Capital Wants a Monopoly

8 points | by larrysalibra an hour ago

5 comments

  • gainda 18 minutes ago

    it was not so long ago that TR busted trusts, but the time is overdue for history to repeat itself.

  • Frieren 39 minutes ago

    It is called feudalism. You have lords owning the land and everybody else needs to rent it. That is what capital is afterwards. You will own nothing, fight.

      steveBK123 27 minutes ago

      Right it started with SaaS and content subscriptions. We also have all the gamification, enshittification and up-selling in the physical-world Uber-For-X business models.

      They've made all the delivery slower and added an option for you to pay $5 more to make it arrive at the speed it used to. We've jacked up fees and added a monthly subscription that reduces some of those fees back down.

      As they take a larger cut from restaurants, many have increased in-app prices so you are paying multiple premiums&fees.

      First non-cherry picked example I checked first restaurant in-app: $16 dish is $19.20 in-app , $5 delivery fee (flat-ish per order), $2 marketplace fee (scales with order size) to make it $26.80 pre-tax. +70% increase on direct retail in-restaurant price.

  • ForHackernews 33 minutes ago

    Bizarre take:

    > The USA needs an equivalent of China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). This regulatory body generally prevents this tech platform monpoly nonsense

    I guess the author is completely unfamiliar with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law

      steveBK123 26 minutes ago

      Maybe author means we should actually enforce our antitrust laws that are on the books, on their merits.

      Rather than the multi-decade consensus "if it lowers consumer prices in short term its ok" or 2024+ "if they donate to my ballroom, they get a pass".