[fyoving]

Allow me to temper some of the glee exhibited in the comments and even in some of the reports but a key line here is:

"The divvying of antitrust enforcement does not mean that the agencies have opened official investigations"

It is worth keeping in mind that antitrust enforcement in the US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed and it doesn't appear to be the case when it comes to any of these corporations.

This whole thing is terribly misguided, there is a long list of companies and markets worthy of antitrust scrutiny and these tech companies if they are on that list then they are at the very bottom of it. The real drag on the economy are the high prices of healthcare and housing, there is also the case that ISPs have obvious monopolies and are providing inferior products and services and the list goes on.

The role of the media here shouldn't be ignored, they coined the term "big tech" to conjure negative associations and they continuously publish alarmist coverage about any combination of these firms, they also stand to benefit if any enforcement action were to occur.

[Meekro]

Visa and Mastercard have a pretty effective duopoly, too! Their fees and chargeback procedures are a drag on the entire economy. Getting banned by them effectively kills your ability to accept payments, and many legal but politically unpopular businesses find themselves in the crosshairs.

[mailslot]

Can we include Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to the list of monopolistic anti-competitive financial companies?

[bilbo0s]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we've almost immediately started down the road that HN user fyoving is cautioning us against. The idea that our government is going to go after financial firms is a bit fanciful. (In all honesty, legally speaking, fyoving is even correct in asserting that they aren't even going after tech firms.)

When you're getting people's hopes up by making them think that something is going to happen, and then nothing happens. People immediately blame big banking, big finance, big tech, corrupt politicians, corruption in general, etc etc. Which is entirely understandable. People get upset at dashed hopes. They look for something or someone to blame. And to be fair, sometimes it's even true that corruption is part of the reason.

But this time I have a strong suspicion fyoving is likely correct for a more systemic reason. Any sort of action against a lot of these companies, tech or finance, won't pass muster with the courts. It's not corruption, it's just the law. Which we can change, but it's really hard to do so because there are good reasons for some of these laws. (One way to address that problem though is to add new laws instead of changing the current ones, but there is going to be natural resistance against that too.)

I suspect that's the entire reason a certain segment of politicians are trying to bring action against the tech giants within the parameters of current law. Because they know it won't work already. They know how the supremes will rule on any such actions. (Rulings the supremes won't even have to hand down because the agencies in question will probably decide against wasting the time taking any actions in the first place.)

It's terrible. A likely diversion of 10 years minimum, during which no one will actually be able to gain any traction towards changing the laws because these elites will be wagging the dog making people think something is going to happen under current law. We should have pushed for changes in the law first. Then gone after the big businesses. But that was probably just a pipe dream of mine anyway. It was never gonna happen.

[refurb]

Are you arguing that politicians would spend ten years investigating companies with the full knowledge they won’t get anywhere with it beyond political brownie points?

If so, I agree 100%.

[briantakita]

I agree < 100% as this is one of many benefits for a politician to take this stance. Another benefit is leverage over an industry. Leverage is a tool that can be used for different purposes. Even if the courts thwart one possible outcome, there are other possible outcomes.

[rellui]

The shitty thing about Equifax is that there's no way to not be a part of their credit score system. For Visa and MC, I can choose to not use their cards and go with something else. With Equifax, I can't stop using their service to stifle their business. I'm amazed the government is not intervening in cases like these where the end consumers have no choice in the matter.

[Consultant32452]

I'll go one level further and add the three bond ratings agencies that played front and center for the economic meltdown: Moody's, Fitch, and S&P.

[arcticbull]

Chargebacks are overwhelmingly positive. It allows you to use your credit card fearlessly knowing the card companies have your back. Truthfully, if they decreased payment volume or "dragged the economy" card companies wouldn't offer them.

[cmroanirgo]

> Chargebacks are overwhelmingly positive.

