[0xDEF]

>Apple, Google, Amazon and maybe even Microsoft

What would be the economic and geopolitical consequences of the US breaking up the only US companies that are globally competitive? Chinese giants will outcompete the smaller less competitive remnants after these kind of corporate breakups.

[bogwog]

TikTok is an example of a successful Chinese company that is out-competing US social media giants. If they were a US company, Facebook or Google would've bought and killed them when they were an early startup.

American big tech companies aren't competitive in anything. They're entrenched monopolies. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon products are all shit, but users don't really have any other choice. If we break them up, it will create market opportunity for actual innovation in the US.

The question is whether we actually have the talent and expertise to innovate once you remove all of the current artificial barriers (big tech monopolies, walled gardens, etc).

I think we do. At least more than China, where most of their big tech companies seem to be built on stolen and cloned tech.

[freedomben]

> They're entrenched monopolies. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon products are all shit, but users don't really have any other choice.

If their products are all shit, how are they able to maintain their monopolies? Why hasn't a competitor started up that offered a better product?

[bogwog]

Is this question meant to be rhetorical, or are you genuinely asking? Because the answer is simple: that's how monopolies work. Monopolies don't need to compete to succeed, they just need some way to exclude competitors. All of those companies have multiple ways to do that for most/all of their products.

[freedomben]

> Is this question meant to be rhetorical, or are you genuinely asking?

It's a little of both to be honest. I disagree that their products are shit (in fact some of their products I think are really damn good), and I don't see how short of coercion with government or a private army or something that you could maintain a monopoly with products that suck.

But I genuinely think I might be missing something here. Maybe a better question is, how are they able to maintain their monopolies with shit products? Huge barriers to entry combined with quick acquisition of competitors? That's mostly how Rockefeller did it in the 19th century, but that's not a good parallel either because he didn't have a shit product.

[amadeuspagel]

TikTok is based on a US company - musical.ly - which was not bought by any US social media giant, maybe due to anti-trust concerns.

[bogwog]

Wasn't Musical.ly a Chinese company too? Wikipedia says they were headquartered in Shanghai with an office in California.

[amadeuspagel]

You're right, I misremembered that.

[23B1]

Your comment presupposes that bigger = better.

This may or may not be true, but size is not necessarily a predictor of victory, especially in warfare.

History is rife with smaller belligerents defeating larger ones through innovation/force multiplication/asymmetrical warfare.

I think it's fair to say that an oligopoly stifles innovation; you can see it in how expensive and slow companies like Lockheed, Boeing, or BAE are when it comes to providing matériel needed by actual warfighters.

I don't think this is an either-or scenario – you need both – but saying that we can only be globally competitive on the backs of megacorporations is incorrect.

[mmaunder]

That’s a strong argument for nationalization of large businesses. Competition fosters innovation, and monopoly kills it. Competition with larger companies gave birth to Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

[0xDEF]

Neither Apple, Google, Amazon, nor Microsoft have a systemic monopoly.

[astrange]

Apple, Google and Microsoft were all in new early markets when they started up. They weren't really competing with giant successful companies.

[nashashmi]

evaluation of Chinese companies will be more stringent than local companies against the rules of monopolies.