Comment by tchalla
4 years ago
> this is a classic example of how companies collude without direct communication.
In that case, let's have that conversation as a society and as a government. "Are companies listed in Table 1 and 2 in collusion as defined by current law?".
In most of the Apple 30% conversations, the conversations seem to be about an instance (Apple) instead of an object (Digital Store Tax, Collusion etc). Lets set the frame and be clear about the conversation we want to have regardless of the business we talk. We can use Apple, Microsoft et al as examples to make the point. We shouldn't replace them with the overarching discussion.
as i understand it, by not communicating directly, companies avoid the most damning potential evidence that they are colluding. it's theoretically possible to still determine that their behavior is collusive, but quite difficult in practice.
i personally think anti-trust/anti-monopoly regulations should be tightened by an order of magnitude or so. any market that exhibits such extended, obviously inflated profit margins needs to be sliced up more finely. any market participant with more than ~10% market share should be scrutinized closely. piercing the corporate veil should be the norm with any anticompetitive infraction (as well as embezzlement, insider trading, and other such executive crimes).
in short, make markets fair (not just 'free').
and in turn, that should allocate capital more efficiently throughout the economy, rather than letting it accumulate inefficiently in fewer and fewer hands.
"Fair" and "free" are almost opposite values in regards to markets, what you want is not "free", you want regulation. Fairness means you got to oppress a party in favor of another party.
a fair market is one that is devoid of coercive influence by any market participant, almost diametrically opposed to oppressiveness. whereas in a "free" market, oppression is the expected steady-state, because it inherently invites manipulation to produce advantage, as with any game (in the academic sense) without rules. try playing basketball without rules and see what happens.
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You are hitting the nail on the head. Most times, people are looking for utopian solutions. In a large market where people have different incentives, non-dominating solutions do not exist. There are options and implications. We get to choose from what we have (with implications) not some ideal situation we have dreamt in our mind. Currently, everyone wants to have their cake, eat it and the cherry on the top. Later even complain about the cherry not being sweet.
This is "mah free market" perspective where 'freedom' is the law of the jungle.
They somehow think that this brand of 'freedom' without regulation will not decent into rule of the strongest and basically tyrany, just like it has every time in history.
They have not heard about standard oil market manipulation, railway monopolies, the Phoebus Cartel and others
They do not understand that regulation is what stands in the way of other people taking your freedoms.
> in short, make markets fair (not just 'free').
I'm all for it. What's your concrete proposal to change in the current law for digital store distribution "tax"?
you don't necessarily need new laws, just executive will to allocate earnest resources (diverted from, say, useless programs like the tsa or military boondoggle projects) put toward robustly promoting competitive markets.
for instance, make platforms like apple allow other app stores equal footing on their platform. then they would have to compete on price and features to get the best apps to be on their app store rather than resting on their laurels of being the only viable option. apple already has lots of advantages, so they don't need monopoly power on top of that to be able to compete effectively.
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