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Difference being that the railway was the only practical mean of delivery back then and is an actual utility. Also one couldn't sideload newspapers to circumven

Difference being that the railway was the only practical mean of delivery back then and is an actual utility. Also one couldn't sideload newspapers to circumvent restrictions. Tagging everything as a "utility" and demanding they be regulated as such is as far removed from the conservative ethos as the altright apparently.

perseusprime11 9y ago
I think Google, Facebook and Amazon have far bigger network effects than railways. Also, the network effects are different making Google and such exponentially more powerful.
- dontnotice 9y ago
  "Network effects" are people's relationships with their products, which they justly earned. They ran atop the same network that everyone else had access to and achieved, the accurate analog to the railway example is the ISPs and not these companies.
- sandov 9y ago
  So, Where do we draw the line between a company rightfully refusing to host inappropriate content and a company "abusing" its network effects?. Where do we draw the line between a company "abusing" its network effects and a company avoiding being abused by other companies? (e.g. Imagine a app store that distributes only free software backed by a big corp, then a small proprietary app maker complains that they don't want to accept their app because its proprietary). Is the size of the company the criteria that decides if they are in the right or in the wrong?
  - Animats 9y ago
    Is the size of the company the criteria that decides if they are in the right or in the wrong? Yes. That's the whole point of antitrust law.
  - gwenzek 9y ago
    > So, Where do we draw the line between a company rightfully refusing to host inappropriate content and a company "abusing" its network effects?. I don't think the app description of Gab is an appropriate content. Google seems to assume that the content of the Gab app will be innapropriate. Given this is about freedom of speech I'm not sure they should be the one deciding this. Are they also removing Gab from their Google Search results?
xname 9y ago
Google store is the only practical way of distributing android app.

perseusprime11 9y ago

I think Google, Facebook and Amazon have far bigger network effects than railways. Also, the network effects are different making Google and such exponentially more powerful.

dontnotice 9y ago
"Network effects" are people's relationships with their products, which they justly earned. They ran atop the same network that everyone else had access to and achieved, the accurate analog to the railway example is the ISPs and not these companies.
sandov 9y ago
So, Where do we draw the line between a company rightfully refusing to host inappropriate content and a company "abusing" its network effects?. Where do we draw the line between a company "abusing" its network effects and a company avoiding being abused by other companies? (e.g. Imagine a app store that distributes only free software backed by a big corp, then a small proprietary app maker complains that they don't want to accept their app because its proprietary). Is the size of the company the criteria that decides if they are in the right or in the wrong?
- Animats 9y ago
  Is the size of the company the criteria that decides if they are in the right or in the wrong? Yes. That's the whole point of antitrust law.
- gwenzek 9y ago
  > So, Where do we draw the line between a company rightfully refusing to host inappropriate content and a company "abusing" its network effects?. I don't think the app description of Gab is an appropriate content. Google seems to assume that the content of the Gab app will be innapropriate. Given this is about freedom of speech I'm not sure they should be the one deciding this. Are they also removing Gab from their Google Search results?

xname 9y ago

Google store is the only practical way of distributing android app.