Microsoft Drops Its 'FTC is Unconstitutional' Argument

Although another company is making that argument now in the Supreme Court.
www.lehtoslaw.com

[@geoffreyganoe5246]

FTC has been asleep at the wheel since '08. "Too big to fail" is too big to exist.

[@cw6136]

Microsoft played a major role in the outsourcing trend to India. Costing many families thier jobs, homes, and livelihood. I remember watching Bill Gates pled with congress to increase H1B visa approvals as well...

[@mypov8028]

Bill Gates stole Microsoft.

[@kingjbone1]

Sure looks like treating corporations the same as actual human beings is becoming a real problem and an actual threat to our country.

[@robertjune1221]

This was a very educational video. When I filed a small claims suit against an insurance company one of their responses was that I had waited too long. It had been less than 6 months since the accident and we have two years. They were throwing everything up against the wall. After reading it, I was on the verge of hiring an attorney because I was afraid that I had missed something. I finally talked to an adult at the insurance company (senior claim adjuster at the company E, the attorney was for the parent insurance company A that owned the insurer I was dealing with) and we reached a fair settlement. However, I told them I would not dismiss the suit until I had a check in hand. To her credit, the attorney for Company A said she didn't blame me for that position.

[@BrianFlyingPenguin]

You shouldn't dismiss the suit until the cheque is cashed.

[@tiredoldmechanic1791]

In the old phone company days, I think of Lily Tomlin's Ernestine, the phone operator saying, "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

[@jamesodell3064]

And she is from Detroit and went to Cass Tech HS.

[@charlesbrumble5918]

Fun times. Maybe, better times.

[@rationalbushcraft]

When they broke up ATT my phone bill went from $36 a month to $16 a month so that seems to show how bad monopolies are for consumers.

[@Garth2011]

Yes and you had to pay for the inside line equipment, the phones and so forth. Quality of those items fell dramatically for years to the public. I believe that in this day, most folks are maying more than they would be in the past mainly due to the initital cost per month of say $30 for a land line and likely no less than $45 for a paid for cell phone. Unless you are one to make lots of long distance calls, the base cost is much higher than it was in the day. For those who make tons of long distant calls, likely the minority, it would be less. But I will agree that power, water, gas and interrnet companies are a monopoly because they pretty much have no choice however, they all are being used as a utility for state and federal Government to "tax" us all while rates rise and the public utilities commission across the USA are no longer representing the public but more for the states in collecting revenue.

[@vyor8837]

@@Garth2011 cell phones have a lot of hardware in them.

[@cfmcguire]

And then look at power rates for customers of Montana Power over the last 26 years...

[@Garth2011]

@@vyor8837 Smart phone do. I was referring to a simple cell phone but either way, we pay for them vs. the phone company.

[@vyor8837]

@@Garth2011 the phone company never bought you phones either.

[@kenyattaclay7666]

I was born in the early 70's so I grew up in a huge transition of phone companies & habits. We didn't have a phone on the kitchen wall but my grandmother had a phone desk and that was the only phone in the house and if you wanted to make a phone call you had to sit at that desk. I remember having to wait until a certain time on Saturday if I wanted to call my cousin in Ann Arbor Michigan because of how much it cost & I had a time limit. After they broke up AT&T my grandmother kept her line then my mom got two more lines installed (one for her and one for me & my sister to use) because prices went way down. What people also don't realize & I didn't find this out until years later, the reason why there was only one phone in the house was because just getting the phone itself was extremely expensive & most people leased the phone. I honestly laugh when I hear people complain about the cost of a cellphone because even at $1,000 it's still cheaper (adjusted for inflation) than trying to buy a phone from AT&T before they were broken up

[@kimlground206]

Yes, it used to be illegal to get another phone somewhere and connect it as an extension on the line you already had. (It cost extra for each extension phone.) The phone company could determine how many ringers were connected to the line, but could not detect the extra phones if the ringers were disconnected. (My uncle learned that one the hard way.) For a long time you could not legally connect a phone you owned - all phones were 'leased' from the phone company. A little later than that we had 'red boxes' to cheat pay phones, 'black boxes' and 'blue boxes' to cheat the long distance calls. Oh, and my favorite, a long strip of plastic to stick down in the quarter slot of an old three hole pay phone. Then you feed it pennies but they read as dimes to the operator. Or a dime with a wire soldered to the edge that a skillful person could put in the single slot pay phone and bounce against the sensor to count up dimes to pay for your long distance call. Then pull it out and save it for the next time. All of these were, of course, highly illegal. But every high school kid knew about most of them. On the other hand, there were hardly ever 'dropped calls', the sound quality was almost always excellent, and spam calls were almost nonexistent. When I was very young my town used three digit phone numbers. If you wanted to call the next town, or someplace further away, you had to call the operator.

