy about it

I've never heard this take before, can you elaborate?

~~~
varelse
Really? IMO as a former Ph.D. academic who chose industry because there was no
future there, science funding in America has dried up into a shriveled husk of
its former self in an age of bottomless pockets for overseas military
adventures and an educational system that isn't creating the next generation
we need.

So we're left with mostly Elon Musk to carry the embers of our space program
while Craig Venter, Google and a few other companies are increasingly taking
on aging research, something I think will ultimately have enormous returns in
the private sector. Just not in time for next quarter's results so David
Einhorn (and his net worth of 1/40th that of Bill Gates) can go @#$% himself.

And for all the supposedly wasted public money on science cited by
conservative sorts that got us here, it's trivial to find yet another dead-end
weapons system or overseas military adventure that cost the taxpayers
exponentially more.

To be fair, there is the Connectome Project ($100M annually) and also the
Exascale Project ($126M) but those won't even cover the cost of a single F-22
fighter jet ($339M).

~~~
carboncopy
Does SpaceX have any contracts that aren't for the U.S. government? Aren't
most of their aeronautical engineers former NASA employees? I'm sorry to get
stuck on the Elon Musk side comment, but NASA is still doing really important
stuff such as the Mars rover, comet landing, etc.

Defense R&D spending is way higher but nondefense spending is still keeping up
with inflation [1]. There are some agencies who have had reduced budgets, such
as National Institutes of Health, while DoE and NSF have enjoyed increased
budgets. [2]

Overall I find your post hyperbolic and not consistent with the stats and
figures. I'm assuming that your university's research was defunded and that's
why you have adopted this world view. It's consistent with your experience but
I believe that it doesn't represent funding in general.

[1]
[http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/DefNon_1.jpg](http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/DefNon_1.jpg)

[2]
[http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5703](http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=5703)

~~~
varelse
I'd throw stupid money at NASA any day, just maybe not so much for manned
exploration until it's cost-effective. We both want more space probes I
suspect.

But from the above articles, I see two trends.

From (1) Nonmilitary science funding has been effectively flat for a decade
while military research was increasing annually roughly until a year or so
into the Obama administration.

From (2) and its responses, the money itself is being misallocated to the top
(just like everywhere else) and also into a metastasizing tumor of
administrators:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-11-21/the-
troublin...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-11-21/the-troubling-
dean-to-professor-ratio)

And then there are articles like this:

[https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2014/...](https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/report/2014/03/25/86369/erosion-
of-funding-for-the-national-institutes-of-health-threatens-u-s-leadership-in-
biomedical-research/)

[http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/nsffundhist_files/frame.htm](http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/nsffundhist_files/frame.htm)

which imply the NSF is relatively OK but that the NIH is increasingly
underfunded relative to GDP, no?

It's not like we've cracked mortality, figured out our own minds, or even
cured a whole bunch of nasty diseases yet.

------
AlexMuir
OT: This page loads the full article, flickers for a moment, and then hides
everything but the first three paragraphs. Instead I see a button to 'Show the
full article'.

What is the reason for this? I've seen this pattern in a few places and
assumed it was to speed up mobile page loads. But seeing as it loads the full
page before hiding it I'm now not sure.

~~~
superuser2
NYT will let you hit any number of pages; your paywall quota is only consumed
by those where you are interested enough to click "Show Full Article."

~~~
anindyabd
I do not think this is the case. I tested this out by clicking on several
articles without hitting "Show Full Article" on any of them. On the first
article, I was told I was reading 2 of 10 free articles. After 8 clicks I hit
my quota.

------
whatgoodisaroad
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that the OSS Movement in
general is a response to the problems that this article is enumerating. And
yet, there's no mention of open source in the NY Times article.

Perhaps a better-researched version of this article would merely lament that
OSS hasn't been more successful than it has.

------
bernardlunn
The regulators come just when natural forces are eroding a monopoly -
Microsoft, then Google, next Apple.

------
thadd
I forget the context, but I saw someone (a writer for the National Review, I
think) say this to someone:

You must be one of those people that think that airplanes fly not because
physicists and engineers found a way to propel steel through the air, but
because the FAA allows them to.

This reminds me of that.

~~~
plonh
It is fair to say that planes don't come crashing down much, because the FAA
prohibits it. Private enterprise had a very low bar for safety, when left to
its own devices.

------
tsotha
>Contrary to the conventional view of an American economy bubbling with
innovative small companies, the reality is quite different. The rate at which
new businesses have formed in the United States has slowed markedly since the
late 1970s. Big Tech’s sweeping patents, standard platforms, fleets of lawyers
to litigate against potential rivals and armies of lobbyists have created
formidable barriers to new entrants.

Eh... nice try on that stolen base. The internet, which is what drives "big
tech", wasn't really an economic force until the mid '90s. If business
formation has slowed since the '70s it's more likely to be a result of rise of
the regulatory state. You can't do _anything_ without a permit any more,
something that wasn't true in 1970.

------
Zigurd
"Big Tech" should told Big Media to piss off when content protection was first
introduced. Then we'd have smaller attack surfaces and better business models.

------
jasondrowley
Totally unrelated, but it's nice to find another J. Rowley out there!

------
andyl
I believe that Big Media is too powerful - unfairly promotes the interests of
the establishment at the expense of the middle class.

