Konkurrensmotstånd

Maktkoncentration

Det är tveklöst viktigt att på allvar komma på hur man kan konkurrera mot de stora globala techbolagen och överleva. Måste man göra som i Kina att staten med lagar backar upp alternativ till de mer eller mindre monopolister som några amerikanska techjättar blivit? Centralisering av makt blir allt vanligare. Frågar du mig är det alltid dåligt av många skäl. Det är hög tid att börja göra ordentligt motstånd mot denna enorma maktkoncentration som äger rum i våra samhällen. Inte minst inom politiken i demokratier koncentreras allt mer makt till partiledningarna. Och globala techjättar kan lätt bygga kraftiga konkurrenshinder när inte lagstiftarna står på tå och säkrar viktig konkurrens. Marknadsekonomier fungerar bara bra om det finns gott om konkurrens mellan möjliga leverantörer.

New-York Times publicerar nedan en mycket läsvärd artikel om hur "Big tech" dödar innovation genom att köpa upp bra idéer som har stor potential men som kanske bara anses hota till exempel Apples eller Amazons affärsmodell. Vad skulle du göra om du startat ett företag, tjänar fem miljoner per år och har aktier värda 400 miljoner kronor och Amazon lägger ett bud som gör att du kan få 800 miljoner på banken?

"Silicon Valley prides itself on disruption: Start-ups develop new technologies, upend existing markets and overtake incumbents. This cycle of creative destruction brought us the personal computer, the internet and the smartphone. But in recent years, a handful of incumbent tech companies have sustained their dominance. Why? We believe they have learned how to co-opt potentially disruptive start-ups before they can become competitive threats."

"Just look at what’s happening to the leading companies in generative artificial intelligence. DeepMind, one of the first prominent A.I. start-ups, was acquired by Google. OpenAI, founded as a nonprofit and counterweight to Google’s dominance, has raised $13 billion from Microsoft. Anthropic, a start-up founded by OpenAI engineers who grew wary of Microsoft’s influence, has raised $4 billion from Amazon and $2 billion from Google."

"Today’s tech giants were once small start-ups themselves. They built businesses by figuring out how to commercialize new technologies — Apple’s personal computer, Microsoft’s operating system, Amazon’s online marketplace, Google’s search engine and Facebook’s social network."

"An incumbent with a large market share has less incentive to innovate because the new sales that an innovation would generate might cannibalize sales of its existing products. Talented engineers are less enthusiastic about stock in a large company that isn’t tied to the value of the project they are working on than stock in a start-up that might grow exponentially. And incumbent managers are rewarded for developing incremental improvements that satisfy their existing customers rather than disruptive innovations that might devalue the skills and relationships that give them power."

"When Microsoft was on trial for antitrust violations in the late 1990s, it was valued in the tens of billions. Now it’s over 3 trillion. In addition to their money, the tech giants can leverage access to their data and networks, rewarding start-ups that cooperate and punishing those that compete."

"The tech giants also cultivate repeat-player relationships with venture capitalists. Start-ups are risky investments, so for a venture fund to succeed, at least one of its portfolio companies must generate exponential returns. As initial public offerings have declined, venture capitalists have increasingly turned to acquisitions to deliver those returns. And the venture capitalists know that only a small number of companies can acquire a start-up at that kind of price, so they stay friendly with Big Tech in hopes of steering their start-ups to deals with incumbents. That’s why some prominent venture capitalists oppose stronger antitrust enforcement: It’s bad for business."

"Finally, the government should identify a list of potentially disruptive technologies — we’d start with A.I. and virtual reality — and announce that it will presumptively challenge any mergers between the tech giants and start-ups developing those technologies. That policy might make life difficult for venture capitalists who like to give talks about disruption and then get drinks with their friends in corporate development at Microsoft. But it would be good news for founders who want to sell products to customers, not start-ups to monopolies. And it would be good for consumers, who depend on competition but have spent too long without it."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/opinion/big-tech-ftc-ai.html