[@will6162]

My $20 4 year old smartphone agrees

[@grayaj23]

I don't know what "phase 2" is, but I have it on good authority that phase 3 is "profit".

[@Josh-gg6ct]

That's phase 4, phase 3 is ????

[@monkeyX42792X]

The government needs to start breaking all the tech companies up. And the grocery stores too. Looking at you King Soopers.

[@xxxxCronoxxxx]

and what do we do without them?

[@darknight1220]

​@@xxxxCronoxxxx have multiple companies actually competing with one another encouraging innovation and lower fair prices.

[@deadnoobie2859]

@@xxxxCronoxxxx When the government breaks up a company, the company doesn't cease to exist. It is just required to separate into distinct individual companies. In the case above you would end up with a company managing and running King Soopers, but then some would now be in a different company and be called Queen Superiors or whatever. It's more complicated than that, but that is the general idea. It isn't like they'd suddenly shut down all the offending grocery stores.

[@kdaviper]

This, but for pharmacy.

[@boldCactuslad]

When the government splits phone/oil/gas companies, those companies dedicate the next 40 years to merging (somewhat nearly all) back together lol

[@imjashingyou3461]

The reason why Microsoft even thought about that argument is because it's not being argued in a normal court. It's being argued in an FTC internal court where the judges are FTC employees after being refered to court by the FTC and where the prosecution/plaintiff is the FTC. I dont understand how that is not a conflict of interest or why a branch of the executive gets its own internal court system similar to the FAA which had the same set up for private pilots.

[@jhoughjr1]

because regulations are not laws.

[@brianjacobsen8878]

Corporate captured agencies.?

[@canniballectus2560]

@@jhoughjr1 Have you ever seen the CFR? Citable regulations that carry fines and jail time and a judge will allow it. Piss off a federal police officer enough and they can find something in that book to write you a ticket for. Trust me, I did it for years when I had to deal with a retarded prick. Sure, it's regulations and not laws but it sure as fuck doesn't feel like it.

[@ertted1295]

@@jhoughjr1 if a regulation can cause a fine or jail then it is a law and only congress can issue it. look at whats going on with the 2A and ruling being over turned and the EPA has been hit to with over stepping too.

[@isaacclark9825]

@@ertted1295 Regulatory agencies are given authority from Congress to issue rules in their area consistent with statutes passed by Congress. That is civics 101. Congress does not micromanage the agency, but they can, of course, pass legislation limiting the area the agency can regulate.

[@DarkPesco]

Not only were long-distance calls expensive but being analog landlines meant that the greater the distance of the call the more interference and volume reduction there would be. Sometimes we had great connections and sometimes a thunderstorm anywhere along the route would cause static and interference. Often we would have to strain to hear the other party. My childhood was filled with moments of someone yelling, "Everyone be QUIET! We're about to make a long-distance call!"

[@mrcryptozoic817]

Not only expensive, but bad service too.

[@sarowie]

well, there where also the glourise times where long distance calls where regulated, but local calls not. The effect sometimes: regulated long distance calls where cheaper then unregulated local calls.

[@kenyattaclay7666]

The phones themselves were also extremely expensive. I didn't know this as a kid but before AT&T was broken up most people leased their phones & people were stuck having to buy them from the phone company. Adjusting for inflation they actually cost more than even some of the expensive cellphones.

[@Unsensitive]

And the delineation of what was or wasn't long distance was.. odd. To make a phone call down the road if over a minute or 2, it was cheaper to drive there and have the conversation. At my parents, 3 houses down the street was a a long distance phone call... 🤦

[@wschnabel1987]

We finally got DSL at my parents place in 06 after a lucky lightning strike to the cable that carried the old line. Whats ironic is AT&T won't subscribe new accounts in the area to that line and wants everyone to go to satellite...which from what I have heard is worse than dial up.

[@DavidKutzler]

I knew a man who had retired from the old Bell Telephone company just before the breakup. He was complaining about how things had changed from when he was at Bell, when he said, "I don't want to say that I kept the whole system running, but it hasn't been the same since I left."

[@billmellater]

All monopolies must be regulated. For they will eventually become corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[@fbrep]

You look great in that Husker RED polo! Love your channel, and I look forward to every new submission. Your common sense approach to many difficult legal issues is both appreciated and educational. Love the Carrot Top reference.

[@cmorris9494]

Wasn't expecting the carrot top blame game

[@northyland1157]

Microsoft is too big, they don't need to own everything..

[@marcellachine5718]

Disney, hold my beer.

