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Comment by paulryanrogers | Hacker News Reader

I'm beginning to think maintaining competitive markets requires broader criteria. Like any of super-majority share of: market volume, revenue within a market, influence over market, consumer harm, significant reduction in number of competitors.

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You should read "Goliath" by Matt Stoller. In it he reviews the history of monopoly and how the US definition of it changed from the 1930s to the 1980s. Interesting historical read and it reinforced to me that both monopolies and competitive markets are societal constructs, not facts of nature.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...

It's worth noting that he is a highly opinionated writer on the subject. Seemingly, his raison d'etre is to further antitrust -- though, in his case, it seems to be a vague, expansive and shifting notion.

He effectively just seems to be against any "big" business.

He definitely has opinions. I found the history useful, but he has an viewpoint that he argues for.

Happy to hear recommendations for contrasting viewpoints if you care to share.

I like this list. I'd add collection of behavioral data of a significant proportion of the population.

("Behavioral data" and "significant proportion" would require good definitions; I am not a policy maker, so I am leaving it to those sharper than me.)

That's how the proper antitrust regulation worked in the US before Borkism took over in the Reagan era.

Why?

Because right now price is about the only criteria really considered today. You can stifle innovation and competition as long as the prices stay low.

It seems to me that Apple buys companies because they want to research and build a technology into their products, rather than eliminate competitors. It seems to me they’re more interested in the talent than the market.

That kind of behavior I attribute to Facebook.

And yet I still couldn't use the fingerprint reader in one of my laptops because Apple bought the supplier. Driver updates stopped soon thereafter, sadly right around the time of a major Windows release and my reader was SOL.

Huh? This seems totally backwards to me. Stripping down an acquisition to incorporate it into the acquiring company is the ultimate competitor crushing strategy; buy up all the best technology and sell it exclusively through your locked-down walled garden. Apple products integrate with Apple products and nothing else by design. Granted, the Facebook product is an absolute cancer on society, but Facebook's acquisitions have continued to thrive while still maintaining their original product visions e.g. whatsapp, instagram, oculus. Frankly, I think you're viewing things fan-colored glasses.

>Huh? This seems totally backwards to me. Stripping down an acquisition to incorporate it into the acquiring company is the ultimate competitor crushing strategy;

It's not as if Apple lacks competition capable of doing the exact same.

I never stated otherwise.

Most small businesses fail. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to take the money and the W2 salaries; each company was in a position to assess their own situations and make their own choice about whether to be acquired or try to stay independent and succeed or fail on their own. Other companies have said “no” to Apple in the past, Dropbox most famously.

I agree with your comment. None of it contradicts anything I wrote.

Upon reflection after a second read through, you’re right: we agree more than we disagree, and any disagreement I have on my end amounts to mere nitpicking when I put it in words in a box. At least in this thread.

Cheers, mate!

Perhaps so, but that encourages innovation on competing features from other parties. Consider Prime Sense, whose technology started out with the Kinect and ended up as the FaceID sensor in iOS.

Microsoft still had a Kinect after the acquisition, and a host of other time-of-flight devices have shown up in the market (Intels RealSense camera, Leap motion), and other companies have pursued TOF sensors in phones using alternative technologies.

Just because one company disappears doesn’t mean the concepts disappear along with it. And if they did entirely disappear when the company is acquired, that (to me) is indicative of how well the technology was performing in the marketplace to begin with.

Regardless of the reason, the effect is still the same. Technology that could have been more broadly used is limited to Apple's ecosystem. Innovations might not happen, or happen later, because the company that would have made them is acquired and the talent is redirected to work on Apple products. Products that could have competed with Apple's products end up being part of Apple's products instead.

Are you lacking in competition in any market that Apple (per the original article) competes in?

> price [for consumers] is about the only criteria really considered today.

Blame the past 50 years of GOP-dominated Supreme Court jurisprudence, which has steadily eroded antitrust enforcement. Vote for the Democratic party in Senate and Presidential races, and something might happen to fix this in about 30–40 years when the Court turns over enough to give Democrat-appointed Justices a majority.

The weakening of antitrust enforcement wouldn't have happened without the support of liberal economists like Thurow and Galbraith, and D judges have until very recently voted the same way as R judges.

Fortunately, changing the antitrust criteria 'merely' requires convincing Congress, which is doable within a saner timeframe.

> Because right now price is about the only criteria really considered today. You can stifle innovation and competition as long as the prices stay low.

In the US, maybe. Other jurisdictions take different views.

Apple has the majority of profits in the smartphone industry in the US, and even globally. To me, that warrants a major anti-trust investigation into: the App Store and pre-included apps like iMessage being fused into the SMS system on their devices! Bring them down to size.

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