PopSockets, Tile and Other Companies Will Ask Congress To Help Stop Big Tech Bullying (washingtonpost.com) 58
The two companies, along with Sonos and Basecamp, are set to testify at an antitrust hearing Friday that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google threaten their businesses. From a report: David Barnett is an unlikely warrior in the battle against big tech. The founder and chief executive of PopSockets, a Colorado company that makes a widely popular kickstand-of-sorts for smartphones, says he isn't even an "expert on antitrust laws" in Washington. But Barnett discovered firsthand the rare power and influence of Amazon in 2018, after clashing with the e-commerce giant over policies that made it hard to sell his products on his preferred terms and prices. PopSockets soon terminated its ties with Amazon, which helped lead to sizable losses later as a result. "What company that started a business out of their garage can afford to lose $10 million?" he asked in an interview. "We're lucky we're in a position we're profitable and could take a stand."
Barnett's story could resonate with federal regulators: Such tales of big tech's debatably brash, bullying tactics are set to take center stage when he and his corporate peers testify at a high-profile congressional hearing Friday. The session could elicit the most convincing, public evidence to date that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google have become too big and powerful -- and need to be restrained. [...] Along with PopSockets, lawmakers are set to hear from top executives at Sonos, a high-end audio company, and Basecamp, which makes collaborative workplace software. Both allege Google undermines smaller rivals. Sonos has sued Google, alleging patent infringement as well.
Barnett's story could resonate with federal regulators: Such tales of big tech's debatably brash, bullying tactics are set to take center stage when he and his corporate peers testify at a high-profile congressional hearing Friday. The session could elicit the most convincing, public evidence to date that Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google have become too big and powerful -- and need to be restrained. [...] Along with PopSockets, lawmakers are set to hear from top executives at Sonos, a high-end audio company, and Basecamp, which makes collaborative workplace software. Both allege Google undermines smaller rivals. Sonos has sued Google, alleging patent infringement as well.
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But, that is just playing whack-a-mole without any principles. Who gets to decide what "too big" is?
I'd prefer to see structural changes that would limit the size of corporate entities. For instance, banks should have to keep a percentage of funds in reserve, with the percentage getting larger as they get grow. There would be a natural friction that makes growing larger more difficult.
For tech companies, I don't think maybe they could be throttled by not allowing corporate ownership of patents. Only a c
So what? (Score:2)
So what exactly did Amazon do to Popsocket? Were they discriminating against them by treating them different than other vendors on amazon? Or, to ask it the other way round: What did popsocket expect from amazon?
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
If only there was a way to find out information like that via the computer.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
If only a summary would contain the whole point of the article....
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Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
Reading between the lines a little, it looks like Amazon wasn't willing to go after counterfeit PopSockets unless they spent more on advertising and/or sold to Amazon (instead of selling through Amazon's "marketplace").
If they had sold to Amazon, then Amazon would set the price, which could devalue the brand, or gouge consumers. Since the story mentions that Amazon wouldn't let them undercut Amazon's price by also selling through other channels, it was probably going to be the second one.
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No it has no real liability because it's not really running a store, in the same way paypal isn't really a bank, uber isn't really a taxi company, Google isn't really a medical company, etc.
Amazon's (and others) refusal to obey the laws boils down to "we are big enough to not be bothered by the consequences".
IMHO, as soon as "we can afford the fines so fuck the law" becomes the business strategy, they should be shut down. Incorporation revoked. No "broken up blah blah". Shuttered, ended, done.
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Normally, I'd agree on that sentiment, but did you try? Unsurprisingly a google (or duck) of ' popsocket amazon' is pretty useless, unless you are looking to purchase. 'popsocket amazon antitrust' links back to the same pooled story which only vaguly says (paraphrasing) that popsocket wanted to sell for less money on 'not Amazon' perhaps while still using Amazon's fulfillment (a guess, I think I've heard similar issues). Maybe someone has better details than I can find in a 10 minute waste of work hours search?
Amazon used to have a "best price" policy, which may be what they are referring to..
The policy said that you had to offer your best price to Amazon customers. You set your own price for your goods, but you could not charge less on other channels than you charged on Amazon.
I understood the policy from Amazon's perspective: they did not want to be the superstore where people did their comparison shopping while losing sales to cheaper (eBay/direct) sites.
It was an awful policy for sellers, as it restricted you
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It's tough getting people to pay $14.99 for 18 cents worth of plastic. Amazon complicates such a worthy business model by refusing to acting as trademark police.
Ultimately the problem here is we think of Amazon as an online store. When it's really a flea market. Have you ever been to a flea market that didn't sell pirated DVDs? me either!
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It's like those run down malls that start running flea markets M-F. It was convenient if you wanted to get rid of some old crap as the table fees were pretty reasonable. And it was indoors and much nicer than the usual venue for a flea market. But because it was M-F you saw a certain class of people there didn't have a day job to go to, retirees and hustlers. And it was mostly housewives who shopped there.