[@pauld5265]

I remember when Microsoft got in to trouble for anti competitive practices. If I remember correctly they paid the fine by giving the equivalent of the dollar amount in software to schools. Which was a stroke of evil genius on several levels. They negotiated the find down before "paying it". Ok but was still a lot of money right? Not really not in my opinion. The price they charge for the products vs the price to actually produce and ship said products are very different. As a private consumer I remember Cd roms where fairly cheap. I would make a high stakes bet they got volume discounts probably wholesale. And they had already spent the money for industrial scale copying of the programs and the production of the inserts manuals and the packaging. And I am confident that they had already recouped their investment for the infrastructure for producing and packaging the products. How great would it be if the peasants couls pay our fines with things that are way cheaper than the actual amount of our fines. And get the court to accept the deal. The FTC really showed them 🤦‍♂️ They were able to spin it in to positive press. Well positive-ish And Because those products were free in school the kids got used to using Microsoft. And kids that use Microsoft grow up to be adults that use Microsoft. Marketing to a captive audience was not exactly the corporate equivalent to the death sentence. It helped them to the further stamp out competition. Thanks government. I miss the good old days of the government busting up monopolies instead of solidifying and enabling them.

[@cericat]

Ah the 90s and early aughts, the last time MS really paid anything for anti-competitive practices. The same time they ran afoul of the EU for them at that because IIRC that was over Windows 98 and the phone home activation and forcing internet explorer on everyone. The damage was done though and like you said the "penalty" helped build MS into more of a monopoly software wise.

[@CattyRayheart]

Back in the day of the big phone companies it was cheaper to buy a plane ticket and send an engineer for a week to whatever company than to have a 2 hour phone call to resolve the issue. Completly crazy.

[@odbo_One]

Microsoft has been doing some shady things since day one.

[@earonspangler4932]

Not only were long distance phone calls expensive; where I lived, you had to check to make sure a neighbor on your “Party line” wasn’t on the phone before you could make the call.

[@kimlground206]

There was usually an old lady with nothing else to do on that party line and she knew when any phone on it rang or was dialed because all of the bells would make a tiny sound in that case. Used to have a lot of fun with that - feeding false information into the rumor mill.

[@IMCODERED]

local monopolies have gotten outrageous. One company controls internet, cable, and phones in an area and the prices are higher than Hunter. Same with the power company. The true crime is in the poor rural areas were families are barley living paycheck to paycheck and all of these utilities are so out of control and unregulated that families are literally faced with freezing or starving. Everyone thinks that rural areas are cheaper to live in because houses are cheap. Houses are the only thing that is cheap there because no on wants to pay $500 electric bills, $80 phone bill, $200 cellphone bill, $150 internet bill, $120 cable bill, and this is on top of $600 rent or mortgage payment. These are the people making $7.50hr forced to endure such price gouging. Where is the FCC? Oh. That's right. Doing Sony's dirty work.

[@rational-being]

All the administrative agencies should be barred from (1) rule making (2) dispute adjudication. Sadly, the courts fail to uphold "separation of powers" meaningfully.

[@ghostshadow9046]

I was In Alaska when Bell got broken up.. Prices went up and service went down the toilet, only 1 company providing service in area, they knew it and charged accordingly.

[@darrylbarker505]

A PHASE II investigation is a type of investigation that is found between a PHASE I investigation and a PHASE III investigation. You're welcome.

[@TimoRutanen]

Is it though? It sounds like maybe it is but is it.

[@darrylbarker505]

@Timo Rutanen That is a Definite Maybe...or is it?

[@TimoRutanen]

@@darrylbarker505 We should find a brit to tell us!

[@darrylbarker505]

I'm nearly 1/2🇬🇧...makes as much sense to me as a sack of dirty choppers🤔

[@robburross7413]

Steve said, “the FTC has been around awhile, so…” The same was said about Dred Scott and Roe. Having been unchallenged, doesn’t make a law, entity or regulation constitutional.

[@Recovering_Californian]

Reminds of big pharmaceutical companies: Small startup drug company creates a new, cheap, and more effective drug to fight some disease. This undercuts some other big-pharma company's profit on their much more expensive and less effective drug. Big-pharma company buys the startup and then shelves the new drug.

[@davidmecey7209]

Hale V. Henkle already settled that a Corporation doesn't have that argument. "There is a clear distinction in this particular case between an individual and a corporation, and that the latter has no right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit of the State. The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights. Upon the other hand, the corporation is a creature of the State. It is presumed to be incorporated for the benefit of the public. It receives certain special privileges and franchises, and holds them subject to the laws of the State and the limitations of its charter. Its powers are limited by law. It can make no contract not authorized by its charter. Its rights to act as a corporation are only preserved to it so long as it obeys the laws of its charter." Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 at 47 (1905).

[@ewanduffy]

From the relevant website: When a merger is referred for an in-depth Phase 2 investigation under the UK merger control regime, the Competition and Markets Authority's duty is to investigate and decide whether the merger has resulted in, or may be expected to result in, a substantial lessening of competition.

