top | item 21451565

(no title)

m3rc | 6 years ago

A stellar pitch for breaking them up instead

discuss

order

Nasrudith|6 years ago

How? Sorry to snap but I am sick of seeing "they are monopolies break them up" from a tortured definition of monopoly mindlessly chanted towards Google and Amazon while massive black hole olf media conglomerates like Comcast, Disney, and Sinclair Media and their ilk walk by whistling.

There is no explanation of the harm, no plan for division, how subentities could be viable in competition, just gaped mouthed sloganeering. All of the virtual and real ink spilled and not even a bad plan. It is like Brexit all over again but with even less of a plan all over again - "just do it and trust us to come up with a plan latter and ignore our transparently terrible motivations!".

jerf|6 years ago

I see Facebook as a net negative to society. If a clumsy breakup plan instead destroyed them entirely... good.

It absolutely does make it easy for me to propose plans to break them up as a result, yes, because no, I'm not worried about how the parts may be viable afterwards.

I will admit this is not necessarily an appropriate attitude for a bureaucrat in charge of the breakup to take, but it's a valid attitude for Congress to take.

m3rc|6 years ago

Why wouldn't someone who wants Google and Amazon broken up also want Disney and Comcast broken up? That's a massive strawman.

rorykoehler|6 years ago

Companies should automatically be flagged for a breakup audit once they hit a certain revenue number. A thriving ecosystem of smaller entities is much better for everyone.

RealityVoid|6 years ago

I am unconvinced by this. There are economies of scale that you're denying yourself by acting like so.

Imagine having an Intel broken up, for example.

Nasrudith|6 years ago

That sounds like an unnecessary accounting headache that leads to a nominal company for every new iPhone would fail to lead to true competition's virtures.

Remember these aren't some game company AIs or subservient robots - they engineer loopholes to protect their interests. Expect Hollywood accounting but even worse.

curiousgal|6 years ago

Instead of having one Facebook abusing people's privacy, we get 5 Facebooks that do so. Breaking up a company does not ditectly address the issue of its conduct.

m3rc|6 years ago

Facebook's abuse of privacy is only part of the problem, the much more pressing issue is that it's become a publisher and news network de facto.