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Another possibility is that Amazon was demanding more of a cut because PopSockets cause screens to crack when they otherwise wouldn't by creating a pressure point in the middle of the device. I've personally seen somebody accidentally lean an elbow on a phone with a PopSocket on the back and the whole damn screen severely shattered.
The ruggedness is greatly reduced and Amazon sells extended warranties. We don't know how much they coinsure with the third-party administrators.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
Turns out, Amazon wants to be able to buy things at wholesales price, and price them to be cheaper than what their competitors sells similar items for. If Popsockets had conceded with Amazon, then Target and Walmart, and any other re-sellers could demand similar terms, impacting Popsocket's bottom line.
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Looks like the issue is that Amazon isn't blocking others from selling similar products of poor quality, for which PopSocket gets associated. Seems like PopSocket needs to do better branding so that people know the real vs fake products. Then if other sellers copy the branding, then sue those companies. If other sellers use your branding, then yes petition Amazon to take them down. Popsocket just wants Amazon to do the work and police fakes for them.
The thing though, looking a
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Not a tech problem (Score:1, Insightful)
In traditional retail, even though places like market greatly expanded the availability to consumers, it was still a huge expense to provide shelf space. Grocers would require slotting fees, which still are prevalent as recent as 2016
Retailers are not charity. If a brick and motor can’t make a profit, the product was not sold. My retailer friends with small stores only sold premium products because t
Re:Not a tech problem (Score:4, Informative)
Nice try, Bezos.
Abuse by middlmen (wholesalers, retailer groups) is commonplace - just because this time it is online isn't magically different. Waving your hand and saying 'if it weren't for Amazon, there'd be no long tail' is just silly.
The rest of your arguments are just a gish gallop: Slotting fees, not a charity, vendor's own fault, claims of price fixing, and pointing fingers at others. Naw, ain't buying it. Capture via every possible trick is part of how big vendors grow. It's literally why we have so many laws that set limits on what can or can't be done.
Conspicuously absent from your argument on why disruptive online businesses undercut retail: pretending that they're exempt from any inconvenient law. That's the M.O. of Amazon, Uber, etc. They're not competing, they're unilaterally claiming exemptions. FTN.
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For years they lost money on many sales. Most physical stores do have loss leaders, but online is different. Amazon can’t sell products if the manufacturer is not going to allow them to make a profit. Amazon has allowed huge exposure to the consumer with minimal,friction.
One of the problems with allowing companies to become a loss leader is that it's inherently anti-competitive, because the aim is to undercut competition to gain marketshare, and usually obtain it at a monopoly level (which then becomes either abusing consumers, or retailers that are effectively forced to go through this monopoly or else get nowhere).
This points to the root problem being government(s) not taking action to avoid these problems in the first place, leading to this kind of action (hearings) that
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Prevent them from buying companies (Score:2)
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"There oughtta be a law" is all well and good, but what you have here is problematic for many reasons:
What is "too large" ? How do you define that without being completely arbitrary? What may be "too large" for one market sector may be perfectly fine for another.
What constitutional foundation do you have for restricting someone's purchase rights? There is already mechanisms in antitrust law to block mergers if two companies of similar business want to merge, and it's done on a per-case basis.
Why do we ne
democratic socialist know the answer to this (Score:1)
too large means privately held with more than 42 employees. if a corporation is employee managed we can lift the caps.
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too large means privately held with more than 42 employees. if a corporation is employee managed we can lift the caps.
Seems like it would just mean shell companies on top of shell companies with lots of independent contractors. 'Democratic Socialists' are not immune to scams - Ikea is technically a non-profit and thus is not really taxed. Governments both near and far fail to tax companies like they tax people. The multiple Panama papers prove this beyond a doubt.
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Sure, if we want to continue having laws that permit corporations to exist and operate shell companies then that is exactly what we'll get.
We can obviously end this whenever we want, but we (as a people) have chosen not to do so. We could reverse the Citizens United v. FEC ruling with some relatively simple legislation, but we've chosen not to. Because we as a people are perfectly OK with the status quo. And some people will even go out of their way to defend the status quo with some arguments that are fran
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What is "too large" ? How do you define that without being completely arbitrary?
I know, I haven't answered that myself. It's just something that I've pondered over. It doesn't mean that should such a law make it on the books, that the law wouldn't contain guidelines as to what counts for too large. I have been thinking a bit about this the last few months and have some ideas as to what counts as too large. But that's still a minor detail as to the sentiment of the proposal.
What constitutional foundation do you have for restricting someone's purchase rights?
The same foundation as anti trust laws.
Why do we need new laws when we could just enforce the ones we already have?