[@monkeyoperator1360]

not that anyone fucking cares, at least in the us half the laws around mergers were told it make banks to big to fail and they went O WELL

[@oldgysgt]

When Judge Green busted up Ma bell, the average residential service cost $8.25 per month. One year later residential service averaged over $26.00. It's true the cost of business service and long distance dropped dramatically, but that's because the Bell System overcharged on business and long distance in order to subsidize residential service. The idea was to get phones in every home and make phone service universal, and it worked. Even in the days of $125.00 a week wages, most people could afford a home phone. Of course that basic residential service was bare bones; one phone, (black in color), hard wired, (no phone jacks), and usually a 4 party line. Multiple phones, color, jacks, and privet lines were monthly extras.

[@Bobs-Wrigles5555]

Ben goin' Surfin' in the USA, on top of Turbine Car, Steve's LHS

[@HH-ru4bj]

All you need to know is that Activision is over valued as a company, and loves to use micro-transactions to supplement paying for half finished games. The acquisition probably has more to do with Microsoft not wanting Activision to support any other platform.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

And microtransactions as a euphemism for gambling for kids through extra steps (in game currency bought with real money)

[@jeremeyswillis]

Many apps were “free-mium” and made thousands of dollars bleeding the players. Now you have to buy the software just to get charged for everything. At least gta online will give you the software and make endless money off the “players”

[@ActualDrunkAtheist]

Activision killed blizzard

[@indykurt]

Blizzard was great when developers were also players, then cooperate pencil pushers began developing and designing and the game died. They cooked the numbers to keep investors happy but the players could tell when the base left and farming bots filled the place and padding the subscription base. I hate that they will get an inflated value instead of reaping the seeds they planted.

[@Broken_Yugo]

@@SonsOfLorgar Exactly, most of these big name games of the last decade or so clearly have a higher priority on "extract money from mommy's credit card" than "provide a functional service".

[@GeorgieB1965]

Maple syrup in Canada is a monopoly on the scale of DeBeer Diamond Company, in that they control the availability of maple syrup in Canada (seriously. there is a well known case of theft/black market syrup in Canada about a dozen years ago or so). Same goes for Sun-Maid raisins, which is almost a complete monopoly of raisins in the US.

[@callak_9974]

Well, Quebec does make like 90% of all the maple syrup in the Canada, and Canada makes like 95% in the world. Almost the entire USA is south of the 49th parallel and usually too warm to make it.

[@xdelisiusx]

Companies should never be considered people...

[@mercoid]

Well.., the SC locked that one up pretty tight.

[@oscar33212]

And from that phone on the wall … the one number you call every day … time & temperature

[@socialanarchy081]

No more monopolies! Large mergers hurt consumer options, and enable price gouging.

[@serbsi2922]

"Innovate around monthly game subscriptions" Wow. That's some incredible twisting of the phrase "led the way in wrecking console gaming"

[@johnpatrick1588]

Good ole Microsoft another American giant success story started with nothing. A kid from a well-to-do family among other things had a mother on IBM's board, got a chance to pitch an operating system he didn't have so he paid an independent programmer $50k to write a system. Then as time progressed Microsoft and Apple stole from each other and from Zerox. Microsoft/Gates figured becoming a monopoly would mean success so it threatened and bullied computer makers to put Windows on the machines. Made some new software and updated Windows which wound up being some of the easiest things for hackers to hack. Then decided it was easier to buy competitors (monopolize) with software than to kill themselves creating new software. A real American rags-to-riches success story. Now the school dropout Gates wants to tell the world how to live.

[@johncope4977]

Kind of reminds me of my argument as a kid, "I know you are but what am I". I was undefeatable.

[@MrSeanman30]

Aye Go Big Red!! I'm from Omaha, Nebraska so I like tbe shirt!

[@Krptokrayon]

I got a funny one that I should have sued about. I bought some script writing software. One day I got an update for it. I updated the software and the update was a termination of online support that originally came with the software.

[@FreakinRican06]

😂 carrot top commercials…”Dial down the center! 1800 CALLATT” I don’t remember how long it’s been since I have seen one of those but I still remember it 😂

[@billyjacksimmons9947]

Go Big Red! There's always next year.

[@mrsteresa1999]

Happy Tuesday Steve have a great one

[@alexofbree5278]

The purchase itself isn't going to create a monopoly. The problem is the practice of big tech buying up Every company out there, that they can get a pen over, and consolidating the market down to essentially Just the biggest companies and their sub companies. Microsoft has a bad habit of making every company they purchase worse in some way. The Minecraft community, for example, has been wildly impacted by the Mojang acquisition, even though it arguably opened the doors for the game to get more freedom in development. The current problem is that Minecraft is an open platform and, if Microsoft has their way, it will be a walled garden where they control all transactions between the player base and take ridiculous cuts of the gross income from people who sell content for the game, even though those people would have given it out for free otherwise. I think a good analog would be GM and Chrysler buying up as many competitors as possible. Sure, Ford/GMC/Chevrolet/Etc or Jeep/Chrysler/Dodge/Etc can all share their technologies between each other now, but look at the average price of a vehicle nowadays compared to just 20 years ago. The big companies want to find as many possible reasons to charge the consumer more, while smaller competitors want to find as many possible reasons to get the consumer to Like them, and thus want to use their services and/or products.