Not in my experience! Chargeback can kill small businesses rather easily. My dad used to run a timber store. His biggest chargeback was around $5k. The 'card owner' who we vetted, by giving correct name, home address and cvc. The 'card owner' asked it to be delivered around the corner (which is not unusual). 48hrs after delivery (1 week after ordering) later the bank did a charge back...

A large supplier near us got stung for >40k with a single chargeback.

Both instances had documented proof that the retailer has all the information about the card holder & had all reasonable evidence to assume it was the right person.

Most trade people I know, these days ask for 'staged' payments, to ensure a) cashflow & b) reduce risk of chargeback.

It's made me wonder why any retailer puts up with it.

That said, for internet purchases, I appreciate how awesome it is!

[indymike]

The issue here is fraud, not the chargeback. The outcome would have been the same with stolen cash, just with more lawyers.

[ethbro]

The issue is relative size and power, which does speak to antitrust.

If Visa, MasterCard, Amex, et al., or PayPal make a decision, most businesses have little recourse. The cost of not accepting cards is too high.

Ergo, payment processors can essentially set their own terms.

[arcticbull]

The 'buyer' still has the goods, and now has the money too. You can sue, and probably get them arrested for fraud. If they have the identification information they say they do, it should be a slam-dunk case. It's as though they walked in and took the lumber after closing time. The system isn't to blame, the clown who defrauded the mom and pop shop committed a crime, and there's lots of ways to do that.

[AnthonyMouse]

The problem with chargebacks is that they're mandatory, even in cases where the seller is more trustworthy than the buyer. Then you end up with all the losses associated with buyer fraud even if the overwhelming majority of legitimate buyers would have enough faith in the seller to waive the ability to conduct a chargeback in exchange for a discount in the amount of the fee that has to be charged to cover them.

The fee should be on the customer side and they should have a choice whether to pay it per transaction. Paying for insurance is fine, being forced to pay for it when you don't need it is not.

[arcticbull]

> The problem with chargebacks is that they're mandatory, even in cases where the seller is more trustworthy than the buyer. Then you end up with all the losses associated with buyer fraud even if the overwhelming majority of legitimate buyers would have enough faith in the seller to waive the ability to conduct a chargeback in exchange for a discount in the amount of the fee that has to be charged to cover them.

This is actually accounted for in the merchant interchange rate. It varies by MCC (merchant category code) [and potentially merchant to merchant] and the frequency of chargebacks is built into how much the merchant pays for processing. Further, that bubbles up to the customer in terms of the pricing. Merchants may offer cash or other payment method discounts, so in a sense, what you're asking for already exists. Merchants do not opt into it because it's not in their interests.

That said, that's not how the math works out. If a buyer has a number of chargebacks, the buyer may be investigated and has their account suspended or is charged with fraud. This works both ways. Again, merchants and payment networks are aligned in this case, both make money on greater transaction volume, this feature increases transaction volume, that's why it's there, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Also, paying per-transaction isn't really insurance as it leads to massive adverse selection risk. The most helpful chargeback for me personally was a two thousand dollar chargeback against Expedia where they refused to refund a refundable ticket. I filed a chargeback and I got the money back within a few days.

It's a good thing, unless you've got data to back your case.

[AnthonyMouse]

> This is actually accounted for in the merchant interchange rate. It varies by MCC and potentially merchant to merchant and the frequency of chargebacks is built into how much the merchant pays for processing.

But the number of chargebacks is as much related to the frequency of buyer fraud in that industry rather than anything the merchant can control. If it's all buyer fraud then the rate is high, but how do you solve that other than by moving the liability back to the buyer?

> Merchants may offer cash or other payment method discounts, so in a sense, what you're asking for already exists.

It exists in person, but where's the equivalent that allows you to pay cash over the internet? Cryptocurrency, maybe, and now we're back to monopolies and market share because you can't really accept something people aren't familiar with and don't know how to use.

> If someone has a number of chargebacks, the customer is investigated and has their account suspended or charged with fraud.

