> It's a bit strange to think a nebulous "consumer bill of rights" is going to protect you when the actual Bill of Rights is routinely violated.
The Bill of Rights were written over 200 years ago and could really use a rewrite for modern times, but passing constitutional amendments is much more difficult than passing laws. Moreover, the issues involved in the Bill of Rights are much more contentious, whereas pretty much everyone is annoyed by Google's complete lack of customer service.
I also find this statement to be somewhat at odds with your later statement: "These are solved problems, we just don't enforce the laws on the books or modernize them appropriately." How does your Bill of Rights analogy not also apply to your own argument about antitrust?
I would say that consumer protection laws that can be applied in an ongoing, daily basis are better than antitrust laws, because antitrust enforcement is a monumental task that at best can take years to achieve, only comes into play when problems have already gotten out of hand, and may not have the desired results, as you mentioned. Better to try to prevent some of the problems from occurring in the first place, with laws that apply to all companies without exception, instead of trying to just go after a few of the current biggest troublemakers.
And Google is far from the only company who pulls this crap, so at the very least we would need multiple successful antitrust actions.
Right to repair is a similar issue. So, breaking up Google and Facebook might help somewhat with the account suspension issue, but then we also have to break up Apple. And John Deere! And other companies. Or... we could pass right to repair laws. Antitrust feels a lot like Whac-A-Mole to me. Not that antitrust is bad, but you knock down one BigCo, and another arises. Why not more directly address the abuses caused by the BigCos?
The abuse is economic concentration, everything else is treating symptoms. Antitrust, price regulations, fair competition laws and the like are the remedy to that abuse. Obviously we would need to do more than one action - I'm talking about restructuring the economy. It's only whack-a-mole if you go one at a time. Knock-off a few big ones and the rest will settle to get the best deal possible.
I don't believe we are as impotent as your response would imply, and we are certainly capable of putting a stop to these abuses and enforcing laws that create fair, competitive markets. I agree it's a longer term project, but it's the only one that will actually solve the issues. It's a losing proposition to focus our energy on short term fixes.
> I don't believe we are as impotent as your response would imply
I don't believe we're impotent, which is why I'm suggesting new laws such as a consumer bill of rights and right to repair. I think that antitrust is actually too little too late in addressing problems. After all, you can't take anti-trust action against a company until it's already a trust. ;-)
> It's a losing proposition to focus our energy on short term fixes.
I think we disagree about which is the long term fix and which is the short term fix. I personally consider antitrust action against individual companies to be a short term fix, whereas permanent universal consumer protection laws are a long term fix.
> After all, you can't take anti-trust action against a company until it's already a trust. ;-)
That's not what the laws on the books say. It's a colloquial term, and nobody like a pedant.
> I personally consider antitrust action against individual companies to be a short term fix, whereas permanent universal consumer protection laws are a long term fix.
Ralph Nader said the same thing in the 60s and 70s. Consumer protection laws have been used to encourage economic concentration and the abuses of labor and society that always come with it. The American government has never succeeded at compliance regulation — it gets weakened and corrupted, and we always wind up getting the worst version of laissez-faire economics as a result.
Further, how would you make it "permanent"? Constitutional amendments are a non-starter right now, and Congress can't pass laws that have 80%+ popular support. You know what is permanent? Court-ordered break-ups under the Clayton Act.
> That's not what the laws on the books say. It's a colloquial term, and nobody like a pedant.
It was merely a play on words, but the point was that antitrust only kicks in when significant market power is involved, some kind of restraint on competition, whereas other laws protect consumers from abuses by companies of all sizes, even the smallest "mom and pop shop" companies.
> Ralph Nader said the same thing in the 60s and 70s. Consumer protection laws have been used to encourage economic concentration and the abuses of labor and society that always come with it. The American government has never succeeded at compliance regulation — it gets weakened and corrupted, and we always wind up getting the worst version of laissez-faire economics as a result.
Again, I find it strange how you think one set of laws can't possibly be intelligently and usefully applied by the government, while at the same time thinking another set of laws can, i.e., antitrust.
> Further, how would you make it "permanent"?
What do you mean? Laws are permanent by default, unless the legislators write an expiration date into the law.
> You know what is permanent? Court-ordered break-ups under the Clayton Act.
> Again, I find it strange how you think one set of laws can't possibly be intelligently and usefully applied by the government, while at the same time thinking another set of laws can, i.e., antitrust.
It's not strange if you look at historical priors. The US Government has frequently succeeded at regulation that involves rulemaking, investigation, and prosecuting abuses. The same government has failed to achieve its' goals any time it tried compliance based regulation. Sure, both are subject to regulatory capture, but I've only seen the one model succeed.
I'm generally against these types of "consumer protection" movements explicitly because they target the smallest "mom and pop shop" companies. Consumer protection costs wind up driving those smaller businesses out and promote corporate concentration. Once you have that, the corporations are writing the rules, and the laws stop protecting customers (see: Boeing 737MAX).
> Tell that to AT&T.
ATT, Verizon or T-Sprint? If they don't answer I can leave a messaging on their answering machine using free long distance, or send an email using a modem. Just a few things that resulted from that breakup...
And we're only back down to three because of a (going on) five decade streak of executives that favor laissez-faire economics, which kind of proves my point that it's a good solution. Look at how much effort it took to undo that breakup, and they still haven't gotten back to the Ma Bell days.
> we're only back down to three because of a (going on) five decade streak of executives that favor laissez-faire economics, which kind of proves my point that it's a good solution
I think that kind of disproves your point, but maybe we should just stop there. :-)
The Bill of Rights were written over 200 years ago and could really use a rewrite for modern times, but passing constitutional amendments is much more difficult than passing laws. Moreover, the issues involved in the Bill of Rights are much more contentious, whereas pretty much everyone is annoyed by Google's complete lack of customer service.
I also find this statement to be somewhat at odds with your later statement: "These are solved problems, we just don't enforce the laws on the books or modernize them appropriately." How does your Bill of Rights analogy not also apply to your own argument about antitrust?
I would say that consumer protection laws that can be applied in an ongoing, daily basis are better than antitrust laws, because antitrust enforcement is a monumental task that at best can take years to achieve, only comes into play when problems have already gotten out of hand, and may not have the desired results, as you mentioned. Better to try to prevent some of the problems from occurring in the first place, with laws that apply to all companies without exception, instead of trying to just go after a few of the current biggest troublemakers.
And Google is far from the only company who pulls this crap, so at the very least we would need multiple successful antitrust actions.
Right to repair is a similar issue. So, breaking up Google and Facebook might help somewhat with the account suspension issue, but then we also have to break up Apple. And John Deere! And other companies. Or... we could pass right to repair laws. Antitrust feels a lot like Whac-A-Mole to me. Not that antitrust is bad, but you knock down one BigCo, and another arises. Why not more directly address the abuses caused by the BigCos?