Scott Galloway Says Amazon, Apple, Facebook, And Google should be broken up

[Killuah]

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NyFRIgulPo[/media]

I was already awed after the first 5 minutes

[Ronin]

Isn't this guy a professor of marketing at some college?

[editline]5th December 2017[/editline]

[URL="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/scott-galloway-the-four-amazon-apple-google-facebook.html"]Found it[/URL].

I really like this dude, I can relate with a lot of his viewpoints, and especially his demeanor.

[Van-man]

In essence all megacorporations (especially those dominating one or more markets) should be split up.

Yeah they'll in the end be less efficient at making profit then, but as megacorporations the profit is very rarely passed on the the consumers of those companies in the shape of cheaper products and services, or governments in the shape of taxes and proper employe wages in the first place, not to mention their size and wealth equals power, which gives them a scary amount of influence.

[Sgman91]

[QUOTE=Van-man;52949172]In essence all megacorporations (especially those dominating one or more markets) should be split up.

Yeah they'll in the end be less efficient at making profit then, but as megacorporations the profit is very rarely passed on the the consumers of those companies in the shape of cheaper products and services, or governments in the shape of taxes and proper employe wages in the first place, not to mention their size and wealth equals power, which gives them a scary amount of influence.[/QUOTE]

I have no clue what you mean by this. The megacorporations, for all their faults, generally provide amazing efficiency for the consumer. Amazon didn't revolutionize shopping out of nowhere. They provide a huge variety of products at very good prices, with good customer service.

[HumanAbyss]

[QUOTE=sgman91;52949183]I have no clue what you mean by this. The megacorporations, for all their faults, generally provide amazing efficiency for the consumer. Amazon didn't revolutionize shopping out of nowhere. They provide a huge variety of products at very good prices, with good customer service.[/QUOTE]

at the cost of workers and those workers are also just regular lower or middle class folks who are taken advantage of by the job.

Efficiency comes from somewhere, cost savings come from somewhere. Usually these corporations are passing that buck on to the workers and the consumers.

[Killuah]

[QUOTE=sgman91;52949183]I have no clue what you mean by this. The megacorporations, for all their faults, generally provide amazing efficiency for the consumer. Amazon didn't revolutionize shopping out of nowhere. They provide a huge variety of products at very good prices, with good customer service.[/QUOTE]

If you watch the whole video you will see that this is an illusion because the concentration makes it look like they are providing that while a more split up market is harder to overlook ,yet more healthy and dynamic.
For every "unit" of efficiency and service they are sucking up more than one in other areas, you just don't notice it.

[Curls]

Tbh split all major ISP's up please

[editline]5th December 2017[/editline]

Into 3 each

[BlackMageMari]

Surprised he didn't mention Microsoft?

[S31-Syntax]

I disagree about Amazon, because at the moment they aren't inherently anti-consumer.
Google and Apple absolutely need to be broken up... Their business model revolves around anti-consumer and anti-competitive behavior.
And I'm unsure about facebook.

[editline]5th December 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=J!NX;52949200]Tbh split all major ISP's up please

[editline]5th December 2017[/editline]

Into 3 each[/QUOTE]

Happened once already with AT&T. Needs to happen again.

[RocketSnail]

FWIW in the CS world, the "Big 5" or "Big N" tech companies are seen as Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook. Usually Apple is left out of the "Big 4", because they employ less employees and because of how secretive the company is. I can see his opinion applying to any of them.

[Killuah]

[QUOTE=S31-Syntax;52949213]I disagree about Amazon, because at the moment they aren't inherently anti-consumer.
Google and Apple absolutely need to be broken up... Their business model revolves around anti-consumer and anti-competitive behavior.
And I'm unsure about facebook.

[editline]5th December 2017[/editline]

Happened once already with AT&T. Needs to happen again.[/QUOTE]

That might be your subjective impression but the facts talk a different language, Amazon is highly anti-competitive and thus anti-consumer

[gman003-main]

[QUOTE=sgman91;52949183]I have no clue what you mean by this. The megacorporations, for all their faults, generally provide amazing efficiency for the consumer. Amazon didn't revolutionize shopping out of nowhere. They provide a huge variety of products at very good prices, with good customer service.[/QUOTE]

Large corporate amalgamations provide some benefits from being able to link their products/services, but also make it harder for competition to succeed.

Consider Google Search. It hasn't really gotten better since the early 2000s. In some ways, it's gotten worse. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, you can't easily find it - it basically works as a glorified URL bar now.

I'm sure there's plenty of companies who could make a better search engine, and if it was a fair competition, would win the market. But Google set themselves as the search tool in Chrome and Android - so it's a struggle to get any traction as a new search engine.

