I think many replies understood my comment as "every incumbent-friendly policy is laissez-faire", and argued that. What I really meant was the opposite implication, "laissez-faire policies are incumbent-friendly". (The "another name" quip came from how it's sold to the public.)

Re fitness - if you define it in terms of survival, you get a circular argument. Is a brainworm that controls the host (e.g. to get some subsidies) the fittest? Based on your example, you think it's not. So how do you define fitness?

What I am saying is different - incumbent has an advantage, it already adapted at least once to it's environment. That gives it an edge over something that is adapting for the first time. Of course that doesn't mean incumbent cannot fail at readaptation or the new thing cannot win. The favor from gods has limits.

(Incumbent also has a way to mobilize resources in a way that can be difficult for a newcomer. As was also pointed out, applying biological theories to businesses can be tricky, so this is perhaps more relevant.)

You might want to revise your original post's wording, which quite directly implies that the incumbent-friendly policies that emerged in the last few decades, specifically, are laissez-faire.

Your original post is responding to a post critiquing incumbent-friendly policies that only emerged in the last few decades.

Your point that market economics alone can favor incumbents isn't wrong, but that's a non-sequitir response to the post you are responding to.

Market economics aren't the incumbent-friendly policies that only emerged in the last few decades. The artificial mechanisms instituted through purchased political influence are.

I don't think my post is a non-sequitur. Politicians and thinktanks (and rich incumbents) are still selling laissez-faire (free market) policies as the remedy for the direct incumbent-friendly policies.

My point is, they are not the remedy. One example is the "abundance" framing from Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.

I like your comment, but I'm not sure about this part:

> Is a brainworm that controls the host (e.g. to get some subsidies) the fittest? Based on your example, you think it's not. So how do you define fitness?

The parent comment says (with my emphasis):

>> a Tesla taking in $38B of government subsidy or a google/apple getting special lenient legal treatment is not laissez-faire.

As you note, there is something of an assumption here that the claim being responded to is that all incumbent-friendly policies are laissez-faire.

But there does not appear to be a claim that successfully seeking large subsidies isn't a type of corporate fitness.

Or the entire concept of 'too big to fail', which a great slogan for a terrible idea. If reverses the incentives from spreading risks and organising them to be uncorrelated out to instead concentrating them and encouraging them to correlate because then when it looks like a company might lose money the public will probably pick up the bill.

> No, the nature favors the fittest

Actually nature favours selfish reproduction. Take care not to be distracted by "fitness" when looking at evolution. Fitness is only defined by reproductive success.

Businesses compete for resources. But they don't reproduce, so comparing nature to businesses is often pointless.

Fittest is a question of global optimum. Nature favors local optima.

An invasive species (ie. Google, Amazon, and Apple) can out-compete and starve out an entire ecosystem.

Like invasive lionfish, which have no natural enemies in the Florida Keys.

Big tech has destroyed the open web.

Big tech killed the bookstore.

Big tech is now destroying Hollywood.

Big tech is becoming your grocery store and primary care.

They're guardians that keep small companies from growing big. They can buy them out or threaten to pour billions into out-competing.

They're growing into markets they never should have been in, then snuffing out the incumbents.

They're making it impossible for new businesses to enter after them. (You try to build a smartphone. There can be only two.)

Now they're putting price pressure on employees. They're limiting the upside for entrepreneurs and VC firms. They have all the cards, and they tax us and behave like capricious gods.

I'm a capitalist. I think competition is good. But what we have right now isn't a fair playing field.

Big tech needs to be broken up to restore the forest to growth. Thankfully YC and a16z are starting to feel the same way and are issuing statements about this rampant, wanton monopolization.

Agree. Amazon shouldn't be able to be an online retailer, a drug store, a food store, a web services company, an AI company AND a shipping company

It is based on performance too - it may seem that investment is fueling this for now, but at any time if their profits stop, so does the funding.

If you want a level playing field for competition, you need some mechanism that will level it. Whatever that is, clearly not laissez-faire.

(I would also say that capitalism is more than a competition of firms, in fact, private ownership of capital is by its nature anti-competitive for citizens.)

Anti trust legislation has existed for decades, government needs to enforce it

I don't think that is a viable strategy, honestly. Antitrust regulation doesn't really punish anyone for misbehaving (geez this billionaire just got his company broken up, what a terrible thing we have done to him that will surely prevent someone from trying to merge something else) and doesn't address the crucial issue of emergent social inequality. It's a stopgap at best.

