• DaddleDew@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    509
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    4 months ago

    No shit. Now do Amazon, apple, meta, Microsoft, Disney and all the food conglomerates. Then it will have been a good start.

      • BossDj@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        89
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        Would be nice if we didn’t let them kill off so many other businesses first before doing something about it.

      • dan@upvote.au
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        36
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        I still don’t understand how the Californian government bailed them out when they were bankrupt, yet they were allowed to remain an independent company? Why didn’t the government take full control?

        Electricity in cities in the Bay Area that have their own municipal power company (like Palo Alto and Santa Clara) is literally 1/3 the cost of PG&E.

        • jaybone@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          18
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          FUUUUUUUUUUUCK PG&E

          Fuck them. If there was ever a case to be made for government owned utilities (and like why is that even a debate in the first place?) these assholes would be the poster child.

          • dan@upvote.au
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            Palo Alto’s got the right idea - the city runs the electricity, gas, water, sewer, and they also have a city-owned fiber internet provider for businesses (which they want to eventually roll out for residential use too). Services are cheaper than other cities where they contract these out to third-party companies, since they’re running them to benefit residents, not to make money.

            They do contract out some things (garbage/recycling/compost is contracted to GreenWaste) but not many.

        • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          16
          ·
          4 months ago

          Because the USA haven’t had the balls to hold corporations responsible for their actions in decades. They can save them from failure, but have no willpower to correct any of their malevolent behaviors.

          I really hope this generation is the one that finally changes that trend.

          • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            Gotta keep the rich people rich so they can fund my campaign.

            It’s not about the balls to hold them responsible, it’s about not biting the hand that feeds you. They don’t want to do anything about it.

    • Louisoix@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      4 months ago

      I don’t think they’ll ever do anything serious to apple. That shit is untouchable.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 months ago

      They are. The FTC have already brought antitrust suits against three of the companies you just listed, and you can bet your ass they’re eyeing the rest.

      Decades of neoliberalism doesn’t get undone in a single day. This is good news, and if America keeps putting competent people in power we’ll see more of it.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      88
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      Steam…

      Edit: Funny how I was replying to a comment with examples of companies that wish they had 70% of the market under their control yet people didn’t disagree with OP but bringing up Valve? Oh man, Gaben can do no wrong! 70% of the market under the control of a company owned by a single man? No problemo!

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        47
        ·
        4 months ago

        You can’t break up steam and improve the market in any particular way. Since they’re not really big on exclusivity agreements, there’s also very little a court order would do to make the market more competitive.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          41
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          If consumers were more evenly spread around different platforms there would be actual competition to determine prices and margins for the developers. Right now Epic takes a smaller share of the revenues but the price is the same to try and compensate for the smaller number of buyers. With their dominant position it’s pretty much impossible to have someone join the market and truly be competitive against Valve, even if they offered a product with all the same features and more (which would require a ridiculous amount of capital), people have their well established habits and won’t move even if the product they’re using isn’t necessarily the best or they’re spending more than they need to.

          • aphonefriend@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            40
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            4 months ago

            That’s not what a monopoly is.

            Epic had all the money in the world and tons of time (and users) to create a viable alternative. They didn’t fail because valve squeezed them out, they failed because they refuse to improve their product. In fact, it could be said that Epic wanted to become the monopoly themselves. If they spent half as much effort on their product as they do on lawsuits and exclusivity deals, they would have been a viable competitor. But they didn’t. At the end of the day, it sucks to use. Steam does not.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              33
              ·
              4 months ago

              EGS is perfectly usable and in my opinion is better than Steam in some aspects (way less bloat, open the app and your games are right there to launch even if you’re on the storefront), your saying they refuse to improve their product just shows you’re not using it because it’s way better than it was on release.

              And yes, Valve has a monopoly, they control enough of the market that it goes where they decide it’s going and they’re the default solution people turn to when they need the services they offer, they’re also working on increasing their reach with streaming on the platform, forums, reviews and so on. If all you need is found on a single platform and it’s the platform that a vast majority is using then what do we call that? That’s right, a monopoly.