[@loneeldritchknight7362]

I have to agree with most of what you said, but the FTC isn't coming at this like it's a normal monopoly as it has in the past. The FTC is looking at changing the definition after Disney purchased the entertainment side of FOX to one that includes the influence the company would have over the rest of the industry.

[@alexnorth2452]

I'm normally against big business buying smaller companies, that aside, as a gamer, and a xbox gamer at that, I have seen what Microsoft has done with some of the other companies they have bought, and frankly they have done alot of good, an easy example of this is the purchase of undead labs, the developers of state of decay, sod1 was limited not by the devs, but the finacials, they couldn't afford to make the game bigger, Microsoft bought them specifically to help with that, and in doing so, sod2 had the funding to make it what they wanted, and a game that is still doing updates on a regular basis, along with being hard at work on sod3

[@YdenMk-II]

It's not quite the same as GM buying competitors but rather it would be closer along the lines of GM buying a company that say make the infotainment stuff that go into cars giving them the ability to prevent other car makers from having that stuff. Not a perfect analogy but while the other car makers can still make their cars, they won't have all those fancy phone integration and such without being forced to find a new supplier. As for MS trying to buy Activision thing, I do see it as a good thing. MS isn't lying when they're saying their the 3rd place company and they're so vastly behind Sony in most markets that Sony was able to jack up the prices of their console, something that I haven't seen done ever in my life. Console prices in the past will always go down as supply chains and such makes parts cheaper but Sony is using their massive market dominance as a way to prop up their profits since they couldn't do that cause of all the supply chain interruptions that happened in the past couple years for obvious reasons. MS really need to do something drastic if they want to catch up and this Activision deal alone probably won't do it.

[@alexnorth2452]

@@YdenMk-II what I don't understand, is if the people suing care about preventing monopoly, why haven't they stopped the console exclusives, there's a whole list of games on Playstation that are purely for that console, games that xbox or pc players will never have access to unless we fork out several hundred for a brand new console, not worth it for a few specific games, that in itself is a monopoly, yet I haven't heard of any lawsuits on it

[@Ryarios]

I will say that it would be tough to make Blizzard/Activision worse than it is now…

[@ronhaefner7833]

Hah! Nice shirt. Hausman now plays for Michigan, from our home town here in the great plains.

[@baronblansit]

I agree that monopolies are bad. I believe that food prices are getting out of hand at the moment as well.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

As someone who grew up alongside these games developers, I'd say that this deal can go either very good, or very, very bad for the gamers. And unfortunately, going by the buisness strategy trends of all three, the end user would be fucked over sideways in the rear end with a dry cactus without as much as a reach around...

[@tissuepaper9962]

Oh, you could get a reach around, but only as a 0.005% drop from a $60 loot crate.

[@dlw2982]

It's bad. No one thinks this is good for gamers at all.

[@OnlyKaerius]

These days Microsoft is being better towards gamers than Activision Blizzard left to their own devices, so I'm not all that against the purchase. That said Microsoft has a long sordid screwing customers over, so who knows when they relapse. It's not that Microsoft is all that good, it's that Activision Blizzard these days is worse.

[@ActualDrunkAtheist]

If you think gamers are looked at as anything but garbage then you are fooling yourself. Our community has been attacked more than any other one and I'm not saying this as a group identity or even people spewing shit about gamers. I'm saying this as someone who grew up loving games, I sunk more time into Warcraft 2 growing up than I've spent time in happy relationships. I started painting Warhammer minis at the age of 9. Gaming was invaded by ideological zealots who decided that everything has to be in their political views on the world. Over the last decade I have watched some of my absolute favorite things fall to wokism and constantly watch more and more bland games shit themselves into the market. This is why older gaming consoles and games are so highly prized in the community, not just because of nostalgia, but because we want challenging and good games. Elden Ring is a very good example of this, while being the easiest soul game to exist, there are still "gamer journalists" who whine about how it needs an "easy mode" for people unable to beat the game. Games do not need to come with an "easy mode", because to overcome the difficulty and win is quite honestly most of the fun for me personally. These same people will often screech about "toxic gamer hate speech" simply because someone offended them on the internet in a CoD chat. It got so bad I have honestly moved more into tabletop (although truthfully I always loved it more anyways) than video gaming. And even that is under attack by companies like Games Workshop coming out with shit that invokes hatred in their fans. I stopped wasting my money on Warhammer minis almost a decade ago and thank Gork n Mork because what that company has done recently would probably have me table flip a submarine. Oh and as an addition and I also suppressed and so forgot what Wizards of the Coast just pulled, but thankfully my D&D has been well separated from WotC since before their "people are racist because we ourselves think orks are black people and so we can't let them be evil" what they just did went below the level of evil. Remember folks this is what happens when ideological zealots invade what you love. Gatekeeping may seem counter intuitive for us because as fans we naturally want to share with others what we love, but these people hate what we love and legitimately want to ruin it. Sorry for the rant but it really does break my heart to watch what I love being turned into this boring bland blob of nothingness and "inclusivity" simply for an ESG score and government back door handouts.