One of the most common sources of chargebacks is identity theft. Someone makes a purchase on a stolen card and then the real cardholder gets the bill and disputes the charge. The merchant in that case did nothing wrong but has to eat the loss, even when the identity theft was enabled by the cardholder's negligence. Then we get more such negligence, and lose the demand-side market pressure for higher security like two factor authentication and replacing credit card numbers with public keys that could have prevented the fraud, which increases costs for everyone.

But investigating the customer whose name is on the account does you no good in that case, because even if it was proximately their fault, it wasn't them who actually committed the fraud and it won't be their name on the account next time when some other negligent customer carelessly gives all their information to a fraudster because it costs them nothing to do so.

> Again, merchants and buyers are aligned in this case, both make money on greater transaction volume, this feature increases transaction volume, that's why it's there, otherwise it wouldn't be there.

It's there because the credit card companies don't give customers the choice.

> Also, paying per-transaction isn't really insurance as it leads to massive adverse selection risk.

All insurance leads to adverse risk selection. That's the nature of insurance. It's why you can't buy life insurance when you're 114 years old. Should we force them to sell it anyway and then make everyone else pay for it?

> The most helpful chargeback for me personally was a two thousand dollar chargeback against Expedia where they refused to refund a refundable ticket. I filed a chargeback and I got the money back within a few days.

And you would have otherwise had to take them to small claims court, which would have been more inconvenient.

Meanwhile if you paid 3% more on purchases totaling $200,000 over the last decade due to the increased buyer fraud, have you really come out ahead?

> It's a good thing, unless you've got data to back your case.

We would have the data if we gave people the choice.

[arcticbull]

> But the number of chargebacks is as much related to the frequency of buyer fraud in that industry rather than anything the merchant can control. If it's all buyer fraud then the rate is high, but how do you solve that other than by moving the liability back to the buyer?

You are. Retail price is adjusted to account for interchange which is adjusted to account for risk. Merchants can offer cash discounts.

> It's there because the credit card companies don't give customers the choice.

Again processors make money when transaction volume is higher. If this reduced transaction volume why would they do it?

> Meanwhile if you paid 3% more on purchases totaling $200,000 over the last decade due to the increased buyer fraud, have you really come out ahead?

Average merchant interchange is around 3% and there are 2% cash back cards, so it’s 1% net, meaning I’d be out $2000, so break even. Not to mention the interest-free one month loans, car rental insurance, loss insurance, warranty extensions and so on.

> We would have the data if we gave people the choice.

So you’re speculating in spite of the fact interests are currently aligned. And setting aside that the choice specifically exists for all brick and mortar merchants - so is there some reason they’re a poor sample?

[pjc50]

The customer being able to decline chargeback per transaction is nonsense, because the primary use case is fraud; you don't want the fake "customer" being able to decline the real cardholder's ability to chargeback.

(There are chargebackless payments such as bank transfer; the £5k wood example above would be a good case for that.)

[tracker1]

I'm pretty sure that they should be included as well here... the bigger issue is at what point, and to what extent should civil rights protections extend to publicly available platforms. ie Public Spaces in Private Ownership.

[tomrod]

Is that right? I thought there were several payment service providers and interchange networks.

[lotsofpulp]

Visa/MC/Amex/Discover for Americans, with Visa being far in the lead.

[shmerl]

> Antitrust enforcement in the US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed

So why does it allow harmful mega-mergers of ISPs and corrupt buying of laws that forbid building municipal networks, which is just a tactic to cement local monopolies?

The whole net neutrality topic is primarily about competition law. And lawmakers still (supposedly) can't wrap their heads around such basic thing, dancing to the tune of said monopolists, who pull their strings with legalized corruption.

[noelsusman]

Replace "big tech" with "big banks" and this is almost word for word what I hear from my friends on Wall Street.

The fact is that these are some of the most powerful companies in the world. Tech has skated by with a tiny fraction of the scrutiny that similarly powerful industries get. You say that it doesn't appear customers have been harmed by these companies, but maybe it doesn't appear that way because nobody with any power has bothered to look.