A lot of the cases aren't creating a monopoly (a big fish buying up a littl
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You want laws that can't be challenged? I assume you don't do "due process".
Seriously? (Score:1)
Yes, I'm sure congress would love to stop their buddies companies from shutting down innovation and market hold threats!
The Popsocket that has been a major bully? (Score:5, Informative)
I find it funny that Popsocket is calling Amazon a bully when they, themselves are a known bully in the industry. Popsocket has been routinely accused of bullying small retailers that sell Popsocket-like products (just search on Popsocket and trademark bullying). Further, they were claiming patent rights despite it being pretty clear that they did not invent the idea (See Quest USA Corp vs Popsockets LLC). In this case the court struck down the Popsockets patent and, to my understanding changed the term Popsocket so anyone can make a similar product and call it a Popsocket.
This doesn't necessarily detract from the validity against their complaint against Amazon, but please spare us the "we're small and should be protected from bigger companies" rhetoric when you do the exact same thing.
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I find it funny that Popsocket sounds kind of like Poopsock
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Theoretically a company like PopSocket would be able to enforce their trademark, if not their patent. It sounds like they lost both? That seems wrong to me in principle. Can't people call the little cup shaped handle you put on a cell phone something else? A kickstand, or grippy, or handlebar, or phoneknob, or .. I said knob. heh.
"widely popular" (Score:2)
I'm wondering whether "widely popular" (which presumably arises from a mishearing of the more usual "wildly popular") is becoming one of those phrases that just enters the language through widespread use? I've seen it elsewhere, and a Google search turns it up all over the place. Maybe it's just wiredly popular.
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I've noticed this too. The phrase is supposed to be, "wildly popular," damn it. Get it right or pay the price! (Said while shaking fist impotently toward the sky.) Now get off my lawn!
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"Wildly popular" means that it is popular in jungles.
"widely popular" means that it is popular in a lot of places.
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Big tech consolidation is affecting job market too (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, in the Boston area, every coworker that leaves goes to a major company I have heard of. My inbox is now filled with emails from recruiters from the tech giants.
I don't know that this is a problem, but it seems like one. Similarly, 10 years ago, professional software companies led the development of tech tools. They succeeded or failed by how popular their products were. Now, we just use hand-me-down's from the FAANG tech titans. I am happy they open source their tools, but Google doesn't care if Angular works for your application. We invested millions writing our UI in Angular and now have to rewrite the entire thing to get it in the latest version and get bugfixes. While JSF is a POS, applications written in 2002 still work in the latest version today. Sun and Oracle cared if your old app still ran. They wanted to see you get a good return on your investment so you'd keep giving them money in either support or licenses. Google has no interest in seeing your business succeed...neither does Facebook, Netflix, or whomever is leading the popular open source standards. If you invested time into building a project in GWT, you're screwed.
Now, so many businesses rely on AWS, squeezing server and software vendors...how many retailers who directly compete with Amazon rely on them? What happens when Jeff B starts getting some unprofitable quarters and decides to retaliate against his rivals and raise their rates or "accidentally" cause some service incidents?
This impacts me directly because I don't want to work for Amazon. I also don't want to be at the mercy of Silicon Valley megacorps located far away from my city. I also hate that they're draining all the top talent. So not only do they have monopolies they can leverage to hurt their rivals...they can hoard enough talent that it's a huge challenge for any rivals to staff up to compete with them....so they can set prices much higher than they should.
I don't know that there is a free-market solution to this. I think the tech titans have figured out how to beat the system. We're at their mercy.
Want a simple example? How many people want a phone or laptop with a removable battery?...good luck finding one. Same for headphone jacks on phones....the market clearly wants them...and they've colluded to ensure you really can't....at a huge environmental impact. If you can't even get a good laptop with a removable battery...what's next? How will they leverage their power to screw you over even more? What free-market options do you even have? They are becoming more and more immune to the free market every day.
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What's stopping any phone manfacturers (of which thankfully there still are several) to make phones with removable batteries? Samsung has just announced such a phone (although it isn't one of their mainstream series). Other manufacturers could do the same. Are you assuming there's some
There is no doubt in my mind (Score:2)
No one asked for removing the headphone jack and there is no advantage to doing so. The free market is supposed to protect us from this. We're supposed to be able to buy phones that f
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Counterfeiters (Score:2)
A big retailer bullying their suppliers has been going on for ages. Wal-Mart would be an easy example. I would think that going after counterfeiters would be priority one for most US consumer retail manufacturers. I don't know what comes out of the recent China-USA trade detente, but it have had very strong protections against Chinese knock-offs.
Didn't most tech companies start in a garage (Score:3)
"What company that started a business out of their garage can afford to lose $10 million?"
Umm? That would be Apple.
Try "violating USC Title 15" instead of "bullying" (Score:1)
Simple (Score:3)