Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are in a soap opera for world domination. Apple decided to knife Facebook and share the surveillance ad revenue with Google.
I often wonder about the definition of “consumer welfare” when reading these posts. It seems like, for a business such as Facebook or Google, their real consumers are the people paying them AKA companies advertising on them. For Amazon it seems pretty similar, their real customers aren’t you and I, but the retailers using their platform. Viewed through that lense it becomes clear that prices even for the “free” services have actually been rising for years
A random, somewhat tech-industry related market power thing: This comic came up in a discussion from somebody I subscribe to on Patreon, because he had this exact problem -- a printer low on cyan ink, that refused to print black and white.
There's no particular reason that a printer couldn't be designed such that the ink cartridge was a dumb receptacle, with _perhaps_ some moving parts like a spring-loaded back that would slide up as the ink emptied out of it. But all of the major manufacturers realized at some point that if they put a bunch of electronics into it, they could get onto the "give away razors, sell razor blades" model. Obfuscate the true cost of ownership by selling the printer cheap, and then charge through the nose for replacement cartridges. If you try to reverse-engineer their product to sell a cheaper, just-as-good alternative, you'll get hauled into the dock for infringing their patents and other IP.
Amazon’s charge to retailers to pay for placement on the store pages is no different than what grocery stores charge food companies for placement on their shelves.
That doesn’t make it right. But this has been of retail for a long time. It’s not new to Amazon.
I often wonder about the definition of “consumer welfare” when reading these posts. It seems like, for a business such as Facebook or Google, their real consumers are the people paying them AKA companies advertising on them. For Amazon it seems pretty similar, their real customers aren’t you and I, but the retailers using their platform. Viewed through that lense it becomes clear that prices even for the “free” services have actually been rising for years
A random, somewhat tech-industry related market power thing: This comic came up in a discussion from somebody I subscribe to on Patreon, because he had this exact problem -- a printer low on cyan ink, that refused to print black and white.
https://twitter.com/system32comics/status/1171491108930519042?lang=en
There's no particular reason that a printer couldn't be designed such that the ink cartridge was a dumb receptacle, with _perhaps_ some moving parts like a spring-loaded back that would slide up as the ink emptied out of it. But all of the major manufacturers realized at some point that if they put a bunch of electronics into it, they could get onto the "give away razors, sell razor blades" model. Obfuscate the true cost of ownership by selling the printer cheap, and then charge through the nose for replacement cartridges. If you try to reverse-engineer their product to sell a cheaper, just-as-good alternative, you'll get hauled into the dock for infringing their patents and other IP.
The premise that Apple ATT singled out Facebook while favouring Google is bizarrely inaccurate. More research required here on WebKit (Safari) ITP.
Isn't it a problem that anti-monopoly regulators are using their power to push for Big Tech censorship? Who will watch the watchers? https://systemupdate.substack.com/p/video-transcript-democrats-are-pressuring
https://rumble.com/vtyr34-democrats-are-pressuring-companies-to-censor-for-them-a-violation-of-the-fi.html
Amazon’s charge to retailers to pay for placement on the store pages is no different than what grocery stores charge food companies for placement on their shelves.
That doesn’t make it right. But this has been of retail for a long time. It’s not new to Amazon.