The Apple/Amazon Discussion (Anti-Trust Laws)

[roy]

This thread is intended for serious discussion with real opinions.

Not long ago, Democratic Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren stated she plans to break apart large technology companies, namely Apple, Amazon, and Google (whether this is merely a political stunt is irrelevant). In short, this is because these companies should not own the platform and the product. For example, Apple owns the App Store and iTunes, iMovie, et cetera. Amazon owns, well, Amazon as a webstore and the Amazon Kindle, Amazon Batteries, et cetera. As a brief explanation, Apple charges application developers 30% of their revenue to be on the App Store, which may not seem like much for access to billions of potential customers, but when you have Apple featuring iTunes over Spotify on the App Store while simultaneously charging Spotify 30% of it's revenue, you are getting pretty close to questioning whether Apple is actually violating antitrust laws or not.

The point of this discussion? Should companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google be required to pick whether they want to own the platform or the product? Are they actually violating anti-trust laws?

For reference:
1. United States Federal Trade Commission - Antitrust Laws
2. New York Times - European authorities fine Google 1.7 billion euros for antitrust violations
3. Youtube.com/PolyMatter - Is Amazon too big?
4. CNBC - Elizabeth Warren's Plan to Break up Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google

 

[Remnicore]

Capitalism, am I right?

Big business is a cancer spreading rapidly. Yes, they're violating anti-trust laws.

 

[Violet]

k

 

[Cal]

I recently did a series in my Graphic Design class about this subject.

Spoiler: Screenshots

These companies have certainly gone too far. One of the problems is that right now, most of them have been (relatively) benevolent. Sure, Amazon has put a lot of companies out, but if their products are cheaper and better, it's hard to care. Facebook may be ruining our minds, but if people opening inviting it, so regulators are apathetic. Apple may be censoring everyone, but it's very difficult for a technologically inclined person to understand how that happens, let alone the luddites responsible for regulating. Since the companies haven't been all that predatory in the consumer space, it is hard to well up public support needed to push through action in a democracy.

Another problem I see is that many of these technology companies are so many steps ahead of regulations right now. It's difficult to say you can't do something if you don't even understand what the thing they are doing is. These companies are so compartmentalized that without looking at the bigger picture it may be hard to see that they're already too big to fail.

Now if we want to educate the masses on this issue, a good way to do it would be through the internet right? A YouTube video or
Instagram post explaining in simple terms what these technology monopolies are doing. But with the flick of a switch, those topics slide down Page Rank, YouTube won't recommend them, Instagram shows them last, Apple News doesn't display the articles about it. The ways people learn about the issues directly stand to lose from allowing the education to happen, and so it doesn't.

It's a difficult topic to explain, and will require a lot of education before any real action can be made.

 

[Reaper]

This is not an easy question to answer at all, and it provides a wonderful example as to how things can become quite complicated in this new world we live in.

To start, let me put it out there that I am of the opinion that big tech should not be broken up, but rather regulated to a greater extent, something that I would usually not advocate for due to my beliefs aligning much more closely with the conservative viewpoint. I think that it has to be taken into account who is responsible for any of these things to be possible anyway, which is Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc. These companies built the platforms that allowed these applications to even exist, and at the end of the day it is their creation and they are private companies. So yes, obviously they should be allowed to use the tools they created to make their own products and own it.

That being said, despite them being a private company and me disagreeing that more government regulation is good, I believe this is one of those areas where it does need to be further regulated. Because of these companies' ability to literally affect billions of opinions, I don't believe companies such as Apple or Google should be allowed to advertise their products first because they own it, even though they do technically own the platform. They should still be able to own the platform and the product, as long as anyone else can compete with it in a fair environment.

Now, as to whether they're violating antitrust laws or not. The big thing with antitrust law is that it is meant to promote competition for the BENEFIT of the consumer. I think we can all agree that big tech has vastly improved billions of lives across the planet, whether it's with the improved efficiency of our lives or access to all of the information in the entire world at the click of a few keys, these corporations certainly have and continue to provide an unimaginable benefit to humankind as a whole. So in conclusion, I don't believe any of these companies are violating Anti-Trust laws either.

 

[utaninja]

What are you talking about, amazon doesn't own everything.

 

[Ally]

What are you talking about, amazon doesn't own everything.

What this doesn't take into account is the scale of each service. Twitch is far larger than YT Gaming ("According to a new report from StreamElements, Twitch viewers live-streamed a total of 2.72+ billion hours in Q2 — or 72.2% of all live hours watched — compared with 735.54 million hours on YouTube Live (19.5%), 197.76 million on Facebook Gaming (5.3%) and just 112.29 million hours (3%) on Mixer. Jul 12, 2019"). So yeah they haven't monopolised everything but you're foolish if you don't think they're overly large.

 

[roy]

This is not an easy question to answer at all, and it provides a wonderful example as to how things can become quite complicated in this new world we live in.

To start, let me put it out there that I am of the opinion that big tech should not be broken up, but rather regulated to a greater extent, something that I would usually not advocate for due to my beliefs aligning much more closely with the conservative viewpoint. I think that it has to be taken into account who is responsible for any of these things to be possible anyway, which is Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc. These companies built the platforms that allowed these applications to even exist, and at the end of the day it is their creation and they are private companies. So yes, obviously they should be allowed to use the tools they created to make their own products and own it.

