[basch]

In 2017, Lina M. Khan, at the age of 27, published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox. It said everyone was getting antitrust wrong, and there were other ways giant conglomerates were harming competition. Traditionally, unless the consumer was harmed through short term price fixing, just about anything was allowed to fly. The paper took the legal world by storm, and two years ago, she was nominated, confirmed, and appointed as chair of the Federal Trade Commission.

So largely, someone new, with new ideas, took over a regulatory body that has been coasting along on its lorals. The FTC will now behave non-traditionally, disregarding what has been a very consistent school of thought (defined by Yale Law School professor Robert Bork and University of Chicago Law School professors Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook) since the 1977 Continental Television v. GTE Sylvania Supreme Court Case redefined the Judicial Systems perspective on anti-trust, neutering the Sherman Act.

In 1978 Robert Bork wrote the book The Antitrust Paradox and Richard Posner wrote Antitrust Law, summarizing the previous decades shift in attitude towards government intervention in the marketplace. Khan believes the those three people influenced the government to become too lenient and hands-off, when it should have been doing more to protect the marketplace from harmful entities that threaten competitiveness.

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...

[nus07]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/06/lina-khans-bat...

For more context. A long but good read on the current FTC chairman.

[xvector]

Lina Khan may have written great papers but she isn't fit for the job. She harbors a hate for big tech and cannot be impartial in her dealings.

See her recent attempt to prevent Meta from acquiring Within. There is no sane, level-headed case that could possibly paint this acquisition as an antitrust violation. Even most legal experts will agree that Lina Khan's case is a stretch at best.

It's clear that this case is simply motivated by a hatred for Meta more than anything rational, and such decision making can harm the emergence of nascent technology such as AR/VR.

[xxpor]

The FTC chairperson is a part of the Executive branch, not a judge. It's not her job to be impartial; she's allowed to have a point of view.

[granzymes]

FTC commissioners wear many hats. They exercise executive power in a rulemaking capacity, but they also have both prosecutorial and quasi-judicial power. They can authorize complaints, and the commissioners sit as an appellate court to review the decisions of their in-house court.

[whatshisface]

I don't know anything about the acquisition, but speaking generally, appointees leave less lasting precedent when they spend their time chasing individual vendettas rather than establishing consistent ruts that the system can run down once they leave.

[basch]

There is a point where changing the rules now appears to benefit incumbents, despite them being the targets here. Nobody new will be able to grow this way to compete with existing large players. If they cant acquire small things, they will just be forced to clone them, yet the smaller tier players wont be able to "just clone things."

Instagram falls into the same category. When Mark acquired it, it was tiny. He is who grew it. Facebook acquired a mobile camera app because it didn't have an app yet. Same how it acquired Beluga and turned it into messenger. Adobe acquiring Photoshop, then Macromedia. Mirosoft acquiring Powerpoint and then hotmail.com.

[cmrdporcupine]

I don't think your analogy holds here; Instagram was already an active and popular social network before Facebook acquired it, not a "camera app." Did it grow? Certainly. While we don't know what would have happened to it had FB not bought it, it's quite possible FB bought it precisely because it was growing and becoming 'cool.'

[basch]

Instagram was what, 19 month old when FB bought it? It has 13 employees. It had 0 revenue. It had 30 million people on it. (Facebook hit a billion people in 2012.)

It was tiny. It was the hip up-and-coming app. It had the limelight, and importantly to FB it was mobile first.

I think our memories like to kind of project back its success after acquisition onto what it was before, and get distorted by its billion dollar price. He paid a lot for a not a lot, because he was buying a fad while it was still hot, before Twitter or Google could. He then dumped gasoline on a matchstick. Would ANYBODY else have poured that much money into Instagram that quickly? I think we can all picture what would have happened to it if it had found its way into the Twitter portfolio. (I would surmise it may no longer even exist and have been folded into Twitter having a picture posting feature.)

In hindsight it was absolutely anti-competitive in some way, but I don't know how the law could act to block buying shiny things with potential.

[whatshisface]

The law is usually applied in retrospect, for what it's worth.

