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Big Tech CEOs grilled by Congress: Key moments from the historic antitrust meeting:
For five hours on Wednesday, the four Big Tech CEOs of the world's most powerful companies faced a grilling from US lawmakers in Washington, in an unprecedented hearing over alleged anti-competitive practices at their companies.
The hearing was the first time that Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google's parent Alphabet appeared together before Congress.
The Big Tech CEOs, appearing via video link, all faced moments in the spotlight from the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, with Pichai and Zuckerberg receiving the most attention. It was sixth and final hearing into competition in the digital market by the committee, and a culmination of more than 1.3 million documents and hundreds of hours of interviews and testimonies.
There are long-standing concerns that the four companies, worth a combined $4.85tn, have become too dominant for rivals to compete on the same level.
Antitrust regulators fear that a lack of competition will lead to higher prices for consumers. However, when digital platforms offer services for free – as Facebook and Google do – it is difficult for lawmakers to prove that consumers are worse off.
Another charge is that a lack of competition stifles innovation, which in theory could lead to subpar products and services for consumers. But given the four tech giants are known for being at the cutting edge of innovation, this is again difficult to prove.
As such, Congress is considering new antitrust laws that are appropriate for the digital age, which could prevent so much power being concentrated in so few companies.
Here are some of the key topics the Big Tech CEOs were grilled on.
Here's a couple YouTube streams of the hearing from Reuters (6½h) & C-SPAN3 (5½hr).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @12:56PM (14 children)
Oh, c'mon, whaddya want? Pets.com? Get your dogfood delivered by UPS - there's something that didn't exist before 1999.
Bezos' net worth is headed for orbit not because Amazon's UI is innovative, but because they worked out the home-delivery channel logistics at a cost point competitive enough with brick and mortar that it took off, and now COVID threw brick and mortar under the bus. They're still trying to figure out how to do home-delivery grocery, but everything else seems pretty much on its way out of the malls and into your monitor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:05PM (10 children)
I wish the government would get rid of USPS monopolies. All of the fearmongering behind what would happen if we did that is nonsense, none of the doomsday scenarios happened in countries that got rid of mailbox monopolies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @01:07PM
USPS mailbox monopolies *
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 31 2020, @02:08PM (7 children)
They can't. It's in the US Constitution. It'll take a serious effort to remove it, and I just don't see what will justify that political effort unless it's part of something bigger like a constitutional convention that's doing a wholesale rewrite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @06:37PM (6 children)
Maybe we can amend the Constitution to get rid of the USPS and repeal the 2nd amendment at the same time? Win-win! Are we tired of winning, yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @07:00PM (3 children)
I fail to see any argument that removing either would be beneficial to the American people. Beneficial to oligarchs, sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @09:03PM (2 children)
Those who do not learn the lessons of Kevin Costner Movies are, well, condemned to be in Kevin Costner movies. Maybe even ones with Tom Petty in them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @09:20PM (1 child)
Sorry, vidya is my most hated medium, I know those names, but not much else. Care to give me a real answer?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2020, @12:24AM
The Postman? He always rings twice? Not Waterworld, or Dances with Smurfs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @09:43PM (1 child)
The USPS can still stick around they just shouldn't have a monopoly on my mailbox. I should be allowed to allow other vendors to deliver mail into my mailbox if I wish. It should be my choice and the mailbox should be my mailbox and not that of the federal government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @06:13PM
hear, fucking hear!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @02:27PM
We get very good service from the USPS, I want them to stick around, and I really wish that the Trumpettes would quit fuc*ing with the USPS. Latest move (in the news this morning) is Trump appointees limiting USPS working hours and turning off the sorting machines early--yet another move to make the Post Office look bad.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday July 31 2020, @01:08PM (2 children)
Had to read your first sentence a couple times. Just to be clear, UPS has been around since my grandparents were children. https://www.pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/about/HistoryStackList.page?countrylang=US-English [ups.com]
Overnight delivery to consumers is relatively new for UPS and all the rest, but UPS is 113 years old.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 31 2020, @01:33PM
Yes, UPS has been around, but in 1995 if you wanted to get a 20lb bag of dogfood delivered via UPS the available supply channels would have had you paying triple for it as compared to the local grocery store.
Pets.com tried to innovate that - failed miserably.
Amazon.com has worked it out - like WalMart - it's all about getting the product to the people at a price they are willing to pay. (Notice the clear lack of "lowest price possible..." that's a deeply anti-business concept, often touted in advertising - but advertising is the art of legal lying anyway...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 31 2020, @02:04PM
And mail order is even older.
However, you didn't used to be able to buy stuff from a dozen different suppliers at once through one shopping cart, and have the stuff packaged and delivered substantially cheaper than going to the store to buy it yourself.
Amazon's storefront is nothing special, However, they have actually innovated pretty heavily in warehouse management. I mean mobile robotic shelves that bring their contents to packing station and automatically rearrange themselves based on frequency of access to minimize average travel time? That's a *huge* logistical innovation that drastically reduces the amount of time and labor required to assemble an order for shipping.