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Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the "father" of the World Wide Web, has said what many are likely feeling: the centralisation of the network has gone too far and it's time to consider breaking up the behemoths that dominate it to the extent of locking out new players.
The Register has more here: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/01/tim_berners_lee_internet_giants/
The source, TBL's interview with Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-technology-www/father-of-web-says-tech-giants-may-have-to-be-split-up-idUSKCN1N63MV (don't follow the Register link which is wrong).
Excerpt:
“What naturally happens is you end up with one company dominating the field so through history there is no alternative to really coming in and breaking things up,” Berners-Lee, 63, said in an interview. “There is a danger of concentration.”
But he urged caution too, saying the speed of innovation in both technology and tastes could ultimately cut some of the biggest technology companies down to size.
“Before breaking them up, we should see whether they are not just disrupted by a small player beating them out of the market, but by the market shifting, by the interest going somewhere else,” Berners-Lee said.
I'm in violent agreement with TBL, at least on the point of overcentralisation, what about you? I'd be more aggressive than his caution, perhaps, as the barrier to entry seems higher to me than him, and market shifts can be blocked or delayed by counteracting marketing tactics by the incumbents...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bradley13 on Friday November 02 2018, @09:41AM (3 children)
Capitalism is an incredible system, that has vastly increased living standards for billions of people. But - there's always a but - capitalism tends to monopoly. There's no fighting "economy of scale". IMHO, the single most important role of government is to work against this.
Current regulations only nail monopolies if they abuse their monopoly to expand into other fields of business. This is wrong, or at least, not enough. Businesses above a certain size should simply not be allowed to exist. They become "system critical" or "too big to fail" or whatever other term you wish to apply. From that point on, they have too much power - they can extort their governments, as we saw from the banking industry in 2008.
To get the politics out of it, I suggest a simple, one-size-fits-all-badly rule: Any business with gross worldwide turnover above $X is forbidden from any acquisitions or mergers. Any business reaching 4 times that limit must immediately divide itself into entities smaller than the limit.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @10:56AM (1 child)
"...gross worldwide turnover above $X..."
This will become a take home test for accountants (and accompanying lawyers), money will be hidden all over. Alternatively, related companies will all be under the limit, but behind the scenes cooperate (collude?) so closely that for many purposes they are still a giant, controlling a market.
Another option is "more than x employees" but that can be circumvented with temps or through shell companies that look (on paper) like sub-contractors.
Can limiting corporate size be done through education and/or shaming? See A Study of Economics As If People Mattered -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful [wikipedia.org] If society in general frowned on working in large companies the giants might wither on their own, from lack of talent(??)
I think you are on to something, but more ideas are needed!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 02 2018, @01:09PM
Perhaps a better test is simply comparing the prices they charge with the expenses they should incur? Of course, can't trust their numbers, must have independent numbers for computing expenses. Then, if they're raking in more than a 10% margin of profit....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @08:08PM
Capitalism is being given the credit that really belongs to the thousands and thousands of scientists creating new tech. Scientists have been doing this forever, Capitalism has simply been the dominant economic model during a period of scientific advancement.
That said your run-down is the most reasonable approach I've seen from one of the more conservative users around here. We can't eliminate capitalism but it does need serious regulation. Well, at least here in the US we need to get BACK to the regulations that seemed to work pretty well.