Repeat that again for GMail, and for Youtube, and Drive, and Maps, and Docs, and even for Chrome. All of them have shortcomings that a competitor ought to have exploited by now to reap the market - why have [I]none[/I] done so yet?

Large corporations, particularly those with dominance in multiple markets, distort the function of the free market.

[mickers]

damn that was a good watch, only thing that bothers me is he says its people we elected, but im pretty sure amazon google ect have all of them in their pocket.

[ImCrimson]

A good watch.

I can't even begin to imagine how "breaking up" the giants of the tech industry would ever happen though. Not in the US, at least.

[advancedlamb]

This is one of many things that can be done to alleviate poor wealth distribution, but it is truly only a bandaid on a festering wound of an economic system

[Thelurker1234]

[QUOTE=gman003-main;52949320]Large corporate amalgamations provide some benefits from being able to link their products/services, but also make it harder for competition to succeed.

Consider Google Search. It hasn't really gotten better since the early 2000s. In some ways, it's gotten worse. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, you can't easily find it - it basically works as a glorified URL bar now.

I'm sure there's plenty of companies who could make a better search engine, and if it was a fair competition, would win the market. But Google set themselves as the search tool in Chrome and Android - so it's a struggle to get any traction as a new search engine.

Repeat that again for GMail, and for Youtube, and Drive, and Maps, and Docs, and even for Chrome. All of them have shortcomings that a competitor ought to have exploited by now to reap the market - why have [I]none[/I] done so yet?[/QUOTE]
People create viable alternatives to those services all the time. Most are just inferior or less convenient.

Youtube being the main exception to that of course. It does create quite a lock-in due to it being where the content is, and where the viewers are.

Like I'd really take issue with you saying that google search is worse now, and I'm very curious on what you're basing that on. Most of its problems that I see people complain about have always been around (e.g. offensive autocomplete, "fake news") and are incredibly difficult to solve algorithmically.

[QUOTE=sgman91;52949183]I have no clue what you mean by this. The megacorporations, for all their faults, generally provide amazing efficiency for the consumer. Amazon didn't revolutionize shopping out of nowhere. They provide a huge variety of products at very good prices, with good customer service.[/QUOTE]

This is kinda true. Amazon, and Walmart have been pretty repeatedly found in many studies to have greatly increased the standard of living for poor and middle class Americans.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a danger that needs to be taken into account. With amazon for example, mom and pop stores and such are probably largely dead for good (and that's a positive thing,) but their position in the new online retail space is growing increasingly dangerous to the consumer in the long run.

Although the question is how do we break up some of these companies? Google for example, is quite easy. You can rip several of their services apart into new companies. But with Amazon all you can easily do is rip AWS apart, it's not so easy tho for amazon proper as an online store which is mostly the problem (the reason being that, due to the nature of the industry, their market-share in AWS isn't that threatening.)

[CyclonatorZ]

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52950129] Although the question is how do we break up some of these companies? Google for example, is quite easy. You can rip several of their services apart into new companies. But with Amazon all you can easily do is rip AWS apart, it's not so easy tho for amazon proper as an online store which is mostly the problem (the reason being that, due to the nature of the industry, their market-share in AWS isn't that threatening.)[/QUOTE]

You literally can't break the Amazon storefront up without destroying the entire reason people love it so much. If Amazon.com ceases to be the place where you can buy your son a Switch for his birthday, a grill for your spouse, books for your grandparents, toys for your pets, and so on, then what's the point?

Also, this video completely ignores that Wal-Mart has seen the writing on the wall, and is winding down on construction of new physical stores in favor of investing more heavily in the online portion of their company. [URL="https://news.walmart.com/2016/08/08/walmart-agrees-to-acquire-jetcom-one-of-the-fastest-growing-e-commerce-companies-in-the-us"]There's a reason they bought Jet.com last year[/URL] - they're prepping themselves to compete with Amazon.com to an extent that they never have before.

[Hickleberry]

[QUOTE=CyclonatorZ;52950258]You literally can't break the Amazon storefront up without destroying the entire reason people love it so much. If Amazon.com ceases to be the place where you can buy your son a Switch for his birthday, a grill for your spouse, books for your grandparents, toys for your pets, and so on, then what's the point?

Also, this video completely ignores that Wal-Mart has seen the writing on the wall, and is winding down on construction of new physical stores in favor of investing more heavily in the online portion of their company. [URL="https://news.walmart.com/2016/08/08/walmart-agrees-to-acquire-jetcom-one-of-the-fastest-growing-e-commerce-companies-in-the-us"]There's a reason they bought Jet.com last year[/URL] - they're prepping themselves to compete with Amazon.com to an extent that they never have before.[/QUOTE]

I really, really doubt Wal-Mart's ability to compete with Amazon. To me, it's like comparing Netflix to Hulu, or Steam to Origin.