              Want a similar example? Microsoft is considered to be in a monopolistic position with Windows, yet they have competitors, same with Office, same with Explorer back in the day. Google is a monopoly even though competitors exist.

              • Hexarei@programming.dev
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                22
                ·
                4 months ago

                Fun fact: You can change which page your Steam client opens up to by default. I haven’t seen the store unless I wanted to in years.

              • aphonefriend@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                16
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                4 months ago

                Opinions aside, that’s still not the legal definition of a monopoly.

                Monopoly: Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.

                Valve does not have exclusive control of the PC gaming market. The EGS funded lawsuit even says that in the docket. They are only suing on the grounds of the keys issue. I don’t disagree with you that when Newell leaves, things COULD change, but you can’t base the present on the possible future. At this time, steam is on “top” because the vast majority of users have voted with their wallet and time. Not because they are engaged in sweeping anti-competitive backdoor dealings. You know, like EGS does.

                • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  arrow-down
                  21
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  Well then, by your definition Microsoft never had a monopoly and Google isn’t one either.

          • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            24
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            it’s pretty much impossible to have someone join the market and truly be competitive against Valve, even if they offered a product with all the same features and more

            (1) Many PC gamers simply wait for games to go on sale. Epic buying exclusive agreements isn’t as dominating of a strategy as they think it is; even if it’s expensive.

            (2) Steam is the incumbent. You have to be better in order to be worth it to switch. As you mentioned, Epic is lacking in features

            (3) Valve has not treated the desktop market the way Apple as treated the app store. Look at how far Epic has taken Apple to court; compared to their biggest rival, Valve

            (4) Valve has put in alot of work in other layers; such as making open hardware and contributing to AMD GPU drivers on Linux. They work on the whole platform, even parts they do not directly make money off. This is called investment.

            (5) What exactly would you break Steam into being? One app for reviews, another for buying, and another for launching games? Break the development studio into a different company? Even if Epic is throwing around money made from its game engine and games?

            • JackbyDev@programming.dev
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              4 months ago

              If Valve was the company getting the exclusive deals and preventing Epic from selling things then I’d be more inclined to agree with OPs point.

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              6
              arrow-down
              16
              ·
              4 months ago

              That’s the thing though, with their market share an hypothetical competitor could be better and people still wouldn’t switch, Steam is where their games are, it’s where their friends play, building everything from scratch elsewhere wouldn’t be worth the trouble even if the alternative was better.

              Store, development, forums, trading platform, launcher, online gaming services, hardware, streaming integrated into the platform, DRM… Valve has their hands all over the place and there’s a single person at the top of that. Wanna wait until they start becoming bad before considering that maybe it’s not a good thing that they have a hold on 70% of the market? Hell, just the fact that Newell could decide that they’re closing their doors tomorrow and no one has access to their games anymore should be fucking worrying to everyone.

              • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                17
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                4 months ago

                At what seams would you break Steam at? In this day and age those are just app store features. Is there anything you listed Sony, Microsoft or Apple don’t have?

                I do understand having a Steam library would make it harder to switch but most of us have a few GOG games and collect Epic free games as well (though, I haven’t even looked at the free Epic games since Christmas).

                People even download a launcher like Hero Launcher on the Steamdeck to run games from other stores. We have the freedom to use Steam in tagent with other stores and we do. You can buy a game off GOG and add it to Steam to launch it.

                Steam is simply the better product, hands down.

                Edit: To prove that I see your point but just don’t agree with it: Here is a quote from an ArsTechnica article about a judge viewing Steam as a monopoly.

                Despite those changes, Judge Coughenour once again dismissed Wolfire’s argument that Valve had engaged in “illegal tying” between the Steam platform (which provides game library management, social networking, achievement tracking, Steam Workshop mods, etc.) and the Steam game store (i.e., the part that sells the games). Those two sides of Steam form a single market, the judge wrote, because “commercial viability for a platform is possible only when it generates revenue from a linked game store.” What’s more, the suit has not shown there is any sufficient market demand “for fully functional gaming platforms distinct from game stores.”

