Why would this have any relevance to FB and Amazon? I realize a lot of people on HN don't like what these companies are doing with their data, but this lawsuit is not about privacy at all so I don't see how it relates to those 2 companies.
Amazon is not a "trust" in the strictest historical definition, but it's a amoral and terrifying company with incredible reach that frequently can and does snuff any chance any competitor has of using anything else.
If Google is bad for using AMP to try and drive publishers to AMP hosting, then how is Amazon not even worse for ramming crazy terms down publisher's throats while buying or undercutting every other shipping and shopping system in the country? Amazon's pretty much dismantled and eaten the entire American book industry, it's in mid gulp of the American consumer shipping industry, it's already business critical via AWS for a majority of American businesses, and now it's turning to selling "AI" products to government and law enforcement.
As for Facebook, I think maybe Facebook isn't a monopoly. But they shouldn't be allowed to buy Youtube or Twitter.
Amazon is using it's profits from AWS to 'dump' on other, low margin businesses.
The most recent FT Alphachat podcast with an official from the Fed talks about Uber this way: Uber (and Lyft) are taking money from somewhere and undercutting the classical taxi business. This is a problem for competition. They could feasibly try to run losses until 'regular cabs are pushed out' (or largely) and then lock up the business.
Amazon can do this with any number of products, they can do it to shipping companies, to grocers.
More abstractly, Google does it with mobile OS, possibly browsers etc..
In our new world of globalization, it's a serious problem.
All this money from Saudi Arabia, under the control of Softbank is coming back and just throwing markets upside down in what is arguably tantamount to 'dumping' which is a bad business practice generally.
Even we work is like this - it's losing tons of money, ultimately selling stuff below market value.
In some cases it's much more clear than others, but it's going to pose a problem.
This issue very well highlights the problematic idea that business is about 'better products and service' or even 'free markets' due to the fact that so much cash provides leverage that distorts markets quite heavily.
Ant-competitive practices? Facebook buying up any and all rivals like WhatsApp and Instagram? They are a juggernaut and shouldn’t be able to own all social media.
YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Linkedin, Reddit, Twitch are all major social networks and there are scores of smaller ones. In search it is basically just Google and Bing.
There are market concentration regulations. The SEC typically applies a formula to determine if an acquisition results in a single entity owning too much of the market, in which case it would not be approved.
I don't know if this has been considered for these companies, but I suspect it may have been bypassed. At the very least, that's what an investigation would determine.
Buying a competitor is no more anticompetitive than causing a competitor to shut down because they weren’t competitive enough.
What is supposed to happen to competitors that are actually less efficient and/or produce less appealing products? Do people really expect “competition” to mean a perpetual exact tie between two or more competitors?
> Buying a competitor is no more anticompetitive than causing a competitor to shut down because they weren’t competitive enough.
Well first off, predatory pricing is a thing, where competition shuts down because a market participant is deliberately losing money to gain market share in hopes of raising prices after everyone else gives up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing#United_State...
But a competitor doesn't have to shut down to be bought out. In fact, why would a company ever buy a competitor who's only alternative is shutting down? Seems far simpler to buy the useful assets from the bankruptcy. Here's one possibility I've seen: an inefficient incumbent buys a startup that has been winning procurement bids away from them lately. They have deep pockets from all the contracts not yet up for renewal, and can afford to buy the company now while they only have a few source of cash flow. End result is that prices remain high, and the borg lives on a little bit less cash flow until the contracts they just bought are up for renegotiation.
> What is supposed to happen to competitors that are actually less efficient and/or produce less appealing products?
They sell less, and make changes. Maybe they drop prices, invest in efficiency or pursue some differentiation strategy. It doesn't need to be a 50/50 but winner-take-all markets should not be surprised when regulators come knocking.
