Huge changes for internet and Big Tech under U.S. antitrust proposal

Desert Tortoise

Apple should not be allowed to restrict what you can load on your phone as they do now.

Apple have a walled garden approach to protect users. If you don't like it, you can get an Android and load any malware you like. It's not as if this is restricting the number and variety of apps on the iPhone.

And why should they be forced to open their platform. Should Nintendo be forced to open their platforms as well?

Same for their computers.

You can put what you like on a mac, it's not restricted.

Their bundles are designed to prevent competitors from advancing their own often superior products.

Not at all. What superior products are Apple holding back?

Apple should not be allowed to restrict what you can load on your phone as they do now.

Why not? As a consumer, I want Apple's service as-is. I don't want to spend time trying to evaluate whether or not it's safe to put an app on my phone, I want to know Apple has vetted it, leaving me to not worry about it whatsoever.

Same for their computers.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here - you can put whatever you want on a Mac, if it's Mac software. You can even install Windows alongside macos, and use windows apps if you choose.

Let buyers chose what software applications they want to run on their phones

Let buyers choose a manufacturer who locks this all down, if that is what they prefer. Just because you're ok with the security risks that come from an open device, doesn't mean that we all should have that forced upon us.

But companies shouldn't be forced to sell them

They won't sell them unless the law requires it. They are looking for every way to achieve some degree of monopoly rents.

Fine. You should be able to buy a blank phone. But companies shouldn't be forced to sell them. People buy iPhones because Apple offers privacy and vetted applications.

Apple should not be allowed to restrict what you can load on your phone as they do now. Same for their computers. And it isn't just Apple doing this. Their bundles are designed to prevent competitors from advancing their own often superior products. Let buyers chose what software applications they want to run on their phones, PDAs and personal computers regardless of who manufactures it.

Desert Tortoise

Pease give me blank phones with no apps and no restrictions on what I can run or who I can use as my internet provider. The article makes this sound like it's a bad thing. It emphatically is not!

Fine. You should be able to buy a blank phone. But companies shouldn't be forced to sell them. People buy iPhones because Apple offers privacy and vetted applications.

But actually, they don't. They ban people that violate their policies. That's all.

Hyper-partisans lack the mental capacity to understand anything other than hyper-partisanship.

The idea that someone could have an action perpetuated upon them due to their actions, rather than their political partisanship is incomprehensible to those who judge everything based on their political partisanship.

It's like trying to explain to two fighting dogs that they should play nicely because then they can both have fun.

bass4funk

... or ban people they don't politically like, especially conservatives.

But actually, they don't. They ban people that violate their policies. That's all.

Taking down GAFA is political and economic suicide. It would be like a global version on Brexit. No benefits and widescale damage.

You exaggerate greatly. No such thing will happen. The only dangerous idea out there is repealing Section 230 and that has not been proposed among these various changes. All of these as far as I can see improve competition. A lot of these changes should have happened ten years ago.

Pease give me blank phones with no apps and no restrictions on what I can run or who I can use as my internet provider. The article makes this sound like it's a bad thing. It emphatically is not!

I guess as an economist I would challenge Ms. Morton's claim that the legislation is not about anti-trust enforcement.

It will all go away by lowering their pricing... That's how a free market works.

The tech giants have underpinned US dominance for three decades as politicians bickered, blocked each other and started riots. GAFA is the source of US soft power, the US ability to spy on anyone, and American economic strength. Undermine this and there is nothing to replace it. Empty words about democracy won't do it.

If they take away peoples' internet services they will be hated for it, and not just by the people who dislike America - by everyone who uses those services, which is most of the planet.

Students and academia rely on Google Books, almost everyone uses YouTube, social media is nigh universal and Google Maps underpins not just tourism (which governments appear to want to end) but retail goods and services globally via the reviews. This stuff is now so fundamental to us all that many are asking if access to it should be a human right - and the US government are considering taking it away.

Break all this in a quest to 'take back control' and nobody is going to thank Biden for it. It's probably the only thing that would get Trump back in the White House.

Globally, long term, taking down GAFA would see replacements emerge, and they are unlikely to be American. So no back door keys for the NSA.

Politicians do not understand how tech works, just how to break it. And they live in a bubble. Their friends are urging them on. It's only when they have done the damage, as with Brexit, that everyone will have to live with the wreckage and economic loss. And then they will turn on the politicians who damaged their lives.

Taking down GAFA is political and economic suicide. It would be like a global version on Brexit. No benefits and widescale damage.

This is great and hopeful news, this is the beginning of the end of big tech having a stronghold and monopoly on the markets and smothering and eating the competition, this will level out the playing field and allow more competition and ensure that big tech doesn't yield the power to be able to influence any political election or ban people they don't politically like, especially conservatives.

Good, about time.

Their monopolistic behaviour has distorted markets to their advantage for too long. About time they were opened up to competition, which can only be to the customers benefit in the long term.