[rglullis]

What I want is for us to reward companies for what they produced, not by what they managed to squeeze out of customers after getting big.

Apple was revitalized by the iPod and later the iPhone? Great, let them sell as many iPods and iPhones as they possibly can. But when they sell it, do not let them keep control of everything. If they are saying the only they can make money is by keeping the iPhone closed and being the gatekeeper of the app store, it means that they are not really making money on the device, so we shouldn't be rewarding them.

Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market.

Does Facebook want to innovate on the communication space by developing an application on XMPP? When was it even working with Google Talk? Amazing, let's reward them for that instead of letting close things down and please let's not them have WhatsApp to feed their endless appetite for user data.

[Kalium]

> Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market.

This one sticks out among your examples - that dominant position and the profits from it is the reward. How else would you have a reward work?

This isn't an idle question. Right now companies are doing things that generate their own financial rewards. What other way would you have it work, beyond just some notion of differently?

[rglullis]

They achieved the dominant position thanks for their work. They maintained it by buying DoubleClick.

[foobarian]

Not being nationalized could be a mighty reward.

[Kalium]

My possessions were not nationalized at least a dozen times yesterday. It hasn't changed my behavior much, nor that of any company worth mentioning. Perhaps your life has been different from mine.

The absence of a major punishment is not a strong reward. It provides no incentives except to avoid the specific things that produce that punishment.

[tomoyoirl]

I’m uncertain on what terms any European nation is going to nationalize Apple, Google, Tiktok, etc. (Is there to be conquest first?)

Because it’s not clear you’re limiting your ideas to the jurisdiction where the DMA applies, I’m only marginally less uncertain about what terms the US would use to nationalize TikTok, and wondering whether the proposal for nationalizing the others - that is to say, taking private property for a public use - would be attached to just compensation (because the trillions involved would surely dent the deficit), or whether there’s some refined subtlety of the case law on Constitutional principles that I have missed or has yet to happen (e.g. trashing the whole takings clause? hard to be certain).

That is to say: this proposal is quite difficult to take seriously, as it implies, but does not identify or engage with, some rather striking changes to the world that would have far reaching consequences.

[dotnet00]

"The beatings will continue until morale improves" is not meant to be a serious guideline.

[smhenderson]

I absolutely agree and made the cardinal sin of conflating data privacy with the subject of the article, which is about anti-competitive behavior.

But they are both huge issues for the companies we're discussing and I absolutely agree with your thoughts on rewarding them for what they do well but not assuming that everything they do must be just as great and giving them a pass for when they get it wrong or actively hostile to their customers.

[newsclues]

Seems like taking away the choice for closed ecosystems may not be great for the market, sometimes consumers like myself want the closed ecosystem!