[jessaustin]

Legal opinions vary. Certainly Robert Bork would agree with you. He would also probably agree with your vicious libel of Chair Khan.

Those who really care about the development of particular technologies typically don't welcome consolidation in related industries. It wouldn't have been good news for electric cars, if Tesla had been acquired by GM in say 2008. Why the unhinged invective against Khan?

[xvector]

It's neither libel or unhinged. I'm not the only one out there that finds the case around Within a stretch at best.

Plenty of mergers and acquisitions have driven technological progress, and so long as they aren't anticompetitive it's not problematic. See Meta and Oculus, for instance, or Apple's merger with Next.

Acquisitions and mergers fundamentally reduce duplication of work and allow you to combine building blocks to create something greater. Blindly blocking any and all of them as Khan is, is indicative that her bias against big tech has the potential to harm progress overall for no perceivable actual gain.

[jessaustin]

...she isn't fit for the job. She harbors a hate... There is no sane, level-headed case... simply motivated by a hatred for Meta more than anything rational...

...

It's neither libel or unhinged!

ITT you've claimed that she isn't sane, isn't rational, is motivated solely by hate, and is unfit for her job. You've given us no reason to believe any of this, and the source of it all seems merely to be a political disagreement. This is a respected professional who has been nominated by the president and approved by Congress. Please, find a hinge.

I'm not the only one out there that finds the case around Within a stretch at best.

Yes we've already established that you agree with Robert Bork. I'd say probably Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito are also on your side. Care to cite some less odious support?

Khan and FTC clearly don't have the resources to block all mergers and acquisitions. It's amusing that you complain this impossible thing is happening in the same thread in which your political bedfellows complain it isn't happening. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34507781

[basch]

Regulatory cases like this get launched to test the waters. I see the Within thing as tipping at toe in, to see what the judicial branch will allow them to get away with. They are probably reaching for an extreme on purpose to find the boundary.

[ClumsyPilot]

> She harbors a hate for big tech

Oh no, how the big tech has suffered since she took up the post, their profits have... Tripled? This cant be right!

Is Big tech a cult and anyone not worshipping them is the enemy?

You do realise her job is to police big tech, not to do their bidding. She should like them no more than a prison guatdrd likes prisoners.

[eropple]

Can you enlighten me as to why this is only a problem when somebody is not reflexively in favor of handing the keys to everything to large companies, and not when they are?

[scythe]

From Wikipedia:

>Within was named[13] the #1 VR app for iOS by Apple Insider, featured[13] as "Best New App" on iTunes and is the most downloaded and highest rated[14] cinematic VR app for Google Cardboard.

This appears to be a clear-cut case of consolidation of key companies operating in a sector. Care to share why you think this isn't "sane"?

[stonogo]

How does this hatred work? Does she keep a leaderboard? Does big tech include foreign companies? I don't know much about this person other than the usual media bio sketches. Where can I read more?

[xvector]

It works through frivolous lawsuits attempting to block everything Big Tech does regardless of reason, eg the acquisition of Within, which has no justifiable antitrust case whatsoever.

[jessaustin]

Within is an app developer whose apps compete with apps owned by Meta, run on hardware owned by Meta, and are sold in an app store owned by Meta. Why does this confuse you?

[xvector]

There is no viable anticompetitive case for VR as it is a nascent industry which barely exists. Furthermore, Meta is far from the only player in the VR space today - Valve, Pico, HTC, Samsung, and Microsoft amongst others all play a role in the VR ecosystem.

[dannyr]

"block everything" yet you only have one example.

[rockinghigh]

Interesting story. By the way, the phrase is "resting on its laurels".

[basch]

Said phrase was coined intentionally. It was a purposeful allusion of sorts to the idiom.

Resting to me meant inaction. Conversely, the FTC appears to still analyze things for antitrust, but was doing so through an outdated framework.

Lorals means "pertaining to lore." I meant it to mean that Bork and Co had created an unquestionable mythology around what anti-trust was. Blasphemists were ignored and discarded.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/lora...