That being said, despite them being a private company and me disagreeing that more government regulation is good, I believe this is one of those areas where it does need to be further regulated. Because of these companies' ability to literally affect billions of opinions, I don't believe companies such as Apple or Google should be allowed to advertise their products first because they own it, even though they do technically own the platform. They should still be able to own the platform and the product, as long as anyone else can compete with it in a fair environment.

Now, as to whether they're violating antitrust laws or not. The big thing with antitrust law is that it is meant to promote competition for the BENEFIT of the consumer. I think we can all agree that big tech has vastly improved billions of lives across the planet, whether it's with the improved efficiency of our lives or access to all of the information in the entire world at the click of a few keys, these corporations certainly have and continue to provide an unimaginable benefit to humankind as a whole. So in conclusion, I don't believe any of these companies are violating Anti-Trust laws either.

Personally, while I also align more with Republican views, I still see these companies as an issue. Not even because of their anti-competitive nature, (Cal touched on this perfectly) but because of the pull and general censorship capacity of these companies no one is truly able to do much about this, or at least enough to gain widespread public support. Specifically, election fraud in the United States may not be a problem at heart, though campaign finance violations / paying companies such as Google and Apple to get your message higher in search results and featured news pages is the problem and, in my opinion, is even worse than the election fraud everyone thinks about at first. What is the real difference between dictatorships controlling the media and American political candidates handing companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and other social media giants millions of dollars to ensure their message is much higher in the feed than that of their opponents?

--

What this doesn't take into account is the scale of each service. Twitch is far larger than YT Gaming ("According to a new report from StreamElements, Twitch viewers live-streamed a total of 2.72+ billion hours in Q2 — or 72.2% of all live hours watched — compared with 735.54 million hours on YouTube Live (19.5%), 197.76 million on Facebook Gaming (5.3%) and just 112.29 million hours (3%) on Mixer. Jul 12, 2019"). So yeah they haven't monopolised everything but you're foolish if you don't think they're overly large.

To add onto this, just because a product such as iTunes isn't any larger than it's competitor in Spotify, Apple still controls the platform (App Store) and is able to not only promote iTunes over Spotify but also take away from Spotify's profit margins, which in the music-streaming industry is hard to pull together.

 

[Halved]

My, rather short opinion, is that I think it's far too late to be wanting to break up these companies. It'll be far too hard for politicians to rally around this idea that they should split up the product and the platform.

 

[utaninja]

What this doesn't take into account is the scale of each service. Twitch is far larger than YT Gaming ("According to a new report from StreamElements, Twitch viewers live-streamed a total of 2.72+ billion hours in Q2 — or 72.2% of all live hours watched — compared with 735.54 million hours on YouTube Live (19.5%), 197.76 million on Facebook Gaming (5.3%) and just 112.29 million hours (3%) on Mixer. Jul 12, 2019"). So yeah they haven't monopolised everything but you're foolish if you don't think they're overly large.

Sorry if this wasn't clear lol. I was being sarcastic.

 

[Ally]

Sorry if this wasn't clear lol. I was being sarcastic.

I'm so dumb, serious lmao. Nice.

 

[Dessi]

The same can be said about movie companies as well yet everyone turns a blind eye to that... https://nofilmschool.com/What-does-Disney-own

 

[Reaper]

Personally, while I also align more with Republican views, I still see these companies as an issue. Not even because of their anti-competitive nature, (Cal touched on this perfectly) but because of the pull and general censorship capacity of these companies no one is truly able to do much about this, or at least enough to gain widespread public support. Specifically, election fraud in the United States may not be a problem at heart, though campaign finance violations / paying companies such as Google and Apple to get your message higher in search results and featured news pages is the problem and, in my opinion, is even worse than the election fraud everyone thinks about at first. What is the real difference between dictatorships controlling the media and American political candidates handing companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and other social media giants millions of dollars to ensure their message is much higher in the feed than that of their opponents?

--



To add onto this, just because a product such as iTunes isn't any larger than it's competitor in Spotify, Apple still controls the platform (App Store) and is able to not only promote iTunes over Spotify but also take away from Spotify's profit margins, which in the music-streaming industry is hard to pull together.

I completely agree, which is why I think they should be regulated. They shouldn't be allowed to push any sort of agenda and should definitely be held accountable when it comes to being unbiased. On top of that, they shouldn't be allowed to promote their own products with any favor over a competitor.

 

[roy]

I completely agree, which is why I think they should be regulated. They shouldn't be allowed to push any sort of agenda and should definitely be held accountable when it comes to being unbiased. On top of that, they shouldn't be allowed to promote their own products with any favor over a competitor.

I could not agree more. They most definitely need to be held accountable, though the issue is, in my opinion, finding someone with enough power who actually will. This is the issue with the amount of checks and balances in American government, no one can get anything done, really. The House / Senate will never control these companies since they are the ones paying them to get their campaigns publicized more often, the President cannot do anything about them as even if an executive order was issued, the Senate and House can both nullify them (the Supreme Court can rule them unconstitutional). The problem with government is not ensuring they can control the people, it is ensuring they can control themselves. The power, unfortunately, lies in money.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

 

[Candid]

They should be broken up because they violate anti trust laws. This is sad because they got to the place they were in completely legally unlike a standard example such as Carnegie Steel