I just finished reading your article on Big Tech monopoloies. I agree. Not only do I agree with the troubles wrought by Big Tech crossing into other industries, I have sensed other industries are doing what “smart” companies have always done: copying the business models that seem to be successful.
My best example is in the automotive industry. Ford Motor Company has openly avowed they are going to make it increasingly difficult for aftermarket parts and repairs to be sold to its consumers. This is in addition to Elon Musk refusing to make parts for Teslas available to the open market, refusing to support consumer choice on where cars are bought, and participating in how the end product will be used by getting involved with transportation infrastructure. The Big Three, along with Big Oil, has done this before most famously in Los Angeles. The results are one of the most disastrous transportation systems in the world.
The payoff is convenience and comfort, on the one hand, but what consumers don’t see until they are directly, personally affect is that better goods and services choices can be inevitable – so long as those options can be brought to market.
With Teslas, as a direct supllier of aftermarket parts to retail consumers, I see firsthand the shock on consumer faces when they try to buy something as simple as a cabin air filter. As one recently stated, “I don’t know that I have ever considered the costs of upkeep of a car when I was buying one. This brings an entirely new light to car buying.”
That’s a great point. I didn’t realize that about Tesla, but it shouldn’t surprise me. Musk knows how to make a buck and doesn’t care who he harms in doing it.
You covered the monopolies well, but a point that is stronger than your point about Microsoft bundling browsers into the OS is that Apple as we know it today wouldn’t exist without antitrust action against Microsoft.
When Jobs came back to Apple, Microsoft was under gov’t pressure especially in the EU for not allowing other OS’s to use the Office software suite. Jobs convinced Gates that he needed some competition, and got Gates to pump $150M into Apple as well as to create Office software for Macs, so that users no longer had to be out in the cold from the commonly used business software suite if they used a Mac. The company climbed from the basement of single digit of computer sales to a great position, and had the money to invest in all of the innovative products it then generated under Jobs.
In this way, piercing the dominance of monopolies leads to innovation. And innovation leads to new monopolies, of course!
Hello Kyle.
I just finished reading your article on Big Tech monopoloies. I agree. Not only do I agree with the troubles wrought by Big Tech crossing into other industries, I have sensed other industries are doing what “smart” companies have always done: copying the business models that seem to be successful.
My best example is in the automotive industry. Ford Motor Company has openly avowed they are going to make it increasingly difficult for aftermarket parts and repairs to be sold to its consumers. This is in addition to Elon Musk refusing to make parts for Teslas available to the open market, refusing to support consumer choice on where cars are bought, and participating in how the end product will be used by getting involved with transportation infrastructure. The Big Three, along with Big Oil, has done this before most famously in Los Angeles. The results are one of the most disastrous transportation systems in the world.
The payoff is convenience and comfort, on the one hand, but what consumers don’t see until they are directly, personally affect is that better goods and services choices can be inevitable – so long as those options can be brought to market.
With Teslas, as a direct supllier of aftermarket parts to retail consumers, I see firsthand the shock on consumer faces when they try to buy something as simple as a cabin air filter. As one recently stated, “I don’t know that I have ever considered the costs of upkeep of a car when I was buying one. This brings an entirely new light to car buying.”
That’s a great point. I didn’t realize that about Tesla, but it shouldn’t surprise me. Musk knows how to make a buck and doesn’t care who he harms in doing it.
You covered the monopolies well, but a point that is stronger than your point about Microsoft bundling browsers into the OS is that Apple as we know it today wouldn’t exist without antitrust action against Microsoft.
When Jobs came back to Apple, Microsoft was under gov’t pressure especially in the EU for not allowing other OS’s to use the Office software suite. Jobs convinced Gates that he needed some competition, and got Gates to pump $150M into Apple as well as to create Office software for Macs, so that users no longer had to be out in the cold from the commonly used business software suite if they used a Mac. The company climbed from the basement of single digit of computer sales to a great position, and had the money to invest in all of the innovative products it then generated under Jobs.
In this way, piercing the dominance of monopolies leads to innovation. And innovation leads to new monopolies, of course!