[@NogardCodesmith]

@@OnlyKaerius Every game dev studio is great until they get an HR department.

[@johnmicheal3547]

The government is the biggest monopoly.

[@stephenoden829]

Microsoft’s purchase of activision would further the oligopoly we as Americans already endure in most every corner of consumer choice.

[@johnmorgan1629]

The law of unintended consequences, brought us Carrot Top adverts.

[@spacemissing]

I (barely) remember when 'Mom and Pop' businesses were in the majority --- and prices were so high that whenever you wanted anything you had to examine your financial condition before buying. And then Big Corporations put locals out of business with low prices but offered little or no personal service. Either way, something is objectionable.

[@TheLukemcdaniel]

Do companies really have rights? And how does them buying another company fall under free speech?

[@rational-being]

The monopoly issue should be tested by the magnitudes of the barriers to small competitors entering and growing in the marketplace.

[@williamwallace9826]

The fact that there was only one phone company was not a "problem." It was a tremendous benefit. AT&T was a regulated monopoly. That means the government reviewed and approved the rates on a regular basis, to ensure that the company could earn a fair profit but not gouge customers. The break-up of AT&T should forever be remembered as a black mark on the U.S. government record. Ever since the break-up phone companies have engaged in a race to the bottom, with rates increasing while service gets worse every single day.

[@supersonicgamerguru]

Man when Hoeg gets back on his feet, and if he decides to come back to KZbin, I can't wait to hear what he says about this debacle.

[@xyz061220]

The reason prices "dropped" when the phone company was broken up is long distance was used to subsidize local service. A simple phone on the wall with no long distance was fairly cheap.

[@torbar9603]

Steve is upping his shirt Game!

[@nolongeramused8135]

I was grooving to the T-shirts.

[@patriot9455]

The government is a monopoly in America, Europe is not a monopoly, they are competitive against each other.

[@KKing55]

Banks ??? Social Media ??? KZbin ??

[@davidtwitchell3667]

It's the same as Disney buying Lucus. Neither one, though they like to think, together do not control all media . Yet?

[@charleswidmore5458]

New Jersey was supposed to be the first State with a total fiber optic system. The State gave the phone company billions in tax breaks to pay for the installation of the system. After almost all of the fiber was installed on the poles the President at the time, bill clinton, pushed through the 'must sublet' bill for utilities. That meant, verizon would have to rent excess capacity on it's system to it's competitors and then they could sell it to customers. Verizon finished the install on the pole but never completed home hook ups. This allowed them to keep the tax write offs while not having to open up the system to competition and lower their profits. Comcast has most of the high speed internet business in Nj now because that. Meanwhile verizon has been letting the copper wires degrade for 20+ years to the point that home phones were unusable most of the time. Tiny countries in Europe have had cheap super fast fiber optic systems for decades while - American citizens suffered because of these anti competition behemoths and their antics. Too Big To Assail makes them Too Big To Fail.

[@jplayzow]

If we have decided to finally take on tech companies this should be the first of many

[@boikatsapiens499]

Ben on top of the turbine car.

[@mypov8028]

Hey STEVE!!!!!!!!!! Don't even get me going on Microsoft.

[@Joshua-ew6ks]

I agree the FTC is unconstitutional. Only congress can make law. No other agency should be able to make law, or any regulations, unless it goes back through congress first, and then is signed by a duty-elected president. If any regulations (these agency) can change definitions, make new definitions, or punish you with fines or jail time for possession of item that was not illegal the day before, is a violation of constitution. Why, because if you going to get fine or go to jail for having an item that was previous legal (the day before), then shouldn't the current congress be the one that decides that? Not some unelected, unfireable, unaccountable board of people. We can fire membefs of congress, thought voting them out. That is why these agency should never have been allowed to set their own definition. Or create regulations that will have the affect of chaning the law. We can't vote them out! Something to think about: If an item can become illegal to own overnight just because a new regulation or new definition was created by an unelected agency, how is that not making law? How is that now changing law. Plus, no agency should be their own judge.

[@spacepirate4166]

After the phone co. finally got broken up, i had an opportunity to yell at them for their decades of corruption and bad service when they tried to sell me internet and then I refused to get it from them.