[Killuah]

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52950129]People create viable alternatives to those services all the time. Most are just inferior or less convenient.

Youtube being the main exception to that of course. It does create quite a lock-in due to it being where the content is, and where the viewers are.

Like I'd really take issue with you saying that google search is worse now, and I'm very curious on what you're basing that on. Most of its problems that I see people complain about have always been around (e.g. offensive autocomplete, "fake news") and are incredibly difficult to solve algorithmically.

This is kinda true. Amazon, and Walmart have been pretty repeatedly found in many studies to have greatly increased the standard of living for poor and middle class Americans.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a danger that needs to be taken into account. With amazon for example, mom and pop stores and such are probably largely dead for good (and that's a positive thing,) but their position in the new online retail space is growing increasingly dangerous to the consumer in the long run.

Although the question is how do we break up some of these companies? Google for example, is quite easy. You can rip several of their services apart into new companies. But with Amazon all you can easily do is rip AWS apart, it's not so easy tho for amazon proper as an online store which is mostly the problem (the reason being that, due to the nature of the industry, their market-share in AWS isn't that threatening.)[/QUOTE]

I would like to see the source of this?

[nagachief]

I knew they were pretty big but after watching the video I feel like we truely are doomed without a revolt. Like I had a panic attack just watching it because I didn't realize just how bad things have gotten.

[gman003-main]

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52950129]Like I'd really take issue with you saying that google search is worse now, and I'm very curious on what you're basing that on. Most of its problems that I see people complain about have always been around (e.g. offensive autocomplete, "fake news") and are incredibly difficult to solve algorithmically.[/QUOTE]

I was not talking about News (although that's absolute shite), I was talking Search. And I'm not complaining about weird shit showing up in autocomplete - most of that's just cable news scaremongering anyways. No, I'm talking about actual bad results in the actual searches.

As a programmer getting started in a new environment, I frequently have to copy compiler errors into Google to see what is actually wrong. Of course, even if I wrap the whole thing in quotes, half the time Google decide "nah, you don't really mean to search for ReceivePropertiesForRPC, you want ReceivePropertyBlock, here's a bunch of results for an entirely different program".

Or, if I'm making an Android app and I do searches for "android java ____", it likes to ignore the "java" part and give me pages for Go or even Javascript. And not infrequently, it gives me blog pages instead of Google's own documentation.

Or there's the persistently high rankings of w3schools pages when searching for HTML/CSS stuff, despite many of those pages being flat-out wrong (never mind the scummy business practices that ought to get it booted anyways). I'd hope, now that Google is a contributor to MDN and is declaring it the canonical source for web development information, they'll boost the rankings for it, but given the Android docs situation I wouldn't be too hopeful.

Now, all of that is within the field of programming, something that you would expect would get special focus, given that Google consists mainly of computer programmers. So I can only imagine how bad it might be for other fields.

[Swilly]

[QUOTE=gman003-main;52953249]I was not talking about News (although that's absolute shite), I was talking Search. And I'm not complaining about weird shit showing up in autocomplete - most of that's just cable news scaremongering anyways. No, I'm talking about actual bad results in the actual searches.

As a programmer getting started in a new environment, I frequently have to copy compiler errors into Google to see what is actually wrong. Of course, even if I wrap the whole thing in quotes, half the time Google decide "nah, you don't really mean to search for ReceivePropertiesForRPC, you want ReceivePropertyBlock, here's a bunch of results for an entirely different program".

Or, if I'm making an Android app and I do searches for "android java ____", it likes to ignore the "java" part and give me pages for Go or even Javascript. And not infrequently, it gives me blog pages instead of Google's own documentation.

Or there's the persistently high rankings of w3schools pages when searching for HTML/CSS stuff, despite many of those pages being flat-out wrong (never mind the scummy business practices that ought to get it booted anyways). I'd hope, now that Google is a contributor to MDN and is declaring it the canonical source for web development information, they'll boost the rankings for it, but given the Android docs situation I wouldn't be too hopeful.

Now, all of that is within the field of programming, something that you would expect would get special focus, given that Google consists mainly of computer programmers. So I can only imagine how bad it might be for other fields.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I've actually noticed this as well with more mundane things.

I'll be googling something super specific, specificially misspelled words and it'll just correct the whole thing and force me to have to specify once again that 'No, I am actually looking for this thing'.

Ontop of that I've been redirected more often to google affiliated apps and parts of Alphabet when they aren't actually available or work for my situation.