[awinder]

This is actually a decent point, and tech has only recently realized that they need lobbyists in order to smooth the legislative runways (this is the most charitable description I could imagine for what is being done here).

Congress & the executive may want to look into this with cool heads rather than doing the lambasting song and dance. There’s a lot of s&p 500 money in the companies they are going after, and I’m getting the feeling that the “enormous tax cut” is really just gonna end up as cushion for trillions in dumbass value destruction.

[kortilla]

Google has been lobbying for at least a decade. These big companies didn’t “recently realize” anything. It’s just come to light now because there isn’t an administration in control now that is politically aligned with them.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

It's interesting how the media is owned by the ISPs.

They couldn't possibly be trying to redirect our attention after the Net Neutrality uproar and insane disapproval ratings for Ajit Pai -- could they?

[Wowfunhappy]

The fact that I can't purchase any software for my iPhone without Apple taking a 30% cut absolutely harms me as a consumer. It naturally leads to higher prices.

[pmart123]

15% when the subscription is over a year and the 30% cut only applies to digital goods so Uber, Lyft and food delivery, for instance, are exempt. My guess is these fees will continue to drop naturally over time, but they probably haven't dropped fast enough.

[Wowfunhappy]

Other than government intervention, what incentive does Apple have to lower their fees, particularly as they intend for "services" to be an increased money maker going forward?

Perhaps more importantly, why should consumers be subject to Apple's good will? If consumers were able to acquire software from other sources, the market would naturally determine how much of a cut Apple actually deserves.

[kortilla]

When people buy a different phone, obviously. If iPhones are so much more expensive that it’s harming you as a consumer, why don’t you switch to one of the many android options?

[gwd]

This is nonsense. You can just buy a different phone -- there are dozens of companies out there.

Apple's "tax" allows them to pay for software without selling my data. At the moment, I have a choice: 1) Buy software funded by spying on me (any Android phone) 2) Buy software funded by selling to me (and iPhone). If they're forced to "open up" their platform, then their revenue stream becomes more difficult, and I don't have choice any more.

If you want to have all your software funded by letting people spy on you, then go for it. But don't take away my choice.

[Wowfunhappy]

> Apple's "tax" allows them to pay for software without selling my data.

It does? macOS seems to do well enough on the privacy front.

I don't think Apple's App Store, or its 30% cut, needs to disappear, but consumers should have the option of running software from outside the store too. That's adding choice, not taking it away.

[gwd]

> It does? macOS seems to do well enough on the privacy front.

And my laptop is a lot more expensive than my phone.

Look, you're presumably complaining because you either own, or want to own, an iPhone, in spite of there being dozens of other phones with similar features, and hundreds more with different features. The feature / price point combination of those phones are in part a result of the App Store policies. Changing that cut will change the feature / price point: they'd have to charge more, or give you less, or find alternate sources of revenue (i.e., start spying on you).

Now, maybe their business model would work fine without having to resort to ads or raise the prices too much. But maybe it won't. The only way to find out would be to risk destroying it. Which is completely unnecessary, given that there are so many alternatives.

If you don't like their policies, don't buy their phone. If Spotify doesn't like paying a 30% cut, they don't have to make an iPhone app. There are lots of other options out there.

[Wowfunhappy]

> And my laptop is a lot more expensive than my phone.

It's not for many people. An iPhone X starts at $1,000.

> The feature / price point combination of those phones are in part a result of the App Store policies. Changing that cut will change the feature / price point: they'd have to charge more, or give you less, or find alternate sources of revenue (i.e., start spying on you).

Apple is a ridiculously profitable company. They quite literally have more money than they know what to do with, as evidenced by their enormous bank account.

I'm happy Apple has been so successful, but I also think a portion of their inordinate profitability has come from anticompetitive practices, namely how locked down the app store is. They don't have a right to that particular revenue stream.

[mikestew]

but consumers should have the option of running software from outside the store too

They do. It just won't run on iOS. That's a choice Apple made, and by extension, a choice the purchaser made when they bought the phone. For example, it is a primary feature that holds some responsibility for my continued use of iOS.