I don't think anyone claimed that antitrust laws can eliminate social inequality. The context is creating or preserving a more competitive business environment.

Bailing out large corporations and heavy regulations are not laissez-faire capitalism. We haven't had laissez-faire capitalism for at least a quarter decade (I don't know enough about late 20th-century economics to hold an opinion there).

If the tech industry and the wider "disrupting" industries haven't been laissez-faire since the 90s then what on earth do you consider laissez-faire?

Governments around the world have let these industries do whatever they want with almost zero oversight and almost zero repercussions for anything. For decades. These companies and industries do whatever they want. Its only in the last few years that a couple of governments have finally started to push back a teeny tiny bit.

Industries cannot be "laissez-faire". Economies, or systems of governance, can be laissez-faire.

> Governments around the world have let these industries do whatever they want with almost zero oversight and almost zero repercussions for anything. For decades. These companies and industries do whatever they want. Its only in the last few years that a couple of governments have finally start push back a teeny tiny bit.

Are you claiming that the tech industry wasn't bound by intellectual property laws until recently?

i didn’t say those words at all, but since you bring it up, yes, i think palantir, many AI companies trainings, and many many other companies have completely ignored IP laws, yes.

these and surrounding “disruptive” industries have been behaving as if they’re in a laissez-faire environment for a couple of decades at this point. there are certainly strong arguments which would fairly argue “Look at the havoc they have wreaked on us. Like a small child who can’t control themselves, clearly some of them are incapable of self-regulation. it’s time to reign some of them in, and harshly. they’re behaving like uncontrollable spoiled and bratty children setting our house on fire. time for a spanking.” in too many instances those arguments would be on solid ground and tough to earnestly argue they’re wrong.

dude is saying it's even worse than laissez faire

it's laissez faire towards monopolies, let them be

but not laissez faire when a company is about to collapse, then the government rescues them. laissez faire would be less sympathetic. i.e. bank bailouts of 2008, automaker bailouts of 2020, current intel bailouts

thus not only is the government allowing monoplies/duopolies, but in fact pumping money into them to continue their survival

Capitalism with strong antitrust enforcement should do the trick.

We've been asleep at the wheel for the better part of a quarter century. We need to dust the rule book off and get back to work.

"Big tech is now destroying Hollywood."

now you are overreaching, and just spouting non-sense

I suspect you're conflating two things into one.

> Why is Amazon gobbling up failing studios on the cheap?

For their back catalogue. The audiences are after familiarity ("more of the same") and nostalgia. The studios in turn are terrified of taking risks, which is why nearly everything they release has been a sequel, prequel, reboot, or in-universe spinoff for more than 15 years. Buying up a studio gives access and control over their massive quantity of pre-chewed dough to feed their cookie cutter productions.

In this Amazon behaves like a PE entity: buy up for cheap, roll up what they can, reduce quality, and milk for as much money as possible before tossing the empty (& possibly toxic) husk aside.

> Why did Amazon, Apple, and Netflix offshore production to the UK, Eastern Europe, and Asia when the US has infrastructure and subsidies?

They have been following what the studios have been doing for decades. Even in 1990's a good chunk of US productions were often filmed in Canada. (To lower production costs, of course.) UK was known for some of their film studios even before then, so made a good early target when Canada started to become too costly and you needed to move elsewhere.

You can see where this is going. We're already seeing more productions filmed and located in/near China[ß]. As the costs there will eventually creep up too, expect to see locations shift to places like Indonesia, Pakistan and South-Eastern Africa.

ß: Part of China's visibility and increased footprint on films is due to a clear political drive. The CCP has set up structures where they strongly encourage their industry arm to fund film and TV/streaming production elsewhere in the world, buying up influence and dictating how Chinese get portrayed in the scripts.

"Why is Amazon gobbling up failing studios on the cheap?"

so you rather let them bankrupt???

"Why did Amazon, Apple, and Netflix offshore production to the UK, Eastern Europe, and Asia when the US has infrastructure and subsidies? Almost everyone I know in IATSE is out of work and contemplating leaving the industry for good"

less woke propaganda, we all know why hollywood failling but you refuse to see it

maybe next time listen to your actual fans rather listening to activist

> less woke propaganda, we all know why hollywood failling but you refuse to see it

seriously...?