                Does this judge expect me to buy a game from Epic which is missing features and then pay Valve a fee to contact the developer through Steam? Will Epic cheapen their price by 30% so I can “enable Steam features.” This would be unprecedented. I cannot go to Amazon to return/complain about a product I bought from Walmart.

      • Hexarei@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        43
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        4 months ago

        Their market dominance isn’t because of anticompetitive practices, it’s because of customer-friendly practices. People like it, so people use it.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          17
          ·
          4 months ago

          So? A private company having control of the market is never a good thing, no matter how good they are at the moment because you never know what will happen in the future.

          • YeetPics@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            17
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            people like it

            So?

            So if people trust a platform it’s hard to build an anti-trust case because the owner has a majority share.

            It’s okay if you don’t like them for whatever reason, but comparing them to google, apple and Disney is ignorant at best, dishonest at the very least.

            Rethink this stuff before you put yourself up as a reactionary lmao

            • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              16
              ·
              4 months ago

              Alright then, let’s do nothing until Newell dies and they become controlled by someone else that people don’t like as much, maybe you guys will wake up then.

              • candybrie@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                10
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                4 months ago

                “Let’s wait for them to start doing illegal stuff before we use the law against them.” Yeah, of course.

                • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  5
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  So let’s wait for the behemoth to really hurt the market enough that we notice it before we do something to prevent it from happening.

                  And people wonder why the world is turning to shit.

        • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          23
          ·
          4 months ago

          Majority also like Google. Like it or not, they still provide the best search engine.

            • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 months ago

              What’s a better alternative? Have tried all major ones except paid ones and I always return to Google. Maybe for basic stuff Duck Duck Go / Bing is fine, but once you start searching for local / non-English stuff, results were underwhelming.

              • fermuch@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                4 months ago

                I’ve been using kagi for a few months (6 according to my bank). It is paid. It is great. It’s so good I’ve switched my wife to it since Google was giving her a lot of garbage (she’s a non techie) and she says “it feels like Google used to be. The answers are what I was looking for. I forgot I was using Kagi”

              • karashta@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                4 months ago

                https://searx.space/

                My current favorite search engine. Just pick one that’s running out of your country or close to it. Hope it works as well for you as it does for me.

              • fossilesque@mander.xyz
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                4 months ago

                I bought a Kagi subscription within hours of finding the site. They’ll eventually enshittify but they’re very good for now.

              • frezik@midwest.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                4 months ago

                I want the answer to be a federated system, like YaCy. Which I tried to set up, and its results make AltaVista look good. Maybe good enough for a corporate intranet, but not the internet at large.

          • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            4 months ago

            There are lots of articles about how they make their search results worse on purpose for more profit. They alter search queries on the server side to give results for a search which is more aligned with an advertising partner. They inject AI into search results which can be wildly wrong.

          • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            Did they fix it? Last I tried it, all I could get was sponsored content and LLM spam.

            • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 months ago

              I use adblock so have no reference point how it looks like without adblock. I assume you would just scroll a bit lower to get actual results?

              • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                4 months ago

                Same (AdGuard) I meant like I’d consistently get all of the first page of results linking to hyper SEO clickbait sites / AMP links / Adsense affiliates (think multi-page/gallery/click-through articles and low quality content farm sites like CNET, Forbes, Quora, etc) with a smattering of straight up keyword banks, snippet aggregator spam, and chatbot articles full of longwinded made-up nonsense with zero payoff.

                Even more annoying was that Google started dumbing down all my searches, regardless of technical detail and specificity, just railroading me into simplistic drivel. Eventually verbatim/quotes syntax stopped working also, and that was the end of google’s usefulness to me.

      • Harvey656@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        40
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        Steam? Really out of all these, the the one that treats it’s customers properly and gives them any and all tools needed to make a proper purchase decision with many big sa