[@redtails]

Huge companies like Microsoft should be forced to break up into 10+ pieces. Even if it's a duopology or a triopoloy, at that scale no other players can compete.

[@rjlaxvespa1742]

Axiom is the company that manufactures all of the cameras used by police sheriffs for body cams.. which are usually subpoenaed, when there are legal issues involved usually violating someone's civil rights..

[@skittlemenow]

You ain't kidding with power company monopolies. We still pay 600 a month for electricity in commiefornia. It's only a four bedroom home and we use all the power saving devices and lighting. It's fucking insane.

[@patriot9455]

Microsoft has shown contempt for the constitution in the past, why not a three letter agency now?

[@afrogenius0559]

Poor Carrot Top out here catching strays from Steve. Now I need a video explaining why.

[@ajc-th5ei]

So, Microsoft has been buying up TONS of independent game studios. And Activision/Blizzard is one of the largest game studios out there. I could drastically restrict titles on platforms and drive other microsoft products, such as needing Windows XBOX gaming and/or an XBOX console to access those games. Tying is a prohibited act, such as having Microsoft Internet Explorer as the default web browser shipped with Windows (see the EU antitrust litigation). But thank you for covering this! It is appreciated.

[@cericat]

Especially since it gives MS near dominance of the MMO market, 2 of the big 5, and actual dominance of the FPS market. Won't help them much with the eSports arena overall but still going to hurt if they get away with their usual crap.

[@woody4077]

GOTTA LOVE HOW THEY "GLOSS OVER" THE FACT THAT MICROSOFT HAS BEEN VALUED AT OVER A TRILLION DOLLARS!!!! AND THAT THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THE US GOV. HAS SUED MICROSOFT *COUGH* INTERNET EXPLORER *COUGH*

[@kgoblin5084]

On monopolies: There is no real debate on what monopoly is... it's when a single company controls the entirety of a section of industry, whether locally (ala power & water companies) or industry wide (ala Standard Oil). Where the debate comes in is that anti-competitive corporate tactics start PRIOR to a company being a true monopoly... eg. Microsoft in the 90s... MS had competition but they were still dominant in key spaces in the computing industry & were engaged in anti-competitive practices (near-monopoly). Similarly, with the 3 big credit agencies there isn't really any competition between Experian, Equifax, & TransUnion, to the detriment of the average person (triopoly). The problem is everyone but economists conflates 'monopoly' with monopolistic/anti-competitive practices... the latter are what we need to punish & control... but practicing them doesn't make you a monopoly, that's ONLY if you are literally the only game in town. Or in other words, all us non-economists need to start using the term correctly :p. Especially because anti-competitive companies use the fact that they aren't actually monopolies as a deflection tactic.

[@2leftfeet113]

They probably dropped it for two reasons, the first being time. Constitution lawsuits tend to take a long time something they're hoping to avoid. Secondly it's very hard to prove something goes against the constitution without lots of money and the luck of landing in front of the supreme court.

[@huntergreeno2191]

FTC is riding sony so hard they forgot protection.

[@christopherg2347]

It is good business practice to drive out the competition, to get a monopoly, to be able to extract the maximum prices. Competition is bad for business - because it is good for the consumer. Which is _exactly_ why capitalism without regulation will just lead to monopolies. And then oligarchy or monarchy.

[@kapkap5157]

The human element does away with predictability. Just because something has been around for a while doesn't mean it is still doing or has the same meaning as what was originally intended.

[@DerykRobosson]

More need to be making that specific argument. Congress has no power to delegate its fiduciary duty to another branch, body, or entity. Monopolies can only exist as a result of government action. The current mixed economy would improve were government to get out of the way.

[@ElmshornBoy]

Hello Mr. Letho, Phase 2 investigation means suspected worst competition violations for free-competing market - that investigation should clarify, if trade laws for a competing market are criminal violated. We are talking about capitalism basics.

[@quitequiet5281]

Imagine the lack of creativity and desire for control and lack of competition necessary for a programming company to pay over 60 billion dollars for a another companies intellectual property and infrastructure rather than simply creating a competitive product and competing in the marketplace. Oh, wait... You don’t have to imagine that... They are actually attempting to do that... Which is why sale is being challenged. It’s bad business to allow monopolies to stagnate the market and create funneled environments that stifle and prevent innovation and development. Ironically enough often it’s companies that undermine prosperity that creates monopolies. Because that’s their intention. They claim to innovate while preventing innovation and they suppress development and advancements in technology in order to maintain status quo and corruption influence.

[@eliaskenenske1930]

I guess Microsoft should have payed off the FTC like Google and Facebook.

[@groermaik]

Hundo, unfolded, across the top of the turbine car, not in the box, on the right side top of the main cabinet. 1k+.

