Here is an interesting article. As part of the “techlash,” commentators have recently started asking whether the big 3 tech companies (Amazon, Facebook, Google) could be subject to antitrust regulations. Although the article and commentators largely focus on the effect these companies have on consumers, there is also a case to be made that these companies are stifling innovation by start-ups.
This was a very interesting article. I particularly found the discussion of Google and impacts on startups intriguing. Throughout law school, I developed an interest in tech, particularly coding so that I could customize my computer to work better for me.
This process of learning very basic coding and customizing my computer was so difficult. It was very hard to find relevant results easily and even harder to compile relevant information considering different formatting of browsers and text editors. Furthermore, re-arranging text within the text editor was difficult due to limitation within the editing program (an example of a text editor is Microsoft Word). Throughout the course of learning, I have discovered that some Windows products for instance have special coding, often called “cryptic” by techies. I do not know whether this benefits the customer by way of a better computer experience using Windows programs; that is certainly possible. What I do know is that things like this make it very difficult to do things outside the defined limits of a program and make it difficult to easily move text between browser and computer programs or between programs themselves.
The computer is the modern day library for most people (I know that’s a fairly broad claim). But it is interesting to consider the impact of tech giants with idosyncratic coding that makes it difficult for the average person to things like copy & paste text, re-arrange text or create special documents (like a resume which requires text editing and spacing other than writing a simple essay). Do these things have impacts on persons right to information (if there is one) in today’s age? Beyond that I could see how difficult it would be to create a program with wide consumer appeal if the giants have codes that are not friendly to entrepreneurial developers. Is there a point where the computer is so wide-spread and the limitations of tech are so defined by a few companies that innovation is in fact limited? I could see that but then again I only have a one-sided view point currently. One related area to check out in software development would be “open-source” programs where users can add features to working programs. Some companies have added such features to their own programs such as Microsoft Word and Visual Studio where people can create add-ons for programs for Microsoft Word, Excel etc. It will be interesting to see if users become better with coding over time and big players allow more customer customization, or whether other players will be more competitive over the long run. That suggests a distinction between a free market fix and a legal fix. Maybe the solution will be a mix of the two; maybe it will be one or the other. Regardless this was an interesting read. Thanks for posting.