TikTok is now the most popular website

ahalpert said:
I think that if you try to elaborate on this claim, you'll realize you are wrong.

For example, "Rockefeller built up a fortune that would be worth around US$340 billion in today's money. "

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style...-close-genghis

How would you say that people are different?
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I can try to elaborate. I have nothing else to do. lol

That's an estimation and merely a paper conversion. The same article says Genghis Khan would be worth 120 trillion today. Trillion?

The estimations are fine - they are what they are - but you (people) can't make any kind of worthy conclusion about money history by so simply saying that the money that was made and how it was made hundreds or thousands of years ago would be worth this much today. Like, yeah, okay, via a paper conversion and not factoring in anything else.

___

I would say people are more enlightened, more aware, more dishonestly competitive, less genuinely caring, less truthful (about everything), more influenced by technology (that's obvious), more affected by the pressure of society and wealth than ever before, how about more crazy (maybe?), some other thoughts I'm not thinking of right now.
 
DLD said:
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Oh, and there are no no monopolies. The only monopoly is the state.
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Maybe, if you want to be literal about it. But there are commercial entities who are powerful enough to fix prices in their respective markets. That's not supposed to happen on account of the "invisible hand."

Or there are cartels. There about 7 major railway freight companies in the US who collude to set prices and suppress wages and benefits.

Railway company collusion looks like a widespread problem. I think it's a common issue wherever the necessary infrastructure fot a service is limited. A Google search for railway company collusion produces hits in Europe, the US, and Asia: https://www.google.com/search?q=rai...CgAQGwAQ_IAQjAAQE&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
 
NorBro said:
I can try to elaborate. I have nothing else to do. lol

That's an estimation and merely a paper conversion. The same article says Genghis Khan would be worth 120 trillion today. Trillion?
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Rockefeller and Carnegie are easier to make direct comparisons with because they held property in the modern economic system.

When you go back in time, consider the Pharaohs of Egypt -- they were able to mobilize the labor and resources to build themselves pyramids stuffed with treasure and, eventually, the bodies of priests who were murdered and buried with them. How much would that cost in today's dollars? And it didn't nearly deplete their wealth. This is because they could use the wealth of the state at their pleasure, like many of the other moguls who top that list.

I would say people are more enlightened, more aware, more dishonestly competitive, less genuinely caring, less truthful (about everything), more influenced by technology (that's obvious), more affected by the pressure of society and wealth than ever before, how about more crazy (maybe?), some other thoughts I'm not thinking of right now.
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I think this is a hard case to make. It's easy to make counterarguments on most of the points. The larger picture you're painting concerns modern American culture. I think there's some truth to that. But our culture has evolved in just the last 40 years. It will evolve again. Other countries have different values than we do. Etc.

I don't think people are fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago, although we have different technology at our disposal. Certainly, there's nothing about modern society that would lend itself more to monopolization of the economy. If anything, the rise of the internet was heralded as an opportunity for diversity of thought and culture as well as a more level playing field for economic competition.
 
Maybe. But on a previous note, I think you're right about something you said before; I think I do very much accept the idea of a monopoly or a few monopolies controlling everything.
 
NorBro said:
; I think I do very much accept the idea of a monopoly or a few monopolies controlling everything.
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Right, and they encourage us to think that.

And I agree with you that large corporations will serve their own interests using every means at their disposal.

The question is when do they get so big that it distorts the normal workings of the economy. At that point, we have laws against it.

The lesser point about "enshittification" is just a lament about the declining quality of the internet from a consumer's point of view. But a free market with open competition should lead to a virtuous cycle of product/service improvement.
 
NorBro said:
FIFA has quite the history, don't they, DLD? I bet you can talk about them...you love them, right? :grin:
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There are photos everywhere on the internet of the FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Vladimir Putin. Of the two, Putin is a lesser crook. (I kid, I kid)
 
ahalpert said:
Maybe, if you want to be literal about it. But there are commercial entities who are powerful enough to fix prices in their respective markets. That's not supposed to happen on account of the "invisible hand."...
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Every business has some power. Tesla has a lot of power. Tesla is not a monopoly. Not even close.

ARRI has a lot of the pricing power. ARRI is not a monopoly either, even if it has 90+ % of the high end feature/TV business.
 
DLD said:
Every business has some power. Tesla has a lot of power. Tesla is not a monopoly. Not even close.

ARRI has a lot of the pricing power. ARRI is not a monopoly either, even if it has 90+ % of the high end feature/TV business.
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I think the difference is that these players operate marketplaces, and also they benefit from strong network effects.

Network effects are where I would agree with NorBro that the computer/internet age might lend itself towards winner-take-all competition. Microsoft office is a good example. People use it because they know it and they know other people use it. Facebook exploded in growth that way (but could collapse via the reverse process.)

70% of American adults are Amazon Prime members, and 56.7% of e-commerce sales in the US go through Amazon. At that point, it's hard to avoid doing business through Amazon, especially if you're a small player and not a rival corporation.

Network effects with ARRI are small. There are benefits from the fact that people are familiar with their technology and they can assume that others in the high end are familiar as well. But these are crackerjack technicians. They could easily adopt a new system if it were decisively superior to ARRI.

Similarly, with Tesla - unless there is only one supercharger network in the US and you can only charge Teslas on it, there is no enduring advantage to being the first mover in EVs besides brand recognition. Their market share could collapse within a single product replacement cycle.
 