That's adding choice, not taking it away.

Yeah, who is Apple to say that I didn't want my entire contact list uploaded to a Russian server? Maybe I like a little malware mixed in with my Kandy Krusher.

In summary, if you don't want to pay a 30% surcharge for vetted software and a system that ensures that those you support technically will load only vetted software, an iPhone probably isn't for you or your loved ones.

[Wowfunhappy]

Ironically, I actually think a more open platform could increase privacy significantly. On a Mac, you can install Little Snitch to carefully monitor connections into and out of your phone. Security researchers also have the ability to probe apps as they see fit. Not on the iPhone.

The iPhones's closed nature also prevents security researchers from sufficiently examining third party apps for vulnerabilities.

[mikestew]

That's all well and good, despite doing little to address my point, but you seem to be dodging the question of why you don't just go buy an Android phone. You don't like how the guy at the local convenience store treats you? Pound sand and go down the block to the other one. You have yet to explain why you don't do the same with phones. I happen to like the way iOS works in the this respect, and you sound like someone that just moved into the neighborhood complaining things that have been that way for the last 20 years.

[cpuguy83]

I think you would have a hard time proving this, because software prices are much (much) cheaper than they were pre-app store.

[wavefunction]

That assertion seems harder to prove than the assertion that a 30% built-in cost leads to higher prices.

[cpuguy83]

How is it harder to prove? It's completely provable and even a huge complaint of developers of the platform.

Everyone expects free/0.99 apps and it costs way more to produce and support them.

Apps, before we had an app store, were absolutely more expensive than this.

Which apps are expensive?

Not to defend Apple here, but when the store was introduced people didn't mind the 30% hit because: 1. Credit card processing wasn't as easy as it is today, and the store takes care of all that 2. Store hands distribution and listing

Before the app store we actually had to go to a physical store to buy software. Sure some you could buy online but really not all that much (comparatively) and discoverability was basically "hope someone with a big blog or CNET review it".

Of course now it is difficult to be discovered because there's tons and tons of other things out there. CC processing is not difficult and there are companies like Stripe that you can go through... etc.

[JumpCrisscross]

> antitrust enforcement in the US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed and it doesn't appear to be the case when it comes to any of these corporations

One, the House Judiciary Committee is also investigating. That not only makes the investigations bipartisan (though the DoJ is technically nonpartisan). It also introduces the potential for new legislation.

Two, there has been consumer harm. It's just not dollar-denominated harm. From a recent New York Times article:

"In 2007, for example, Facebook introduced a program that recorded users’ activity on third-party sites and inserted it into the News Feed. Following public outrage and a class-action lawsuit, Facebook ended the program. 'We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them,' Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in a public apology.

This sort of thing happened regularly for years. Facebook would try something sneaky, users would object and Facebook would back off.

But then Facebook’s competition began to disappear. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Later in 2014, Google announced that it would fold its social network Orkut. Emboldened by the decline of market threats, Facebook revoked its users’ ability to vote on changes to its privacy policies and then (almost simultaneously with Google’s exit from the social media market) changed its privacy pact with users.

This is how Facebook usurped our privacy: with the help of its market dominance. The price of using Facebook has stayed the same over the years (it’s free to join and use), but the cost of using it, calculated in terms of the amount of data that users now must provide, is an order of magnitude above what it was when Facebook faced real competition" [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/opinion/privacy-antitrust...

[Johnny555]

there is a long list of companies and markets worthy of antitrust scrutiny... The real drag on the economy are the high prices of healthcare and housing

I'm curious what you see as the antitrust violations that lead to high housing prices?

[AnthonyMouse]

The housing case is non-traditional because the entity the cartel organizes through is the local government rather than a corporation.

You have to live somewhere to get a vote there, so the people (sellers) who already own property in a location get a vote while the people (buyers) who are about to move there don't until after they have and have switched from customer to owner. The result is that the existing property owners have a lock on the local government and pass anti-competitive rules that constrain the housing supply and raise prices.

