Hacker News Reader

Comment by SpEd3Y | Hacker News Reader

> By that logic, people should still be at the mercy of AT&T because Bell Labs gave so much back to humanity.

So your argument is that Bell Labs should have never happened since it's the result of a monopoly?

My argument is that Monopolies are trade offs. In a world without monopolies you have very little innovation in peace time. Monopolies are bad for consumers but the trade off is that they can afford to innovate and push the world forward. It's not as black and white as people like to think.

Getting rid of all monopolies and having a market in perfect competition will make Bell Labs impossible and all the innovation that came from there. A ballance is required. "There are no solutions only tradeoffs" - TS

Edit: Clarify my question about Bell Labs happening.

View on HN

In case I wasn't clear enough, my argument is this:

> The world's biggest ad and surveillance company having control over the most widely used browser on the planet is a recipe for disaster. That's the only thing that matters in this discussion.

And no, I don't buy that innovation can only happen through monopolies with a savior complex. That absurd amount of money those monopolies acquired through questionable means? It's going to lawyers, lobbyists, investors, and C-suites. It's being used to stifle innovation and uphold the status quo. Without the breakup of AT&T, the internet as we know it might not have even existed.

You have made the argument that monopolies are trade-offs only to the extent of muddying the waters about the matter. You have not demonstrated that the innovation benefit of monopolies offsets opportunity cost of the monopoly. If you want to make that case, you need to evidence it. You have not evidenced your claim that there is less innovation in low-monopoly situations than in high-monopoly situations. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

(I agree with your earlier sentiment that Google has a history of giving out more than other companies you listed.)

> That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Fair enough :) That's one way to think about it ^^ If this would have been a debate I would agree. But I don't have time for a debate so I threw an idea out there and expected people to do their own research and figure out if my idea has any teeth or not.

I initially encountered the idea in Zero to One by Peter Thiel. Feel free to dismiss it or research it further. I do not have time to provide statistical evidence :)

>so I threw an idea out there and expected people to do their own research and figure out if my idea has any teeth or not.

So noise? Ideas like this are exceptionally cheap and you didn't present any convincing arguments for doing any research. This is like _the_ problem with online discussions.

Noise for you maybe. I don't expect people with limited time to give me a scientific paper level details regarding every idea they have. If their idea is interesting I spend time researching it myself.

> So your argument is that Bell Labs should have never happened? It was a bad thing for humanity?

Yes! next question please. ;) No in all seriousness. that's not what they said.

> My argument is that Monopolies are trade offs. In a world without monopolies you have very little innovation in peace time. Monopolies are bad for consumers but the trade off is that they can afford to innovate and push the world forward. It's not as black and white as people like to think.

I find this argument funny, as it states: "not as black and white as people think" to then paint a black and white argument... Yes monopolies are not always bad. But one can't be serious and not acknowledge that for the most part they stifle innovation.

Also, I would say some of humanities best inventions and innovations where before monopolies. But hey, that's just my "black and white" view on history ;)

> then paint a black and white argument

I fail to see how my argument was black and white when I say there's a trade off. Can you please tell me how my argument is black and white? Maybe we have different understanding of what a black and white argument means.

I feel like this rhetorical question of yours was reductive enough to constitute B&W thinking

> So your argument is that Bell Labs should have never happened? It was a bad thing for humanity?

A person can appreciate the contributions of Bell Labs while still agreeing with the decision to ultimately have broken up the company.

I never said that a person cannot appreciate the contribution while agreeing with the decision to break it apart. The idea was if monopolies are bad an Bell Labs is the product of a monopoly in an ideal world AT&T would never be a monopoly and Bell Labs would never existed, right? That's the first part of my question. The 2nd part was kinda asking if that's the case and Bell Labs should not have existed, why is that? Was it bad or good for humanity? If it was good then why should a good thing not exist and create so many crazy innovations. Did AT&T monopoly created so much bad in the world that it offsets the good Bell Labs generated?

This was my idea but answering 10 comments I left this short and indeed oversimplified version of my thoughts. I have since edited the comment to be clearer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com