And here's a congressional testimony about Live Nation Ticketmaster's vertical integration in the concert business

https://twitter.com/brenonade/status...kjiE8p1_Q&s=19

It's important to note that the biggest factor in the increasing monopolization of industries in the US economy has been mergers and acquisitions rather than natural growth. And that government can deny mergers if they will lead to monopolization of the market
 
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I really appreciate a good online shopping platform.

Personally, I am obsessed with B&H and I don't think anyone comes close to their frontend user experience (I'm bias tho).

Sometimes these online monopolies are born because they make it so fun and/or easy to use their service(s). I don't think the Amazon experience is fun, but they made everything so easy for so long, before many others.

I don't remember exactly who it was, but I think Walmart once admitted they took too long with their own e-commerce.
 
There are no monopolies in the long run because there is no exclusivity on either brains or finances. In the 1990's Clinton's DOJ went after Microsoft. Then smartphones came out and the American market turned to Apple and Android, with those two also dominating the automobile entertainment segment. And the Wintel duopoly is under pressure from AMD, NVIDIA, Apple and ARM on all fronts.
 
NorBro said:
Sometimes these online monopolies are born because they make it so fun and/or easy to use their service(s). I don't think the Amazon experience is fun, but they made everything so easy for so long, before many others.
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I'm captive to Amazon because they make it so easy to shop. And since I'm regularly overwhelmed by parenting and work, I want to spend the minimum time shopping. And fast, free (or cheap) shipping is important if it comes quickly enough that it's almost as good as going to the store. Saving trips to the store Is a massive time savings.

I would pay a mark-up, however, for better selections and better treatment of their partners and employees. Those aspects are separate from the features that have me hooked.

B&H is obviously great, too. One feature they have that I haven't seen anywhere else and don't see on every deals day is you can sort the mega deal zone by % discount, showing you which products have been deeply marked down. I wish everyone did that.
 
DLD said:
There are no monopolies in the long run because there is no exclusivity on either brains or finances. In the 1990's Clinton's DOJ went after Microsoft. Then smartphones came out and the American market turned to Apple and Android, with those two also dominating the automobile entertainment segment. And the Wintel duopoly is under pressure from AMD, NVIDIA, Apple and ARM on all fronts.
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Sure, maybe in the long run.

But you're evaluating an economy under the impact of antitrust. Imagine that Microsoft and Apple had free rein to shepherd their users to their own browsers and affiliated services. You would probably end up with fewer tech companies taking off, higher fees going to apple and microsoft, more money in their coffers, and a greater ability to buy up newcomers and use their capital to own the next generation of technological innovations more than they already do, again unimpeded by antitrust.

Not to mention the fact that every industry will be motivated to do mergers until there's one giant company. A monopoly will always be the most profitable way to do business. If I were the only cameraman in New York, I'd be a billionaire.
 
On a topic of monopolies (this does bring in some politics, so beware of the dog)

https://reason.com/2023/01/25/todays-tech-giants-show-that-market-dominance-is-transitory/

An excerpt -

Big Tech's faltering suggests that ... today's incumbents do not possess unlimited control over their markets and are subject to economic forces like all other businesses. This comports with the economic and historical records, which show that fortunes of businesses, even dominant businesses, wax and wane.
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DLD said:
On a topic of monopolies (this does bring in some politics, so beware of the dog)

https://reason.com/2023/01/25/todays-tech-giants-show-that-market-dominance-is-transitory/

An excerpt -
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I read the first two paragraphs. The thing is -- tech boomed during the pandemic because covid safety protocols forced us all onto the internet even more than usual. Now, there's been a reversal. And any analysis that doesn't take that into account is inherently flawed. It's not that their conclusion is necessarily wrong. But it's definitely off. And probably wrong.

Google hired 37,000 people in 2022 before it started doing layoffs. It hired 21,000 employees in 2021, 17,000 in 2020, 19,000 in 2019

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/number-of-employees
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/01/20/google-layoffs-jobs-employees-cut/11088409002/

Basically, there's a macro story here of tech giving up some of the gains they made during the pandemic. That's why the sector is broadly suffering.
 
ahalpert said:
The thing is -- tech boomed during the pandemic because covid safety protocols forced us all onto the internet even more than usual.
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That is true. Durring the lockdowns in the UK and Europe high tech development boomed. It did not slow down once they set up the remote working.
Not just High tech, many industries are now using remore working very successfully. They won't be going back to office working any time in the short to medium term. Long term: Who knows?
 
One thing I've always said that came good out of the pandemic is the ultimate world realization of how unnecessary it is for many to be working at an office.

It happened overnight because of this crazy covid, there was nothing else that could have forced this besides a virus.

I KNOW some jobs are done better in the office together, within a culture, and some obviously require people to physically be in a building to do their jobs, but there is SO much work that could be done from home, at times even more efficiently.

Some will take advantage of the newfound privilege and work less, but many would work more and harder and even better because of being able to focus more.

[But it also should be noted that many also DO want to be out of their homes and in an office away from the people they live with. Even the commute is enjoyably for some.]
 
JAMedia said:
They won't be going back to office working any time in the short to medium term. Long term: Who knows?
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I was interested to read that Twitter may now be encouraging work-from-home in order to save money on office space. Musk was previously an adamant opponent because he thinks it makes people less productive. But if even he can come around on WFH, then maybe it's here to stay.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/30/twitter-closing-seattle-office-employees-will-work-from-home-reports/

I've always loved WFH as an editor. But the selfish part of me is unhappy that salaried office workers now enjoy it as well. (Plus their benefits and pensions...)
 
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