You might think renters would help there, but there are areas where the majority are not renters, and the areas with majority renters often end up with abominations like rent control which cause market rents to go even higher while neutralizing the threat to the anti-competitive rules by paying off just enough of the tenants to retain local majority support.

[Johnny555]

I don't think that's really an anti-trust problem, and I don't think you can call a majority of voters in an area a "cartel". It's a matter of giving the majority of residents/voters what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I don't think that's really an anti-trust problem

What kind of problem is it then? High prices being maintained by a purposeful conspiracy of existing owners to constrain supply sure sounds a lot like an antitrust problem.

> It's a matter of giving the majority of residents/voters what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.

But it's not necessarily bad for them. They make more money by monopolizing the local real estate market in the same way as any other cartel monopolizes anything.

Even if their choices are bad for the city itself, they may be planning to sell and move to another area before the long-term negative consequences to the city are felt.

[klipt]

> What kind of problem is it then?

Regulatory capture?

[nerfhammer]

That's hardly mutually exclusive with cartel behavior

[kortilla]

It’s still a cartel from a market perspective. They are colluding to control supply.

[xamuel]

You're painting a picture of greedy homeowners restricting housing to make their investments go up. But there are other, more legitimate reasons for homeowners to resist turning every town into high-density mega-apartments. Some people highly value a quiet neighborhood. Some people (like myself) are extremely sensitive to the sounds of neighbors playing music with subwoofers. Good luck avoiding that in a high-density apartment (you'd need about 5 feet of solid concrete to damp out a loud subwoofer next door).

[anthonypasq]

then dont live in a city.

[xamuel]

Sure, I'll go move out into the country. And others like me will do the same. And then soon people will start whining about how expensive it is to join us, because of the low population density, and how we ought to replace our houses with apartments...

[cactca]

There are two prominent examples of antitrust/monopoly problems in the U.S. real estate market: MLS and dual agency. The MLS seems to be complicit in forcing home sellers into paying higher buyer agent commissions: https://therealdeal.com/national/2019/05/22/doj-demands-core...

With consolidation of real estate brokerage firms, many home buyers may have overpaid due to a single firm representing both home seller and buyer, known as dual agency: https://therealdeal.com/2019/05/01/houlihan-lawrence-fails-t...

There is a third issue of large private equity firms buying large volumes of houses that may, in the future, warrant an antitrust investigation.

[Johnny555]

I agree that being forced into 6% commission regardless of the effort it took to buy/sell your house is a problem, I don't think that extra few percent is what's pricing people out of buying a home.

[cactca]

The effective cost implications are more likely 10-12% at each sale. A seller will try to increase the price of the house to cover these commissions.

Your comment is focused on buying a home, but there can be dramatic consequences for home owners, the stakeholders forced into paying both agents.

When a seller has little equity and a poor housing market, exiting a primary mortgage can be financially impossible. A recent survey found a large fraction of the US can't handle a surprise $400 expense. So the follow-on effects of these commissions are not trivial for a large swath of the country.

I also agree that depending on location (looking at you SF metro) there are much bigger factors, e.g. constrained supply, inflating home prices.

[dublinben]

Just so you know, that "$400 expense" survey has been widely misreported: https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2019/apr/19...

[georgeecollins]

>>> I'm curious what you see as the antitrust violations that lead to high housing prices?

https://www.nar.realtor/about-nar

[dahfizz]

I don't understand why you're being down voted... It's a valid question. Nothing pops into my head when I imagine a corporation that owns a majority of real estate. It's a conversation worth having.

[greeneggs]

The closest I can think of is mobile home manufacturing. Berkshire Hathaway has 52% of the market (up from 17% in 2007).

https://concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industr...

[isoskeles]

I agree with the sentiment of the comment you're responding to, but I also think this is a valid question and don't understand why your comment appears to be downvoted.

