Tech Monopolies: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

John Oliver discusses tech monopolies, and how to address the hidden harm they can do.

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[jamesroberts]

I remember working at a local game store, and making it a point of pride whenever I convinced a customer to buy from us and not amazon. One time someone came in to buy Catan, and they said, “well, I ordered it already on Amazon, but I really want to play it tonight.”

I reminded them they could cancel the order, and they did in a heartbeat. That felt very, very good.

[BBoPPo]

Whenever we get people young enough to actually understand the internet, these giant tech companies might be broken up but as long as we have 90 year old senators asking tech CEOs how the internet works nothing will get done.

[GDofRock]

I had a best friend say "I'm gonna Bing it.." about 5 years ago
I still remember it because I never saw him again after that.
Not a coincidence.

[isaacbarry]

For those keeping track- both the bills mentioned in the episode are dead in the water so far, with a handful of co-sponsors each

[danadomino]

Back in 2018 when John Oliver did the episode on Corporate Consolidation it inspired me so much that I applied for a Masters of Research program, got into a program, and did my entire research thesis on tech oligopolies. It was shocking to see how bad it really is; oligopolies that bordered in monopolies are rampant. My research essentially focused on the question of whether lack of enforcement of our antitrust laws caused this whole problem or whether lack of adequate laws were the core of the issue. The answer was that it was truly both. I thoroughly enjoyed my pre-doctoral masters thesis and am considering a PhD in the future. It's so lovely to see John talk about this, specifically on the tech sector!

Edit: Wow! Thanks everyone for the great comments! I haven't published it yet, otherwise I would share it with all you lovely people ❤ I am now looking for a policy or qualitative research/analyst job so if anyone is hiring, let me know 😅

[aaron]

I used to be a seller on Amazon. EVERYTHING john presented about Amazon's business practices I personally experienced myself. I had to stop my business after a few years, throw away tens of thousands worth of merchandise, and now work a regular office job. I literally could not compete with Amazon on their own platform.

[JoshWaber]

The fact that they mentioned both kid’s guide to the internet and the Jeremy renner app makes it clear that one of the writers was watching drew gooden

[jimmyoakmeister]

I work for a local pool shop and we sell robotic pool cleaners. I cannot even begin to tell you how often someone comes in, asks a price, and then tells us they'll buy it off Amazon instead. Amazon doesn't just harm online retailers, it also harms actual real life retailers too. We cannot compete with prices that are as low as $900

[rickschricter]

I worked for a company that did wholesale and retail business with Amazon. Many times we were selling the exact same skus retail that they bought and warehoused. Obviously Amazon would control the buy box. As an experiment, I dropped the retail price to see what Amazon would do. Their algorithms immediately dropped the price on their inventory. Since I was selling to them, I knew what they paid wholesale. So I dropped the retail price BELOW their wholesale price. Amazon's algorithms immediately dropped their price BELOW what they paid for it, and they were willing to go as low as I would go, right up against free.

How can anyone compete with a company that can run losses like this?

[CptApplestrudl]

Whenever someone tells you "the market will regulate itself", be sure it wont. Not if the companies at the top can prevent it.

[luvibugi]

11:26 he perfectly encapsulates the chaos of a wildly off topic and trailed off google search, and how it can emotionally wreak havoc in a matter of seconds lmaooo

[WillieBloom]

Follow up one year on. Did you just update to iOS 17.4? Live in the EU? Apple just got monopoly-busted. Thanks EU! Are you enjoying USB-C on your iPhone 15 Pro Max? Yup, that too. Send a thank you to the European Commission. Going back a number of years, do you remember those obscene roaming charges in Europe? Yup. That too. Consumer rights when flights get cancelled? Yup (always fly with European carriers whenever you can). Anyone pooh-poohing the EU thinking it’s all about government overreach isn’t paying enough attention and is taking a lot for granted.

[maxx]

As an Amazon seller myself, absolutely being crushed by said policies on Amazon, I am so glad this got the attention that it needs.
Amazon currently owes me nearly 7k and refuses to pay, and has caused so many liabilities over the past few years I couldn't even tell them all.
We don't even get the chance to sue them for their mishaps because the agreement we sign when we sign up prevents us from doing so.

[PeterSedesse]

I literally ate for an entire semester of college because of ATT, MCI and Sprint in about 1990. Those 3 were so competitive that they would send you a check for $300 to switch your long distance carrier. Not credit, not discount, a check that you could cash... and they kept no record of it. So every 2 months I would just switch my carrier, cash the check, and almost immediately the other two companies would start calling me making the same offer. And as soon as you switched away from a carrier, they would call you and offer you a check, even if you had already gotten one from the same company. The crazy part is, I had almost no long distance bill ever. It lasted for about 9 months before they stopped offering the checks. I'm going to estimate I made between $1500 and $2000 just from those 'switch to us and we will send you a check' offers.

[Malice]

for anyone wondering they both passed or rather got voted to advance with a 20/2 vote for the "open app market act" and a 16/6 vote for the "American choice and innovation online act"

[TurnedBLACKdaysAgo]

His bits freaking out about dolphins. Genius! Oliver is SO SMART and dived deep into his subject! Luv this guy! 👍🏼💙

[HoldenHardman]

I live for John's roasts of AT&T.

[DoomFinger]

One important aspect I'm surprised was left out is that many of these companies (like Amazon) literally power the internet. Almost 30% of the websites on the internet are stored on Amazon servers, giving them even more access to data trends and physical control over the internet.

[yvaincallipso]

I absolutely hate how the internet is both eliminating safe spaces for children (closing all those games sites like Disney and Cartoon Network hosted, as well as sites like club penguin, neopets, ect.) as well as trying to use them as an excuse to sanitize the rest of the internet.

[jeremyfox]

I opened and ran a board game store for several years and Amazon was my biggest enemy. It’s a literal rule in our family that we don’t buy from Amazon, and we try extremely hard to only buy from small businesses.