Comment by stego-tech

1 day ago

> “Well son, I think I speak for your mother and I when I say, UH DUHHHHHHH.”

Man, it just doesn’t work outside GIF form, but the point is the same. Anyone with two brain cells could understand how vertical monopolies are still monopolies, and the walled gardens created by Big Tech are just company towns customers pay into and can’t leave without enormous disruption. All of that came through rubber-stamped M&As that depleted the market of competition and, now that ZIRP is over and AI is riding high, depleted the market of well-paying jobs in the process.

Competition is efficient, in that it creates more jobs and more opportunities for money to flow between customers and businesses. When your goal is to have all the money, though, competition is bad and must be destroyed.

At least with tech we can force change through code instead of armed law enforcement like monopolies of old.

10 comments

stego-tech

Reply
carlosjobim  1 day ago

They're not monopolies, they're acting anti-competitive. Which is worse. But words have real meanings, and should be used correctly.

  • hug  1 day ago

    Apple has a monopoly on distributing apps to iPhones. That is a true statement, using the real meaning of monopoly, and is being used correctly.

    You can disagree with whether or not that statement is a "real issue", in that you can buy a completely different phone and install apps provided by other vendors, but it doesn't take away any truthiness from the initial statement.

    From my perspective, though, that monopoly is a real issue. Some 55% of the adult US population own an iPhone. A monopoly in a market made up of the majority of the US populace should be thoroughly examined.

    • dijit  1 day ago

      I really don’t get why people are so bent out of shape about iPhones being a closed ecosystem.

      But I am a game developer and console app distribution requires laborious requirements to ship anything meaningful, it’s just an ordinary part of playing the game.

      Ironically: all our games end up being better* optimised for all platforms because of the requirements and accessibility is not an afterthought. But hell, is it arbitrary sometimes to get a cert pass and it is definitely frustrating.

      1 reply →