[Johnny555]

I agree with his overall sentiment too, there are lots of cases of monopolistic practices harming consumers, but I just don't see the same thing with housing prices. Low interest rate loans and restrictive zoning seems to be more of a problem than a few companies colluding together to drive up housing prices.

[not2b]

The difficulty is that antitrust law as originally written did care about "whiny competitors", not just harm to the consumer, but the Justice Department in the Reagan era changed their standards (without changing the law) and both Democratic and Republican administrations went along with it.

[feynmanistheman]

As the article goes into, the consumer welfare standard that you mention is an interpretation of the Sherman Act, not a cut-and-dry statutory phrasing. Changes in either judicial thought or legislation could still put "big tech" in danger, even if they don't run afoul of the consumer welfare standard. I would hope that questions of competition and influence would be asked in the digital age, hopefully without the malign influence of the media and "whiny competitors."

[chiefalchemist]

> "...he US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed..."

It's difficult for me to imagine the Justice Dept being able to argue that "customers" were harmed...using services that were free.

[SomeOldThrow]

> It's difficult for me to imagine the Justice Dept being able to argue that "customers" were harmed...using services that were free.

C'mon, not offering any choice in how you pay for the service is inherently anti-consumer behavior. It's certainly not free, and they certainly never offer the consumer any insight into exactly how they are paying for it.

[joshuamorton]

> C'mon, not offering any choice in how you pay for the service is inherently anti-consumer behavior.

This might be the best take I've heard yet. What constitutes choice in method of payment. Since it appears you consider "forcing users to pay with data" to be anti-consumer, is "forcing users to pay with dollars" equally anti-consumer? Does that make, like, restaurants that don't let you pay with personal info anti-consumer? What about companies that take data and don't offer anything in return (Equifax et. al, ISPs, etc.)

[SomeOldThrow]

I'm not against paying with currency, except insofar as this inherently benefits a subset of humanity. But the issue is not that ads are inherently bad, it's that the interaction is inherently dishonest. A more honest way would allow you, the end-user, to bid for the same ad spots to allow a proper valuation of the ad to the perspective of the consumer. My impression is that Google goes to large efforts to obscure the 'value' of a web page from consumers. If there were proper exchanges between ads and money this might make sense, though I can only imagine the number of ads you might watch to pay for a meal would drive anyone insane.

Plus, ads try to target users with money, so presumably their value is proportional to your value. That's probably also a key reason why you don't see this anywhere: it's a blatantly classist practice.

[joshuamorton]

My recollection is that google has tried variants on what you suggest (contributor). Publishers don't like it (I don't know why), and I think I recall consumers not wanting to pay enough.

[SomeOldThrow]

> https://contributor.google.com/v/beta

If this is a serious effort it's incredibly disappointing.

> Publishers don't like it (I don't know why), and I think I recall consumers not wanting to pay enough.

Not wanting to pay enough for what? To even justify giving us a choice? Inexcusable.

[kortilla]

Google makes it obvious they make money from advertising. You are not forced to use google products. It’s going to be really hard to make an anti-consumer argument here when you’re essentially saying you want google’s product but don’t want to pay the advertising price.

That’s like saying McDonald’s is anti-consumer because they don’t let you buy a cheeseburger by singing a song.

[SomeOldThrow]

> You are not forced to use google products.

That's like saying "you're not forced to use a car to travel", it's just not practical to use the internet without it for many reasons.

> It’s going to be really hard to make an anti-consumer argument here when you’re essentially saying you want google’s product but don’t want to pay the advertising price.

I'm looking for a transaction rather than pimping your data in a completely opaque manner, which is inherently an anti-social interaction, for the end of selling you products you don't want and don't need, another anti-social interaction. It doesn't need to be this way.

[dv_dt]

My cynical suspicion is that the tech giant's platforms allow for citizen organization in a way that the other ignored monopolies do not.

[soup10]

Big tech does many scummy things in the name of corporate greed, far from misguided, this is overdue.