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Right. If every plaintiff could just define a market a certain way, they would never lose a single anti-trust case. It isn't sustainable that way. Most people

Right. If every plaintiff could just define a market a certain way, they would never lose a single anti-trust case. It isn't sustainable that way. Most people who dislike Apple have already found themselves a nice Android phone on it for less money with several app stores.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> every plaintiff could just define a market a certain way, they would never lose a single anti-trust case This goes both ways. My corner bodega has a monopoly over its intersection. In practice, we need legislation defining anti-competitive behavior for platforms and Thompsonian aggregators [1]. I haven't seen anyone propose a sensible, predictable framework. [1] https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/ https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  I like the chokepoint concept popularized by Cory Doctorow.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > the chokepoint concept popularized by Cory Doctorow Skimmed an interview Doctorow gave for Time [1]. I get the gripe. But I’m failing to find a unique, actionable definition. Better concise source? [1] https://time.com/6219423/chokepoint-capitalism-doctorow-giblin/ https://time.com/6219423/chokepoint-capitalism-doctorow-gibl...
    - wizzwizz4 3y ago
      https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/ https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/ > You've probably heard about the pathetic sums that creators earn from Spotify streaming, often blamed on the tech industry's unwillingness to pay creators what they're worth. Maybe you've also heard the rebuttal – that Spotify pays plenty to entertainment companies, but they intercept this money before it can get into creators' pockets. > That right there is the false binary – either Spotify is cheap, or the Big Three record labels are greedy. But what if – and hear me out here – Spotify is cheap and the Big Three are greedy? What if Spotify and the labels are actually colluding to rip off the "talent"? What if neither kind of monopolist is good for artists, and no matter how much we love them, they'll never truly love us back? The search results are filled with adverts for Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow's book, but Cory Doctorow hasn't tagged many of those adverts "chokepoint capitalism": his website lists examples, instead. https://pluralistic.net/tag/chokepoint-capitalism/ https://pluralistic.net/tag/chokepoint-capitalism/ Summarising https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/ https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/, I'd define it something like: > Chokepoint capitalism is where one party becomes both a monopoly and a monopsony: a gatekeeper, or "chokepoint". This gives it more leverage than any single other party, which it uses to extract and exploit with impunity. ⸻ While it may once have added value, once an entity becomes a chokepoint, it can cease to add value, and even start making people's lives actively worse ("enshittification"), without losing its position of power.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > What if neither kind of monopolist is good for artists, and no matter how much we love them, they'll never truly love us back? I agree with all the examples. I just struggle to see a framework. How has he defined the monopoly? That’s what we are looking for. A new definition for antitrust, ideally separate from the definition of monopoly and its market-definition magic variable.
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        If argue it's when one has "more leverage than any single other party", either on the buying or selling side. And it could be based on a raw percentage of units or market revenue, whichever portion is bigger. Say one buyer/seller with 51+% of a market by unit or revenue would be subject to anti-trust scrutiny. Perhaps another tier requiring more drastic measures, such as breaking them up.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        This returns us to the problem of defining the market, however. Platforms, specifically, exploit this ambiguity by escaping straightforward definitions of market share.
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        Most can probably agree that mobile phone gaming is an important market or even just mobile phone ownership.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > Platforms, specifically, exploit this ambiguity And they know it's wrong. How do you suggest we compel good behavior?
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        I don't think you can measure leverage in revenue. Leverage isn't about money: it's about power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(negotiation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(negotiation) Leverage isn't about "the market", either. It's about the individual people, and their situations. The iOS App Store doesn't give Apple much leverage over iPhone users, but iCloud does – and, to a lesser extent, iMessage¹ and FaceTime do. (The flipside of the iPhone's many planned obsolescence strategies is that you have to choose whether to remain within Apple's ecosystem every three-to-five years, and iPhones are expensive.) The iOS App Store does give Apple significant power over the authors of apps. Even if the App Store doesn't provide a chokepoint by itself, the iPhone “ecosystem” as a whole does. It's a different thing to antitrust, though the more egregious offenders might also constitute monopolies for antitrust purposes. --- ¹: Perhaps relevant to the Y Combinator gang: https://www.cultofmac.com/743055/why-it-pays-for-startup-founders-to-use-imessage-blue-bubbles/ https://www.cultofmac.com/743055/why-it-pays-for-startup-fou... https://www.androidauthority.com/google-green-bubble-interview-3194383/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-green-bubble-intervi... On Cory Doctorow's "competitive compatibility" / "adversarial interoperability" theme, a company called Sunbird Messaging claims to have made an iMessage clone for Android. It's proprietary, and might turn out to be vapourware, but I'm hopeful.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> every plaintiff could just define a market a certain way, they would never lose a single anti-trust case This goes both ways. My corner bodega has a monopoly over its intersection. In practice, we need legislation defining anti-competitive behavior for platforms and Thompsonian aggregators [1]. I haven't seen anyone propose a sensible, predictable framework. [1] https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/ https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/

paulryanrogers 3y ago
I like the chokepoint concept popularized by Cory Doctorow.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > the chokepoint concept popularized by Cory Doctorow Skimmed an interview Doctorow gave for Time [1]. I get the gripe. But I’m failing to find a unique, actionable definition. Better concise source? [1] https://time.com/6219423/chokepoint-capitalism-doctorow-giblin/ https://time.com/6219423/chokepoint-capitalism-doctorow-gibl...