So, new idiom minted. Maybe someday it can make it into the dictionary, and cite this post.

Coasting on your lorals = on auto-pilot, not questioning what put you on your trajectory, complacent enough to keep the flight path and speed. Tangently related to: appeal to tradition, argumentum ad antiquitatem, argumentum ad antiquitam, appeal to antiquity, and appeal to common practice.

[robotnikman]

I never knew about this, sounds like a breath of fresh air and some hope for the future.

[__derek__]

Small nit: the suit in TFA is from the DOJ, not the FTC.

[basch]

They work in tandem.

The FTC shares jurisdiction over federal civil antitrust enforcement with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. In some consumer protection matters, the FTC appears with, or supports, the U.S. Department of Justice.

Biden's FTC appointments are redefining FTC perspective on anti-trust, and DOJ is following suit.

[nr2x]

Not on this case, this is from Trump Era. Lina was still a professor.

[basch]

How so? Youre saying they started writing the case under Trump? It was still this administrations decision to file it.

The lead plaintiff attorney is Jonathan Kanter, his bio has his collaboration and alignment with Khan mentioned twice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Kanter

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Standard Oil kept the price of oil nice and low.

[shadowgovt]

And the quality high. The name "standard" was a reference to standards of measure and control; the implication in the name was "We're the brand that won't blow up your house when you use it."

[nr2x]

This is DOJ.

[from]

> Lina M. Khan, at the age of 27, published Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox

Is this a puff piece? She's just some government employee - she doesn't produce anything. It remains to be seen whether her aggressive interpretation of antitrust law will actually benefit consumers. We can split up Google into 100 companies and then we'll find out that the bales of cash advertising produces are no longer subsidizing the less profitable services. Maybe you'll have to pay to upload to YouTube or you won't get 15 GB of free gmail space or Hangouts will require an enterprise plan. But it'll all be worth it because some other adtech company who cares even less about your privacy than Google will now be able to sell search ads?

[basch]

I was casually pointing out someone comparatively green was in charge now, as opposed to an experienced tenured dogmatic bureaucrat. I left it ambiguous whether inexperience would be a boon to free thinking and a new era or a hinderance and burden to the economy. Maybe things have been being done the way they were "always" done, for a reason. Take it as a rorschach test.

[dabedee]

I think your comment was valuable in that it suggested the work being done on antitrust by Lina Khan. For those who are interested, I would also recommend reading the excellent Matt Stoller on Substack [1] who does a weekly analysis on antitrust regulation, monopolies, and more.

[1] https://mattstoller.substack.com/

[nr2x]

Except she isn’t. You’re totally incorrect on all your comments.

[from]

He is talking about how the prevailing attitude towards antitrust in the executive branch has changed. Lina Khan is a symbol and motivator of that change. Not sure what you're talking about.

[lovich]

You’re summarizing the problem with trusts in capitalism here in your argument. Capitalism works to generate innovation and wealth because there’s competitive forces driving that. No one can compete with gmail and YouTube because they are being subsidized by another business segment. If you get rid of that competition it leads to stagnation

[gggggg5]

> No one can compete with gmail

This is kind of very obviously not true.

>and YouTube

Lots of companies operating in the video delivery space too.

[lovich]

> This is kind of very obviously not true.

Who is competing with gmail? Please include market share and revenue in your analysis

>>and YouTube Lots of companies operating in the video delivery space too.

This is more defensibile than the YouTube argument, there is Rumble and Vimeo for instance. But again, What is the market share and revenue for YouTube vs these other “competitors”?

[gggggg5]

>Who is competing with gmail? Please include market share and revenue in your analysis

Outlook, Yahoo, (insert a long list of Chinese providers here), Yandex, Fastmail, Zoho Mail, Hey, Protonmail and so forth.

All of the above have actually managed to capture a decent share of the market, and there are many more.

>This is more defensibile than the YouTube argument, there is Rumble and Vimeo for instance. But again, What is the market share and revenue for YouTube vs these other “competitors”?

Instagram and Facebook are also huge in the same space. I'd guess that Akamai is even bigger.