[@asabrown1193]

I think that if a company makes policy that violates it's employees constitutional rights (2A rights example). Said company should forfeit their own constitutional claims.

[@pyro1047]

This is my rough understanding of it: Basically Microsoft owns Xbox which makes the console, some games, and runs the subscription service XboxLive and Gamepass. Activision-Blizzard is a company that makes and publishes some very popular games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Sony owns Playstation, which makes the console, some games, and runs the subscription service Playstation Plus/Now Xbox wants to buy AB so they can acquire their IPs, Playstation doesn't want this and has petitioned all the trade committees to block it claiming they could make the games exclusive to Xbox and it'd be a Monopoly. Playstation has also gotten criticized as for years they've done what they're claiming Xbox's doing, signing deals to either get bonuses and perks for playing a game on Playstation or making the entire game exclusive to Playstation. Microsoft had offered and agreed to sign a multi-year deal guaranteeing Playstation access to Call of Duty, but Sony has rejected this saying they don't trust them and it's not good enough. It also doesn't help many individuals involved seem Biased, with the European Commission spokesman going as far as to say he opposes the deal because he has a Playstation and doesn't want to worry about CoD. It's basically like if Apple tried to buy the company that made Candy Crush or Clash of Clans when those were big, and then Google petitioned to block it claiming they could make a monopoly and remove the game from Android and the app store to make it exclusive to iPhone.

[@gregtaylor3432]

Interestingly when the court mandated the breakup of the Bell system, New Jersey was 4 months away from starting 911 phone services: We waited several more years for that to finally happen.

[@apburner1]

Please tell me if I understand this correctly. If someone initiates a hostile adverse action against me I am required to tell them how I will defend myself, and if I don't I am then not allowed to defend myself?

[@jamielong2237]

It's sad the EU sounds more like a spokesperson for Sony then they do competition Sony has more exclusives than Microsoft yet that's not being brought up by any regulatory body even Sony's internal messaging puts down on their claims

[@fix0the0spade]

The difference is very simple. Sony almost entirely funds it's exclusives from scratch. Microsoft acquires developers and publishers then removes it's franchises from the market. One is making it's own unique product, the other is restricting access to an existing product by acquiring the competition.

[@vyor8837]

@@fix0the0spade so how did sony get those devs in the first place? Magic?

[@fix0the0spade]

The issue isn't the dev teams, the issue is the creation of unique product to generate competition versus the removal of existing product to stifle it. Sony (and Nintendo) mostly does the former, Microsoft mostly does the latter, even their major franchise Halo was secured by buying out Bungie.

[@vyor8837]

@@fix0the0spade and nintendo buying exclusivity for bayo 2 and 3 is...

[@fix0the0spade]

@@vyor8837 Nintendo didn't buy exclusivity for Bayonetta, they funded the development when nobody else would. Sega wasn't interested in funding a sequel, Nintendo was. Again, making a unique product vs removing product from market.

[@RedKittieKat]

"Don't get me going on that" 🤣🤣 .... Dial down the center .. it's free for you and cheap for them. Ahhh the pre-steroid days of Carrot Top 😁

[@mjmeans7983]

Artificlal entities, such as corporations, should not have Constitutional rights. Only real people should. But, as you know, 'should happens'.

[@christopherg2347]

"The FTC being unconstitutional? We never made such a claim. If we tought about it, we never submitted it. But if we did make it, it was well founded."

[@zoefaith120]

Steve, have you every "corn husked" corn before?

[@barkerd427]

Phone companies were a government created monopoly, which is different from free market monopolies.

[@yt650]

Also called throwing shitte against the wall.

[@kirkmorrison6131]

There is still a phone on my wall, in the Parlor

[@seanbarsballe2427]

Sony is causing a huge stink, trying to keep Microsoft(MS) from acquiring Activision/Blizzard(A/B) saying it will keep the games from other consoles (Sony Playstation in particular). MS even extended the olive branch of contractually agreeing to allow the games from A/B to be released on other consoles and both Nintendo and Steam accepted it but Sony refused. At the same time Sony is entering into paid agreements with developers to exclude games from MS's Xbox like FF7R and FF16 so while they aren't buying the company's they are still doing anti competitive acts that huts gamers (I'd love to play both of those games but I refuse to buy the PS5 for just them) and they have been doing so for decades only now having issues because the tide has turned against them.

[@charlesbrumble5918]

Cap'n Crunch Whistle! Hey y'all Phreaks. [55+ insiders only] LOL

[@Seaoftea]

Cable companies have pseudo monopolies. Most places in the US only have a single provider of broadband. In a lot of EU countries competition is steep and you may have 5-10 providers to choose from. Competition is always good for the consumer.

[@JohnSmith-gb5vg]

That kitchen phone came with the house lol

[@PierreaSweedieCat]

Then too, when the breakup came, we got those wonderful Murphy Brown commercials!!!