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/ https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/ > You've probably heard about the pathetic sums that creators earn from Spotify streaming, often blamed on the tech industry's unwillingness to pay creators what they're worth. Maybe you've also heard the rebuttal – that Spotify pays plenty to entertainment companies, but they intercept this money before it can get into creators' pockets. > That right there is the false binary – either Spotify is cheap, or the Big Three record labels are greedy. But what if – and hear me out here – Spotify is cheap and the Big Three are greedy? What if Spotify and the labels are actually colluding to rip off the "talent"? What if neither kind of monopolist is good for artists, and no matter how much we love them, they'll never truly love us back? The search results are filled with adverts for Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow's book, but Cory Doctorow hasn't tagged many of those adverts "chokepoint capitalism": his website lists examples, instead. https://pluralistic.net/tag/chokepoint-capitalism/ https://pluralistic.net/tag/chokepoint-capitalism/ Summarising https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/ https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/, I'd define it something like: > Chokepoint capitalism is where one party becomes both a monopoly and a monopsony: a gatekeeper, or "chokepoint". This gives it more leverage than any single other party, which it uses to extract and exploit with impunity. ⸻ While it may once have added value, once an entity becomes a chokepoint, it can cease to add value, and even start making people's lives actively worse ("enshittification"), without losing its position of power.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > What if neither kind of monopolist is good for artists, and no matter how much we love them, they'll never truly love us back? I agree with all the examples. I just struggle to see a framework. How has he defined the monopoly? That’s what we are looking for. A new definition for antitrust, ideally separate from the definition of monopoly and its market-definition magic variable.
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        If argue it's when one has "more leverage than any single other party", either on the buying or selling side. And it could be based on a raw percentage of units or market revenue, whichever portion is bigger. Say one buyer/seller with 51+% of a market by unit or revenue would be subject to anti-trust scrutiny. Perhaps another tier requiring more drastic measures, such as breaking them up.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        This returns us to the problem of defining the market, however. Platforms, specifically, exploit this ambiguity by escaping straightforward definitions of market share.
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        Most can probably agree that mobile phone gaming is an important market or even just mobile phone ownership.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > Platforms, specifically, exploit this ambiguity And they know it's wrong. How do you suggest we compel good behavior?
        wizzwizz4 3y ago
        I don't think you can measure leverage in revenue. Leverage isn't about money: it's about power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(negotiation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_(negotiation) Leverage isn't about "the market", either. It's about the individual people, and their situations. The iOS App Store doesn't give Apple much leverage over iPhone users, but iCloud does – and, to a lesser extent, iMessage¹ and FaceTime do. (The flipside of the iPhone's many planned obsolescence strategies is that you have to choose whether to remain within Apple's ecosystem every three-to-five years, and iPhones are expensive.) The iOS App Store does give Apple significant power over the authors of apps. Even if the App Store doesn't provide a chokepoint by itself, the iPhone “ecosystem” as a whole does. It's a different thing to antitrust, though the more egregious offenders might also constitute monopolies for antitrust purposes. --- ¹: Perhaps relevant to the Y Combinator gang: https://www.cultofmac.com/743055/why-it-pays-for-startup-founders-to-use-imessage-blue-bubbles/ https://www.cultofmac.com/743055/why-it-pays-for-startup-fou... https://www.androidauthority.com/google-green-bubble-interview-3194383/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-green-bubble-intervi... On Cory Doctorow's "competitive compatibility" / "adversarial interoperability" theme, a company called Sunbird Messaging claims to have made an iMessage clone for Android. It's proprietary, and might turn out to be vapourware, but I'm hopeful.