Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Communicators Is Big Tech Too Big

Apple were virtually on capitol hill for hearing on big tech and at the trust. Thats our discussion this week on the communicators. Joining us is cerebellar who is with the American Economic liberties project. Shes the executive director, and former congresswoman Barbara Comstock two is now a Senior Advisor at Baker Donelson. Sarah miller, the question i always ask quite a bit at the hearing was his big tech too big . What is your answer to that . Guest i think the obvious answer to that is absolutely. The members of the subcommittee, both democrats and republicans really focused in on the power of these corporations over the way that we communicate and the way that we engage in commerce. That was the dominant theme of this hearing, and he also got into the guts of how these businesses work, how they abuse their dominance, i think gauge and predatory behavior and just how they are hurting other businesses, small, medium sized businesses and everyday families. Families. It was really quite a remarkable hearing and just night and day from the hearings we saw just a couple of years ago when members of congress were grilling Mark Zuckerberg broglie didnt ask any kidnappings this get a percentage of the corporations work. Yesterday was a pretty remarkable moment in kind of the Ongoing Investigation into monopoly power in general but especially in regards to check platforms and Digital Markets. Host congresswoman comstock . Guest yesterday what we saw was a congress who, the gallup today has an 18 18 apl rating, was attacking four of the Great American Success Stories, and these are companies who have Approval Ratings in the 70s and 80s and have gotten us to this pandemic over these six months, five, six months, one of its connecting with work, we have a new company that truly come on during the pandemic, but also connecting us with our healthcare, telehealth has boomed over these platforms, and connecting our children with education which we now looks like it will go through the fall that will be the case. They had been helping Small Businesses. That is an area that wasnt discussed but all of these things demonstrate that these Tech Companies come from the world that works. When you think about over the past five or six months what his work in your life . Your smartphones have worked. Youve been able to google things or if if you use another platform you can look up information. Youve been able to connect with family and friends through calls like this pic youve been able to get your loved ones in connection with their doctors, this is the world that works were as congress with their 18 Approval Rating is that getting things done on covid, on the economy, and they need to be they are tone deaf and the chairman has been saying the American People dont really understand what tech is doing. The American People understand that pretty well because window try to get those unemployment checks it was the Tech Companies that had to go into a lot of the states and help them upgrade their technology so people would get their unemployment checks. Its the Tech Companies that are working with our healthcare providers. A lot of that its been, then that it will surely come toned and money. Are helping newspapers. They cut funds for that such think of a real contrast between the world that works which i was privileged to represent a lot of these companies, the ecosystem that they create witches all their Small Businesses. The next google, the next facebook or amazon, and i think theres a real contrast in that and you didnt hear a lot about the consumer welfare because the consumers like these companies. Host sarah miller . Guest i think one thing to note is that there are not going to be more facebooks, or amazons and more googles. Because are at the trust policy makers has allowed these handful of corporations to amass an enormous amount of power over the respective markets. To shut down competition and engage in self referencing and predatory behavior that is really tamped down on dynamism in the economy. These corporations rose to power because antitrust laws, and that policymakers focused on mckinney competition in markets when they were very small, and that focus shifted away. In fact, policymakers have encouraged this monopoly power and consolidation all across the economy. One thing that really came through in yesterdays hearing was that we hear a lot of rhetoric about standing up for Small Businesses from members of congress but yesterdays hearing actually put forward the voice of the Small Business people who are being preyed upon by these corporations, amazon, facebook, google, they have so much power as gatekeepers over our economy and over our commerce, and the really came through. Members of congress, members of that subcommittee lifted up the voices of Small Businesses whose livelihoods have been arbitrarily cut off by these corporations, or businesses whose Business Models and products have been relentlessly copied or acquired under anticompetitive reasons. That was really, really remarkable. These members understand how the copies were, i understand the predatory package and they really stood up for the first time in my kind of work in politics in a meaningful way for smaller businesses. And i think that congress is 18 of overwriting would go if we found more of it. Host when you talk about predatory practices, can you give an example . Guest sure. So amazon is a great example of this. Amazon owns a platform thats more than 2 million businesses used to reach customers, even more independent when so many businesses have to reach customers through online means. What amazon also does is sell their own products on that platform. They have the benefit of seeing all of the data that goes through their platform about other merchants businesses and their sales. What they have done with that data is use it to copy other businesses products and then preference their version above these other businesses. So this is a practice that weve heard anecdotally happen regularly. So thats one problem. The other problem is just that they have so much information about these corporations and they tied their own services together. So if you want to sell a product on amazon, what you see is you might have more ability to reach customers if you use the amazons of film and services. So this is something that is not legal and should be enforced against it but hasnt been, and it really extracts huge fees on Small Businesses. Yesterday the institute for selfreliance came out with the report showing amazon charges 30 future businesses that transact on its platform, up from just 18 a couple of years ago. That extraction and that rent seeking hurt Small Businesses. The tax on Small Business and one that members of congress yesterday spoke out against and held these corporations accountable for. Host Barbara Comstock, what is your response to what you avert . Guest i actually didnt come i dont think what a lot of that because a lot of the things are talking about were often anonymous and it wouldnt let the different Business Leaders respond, like when youre talking about your information is online, as somebody was trying to explain you can actually delete some of your things, delete your Search History and if you dont know how to do that you can go on to google, how do i delete my Search History, and you can find out. They didnt want to hear really the answers. I thought the hearing yesterday was much like the hearing the day before with attorney general barr where they had already made their decision. They were telling their stories or anecdotes and then they wouldnt really let the different Business Leaders try and describe that. I think they were trying to, i think the business, the ceos, explain the business that we run, let us try to explain it. It didnt quite fit in there 30 seconds but i have to strongly disagree with the concept that we are not going to see more about these companies. You see people largely on the left complaining about we do want to have these Big Companies. Well, china has a lot of these Big Companies and thats our competition here. When you look at the 20 Top Companies in this space, 11 11f them are american, nine attorneys. The european model, the chairman of this committee wants to follow, they dont have any big Tech Companies because they dont look at the consumer welfare. They are looking at all these other issues that the democrats were looking at. Republicans were attacking for more on the bias issue in the antitrust issue. The antitrust issue at stake here is consumers, if ever a overwhelming market, ironically those who with her know we talked about they all compete with each other. With of the Big Companies like microsoft. When you look at browsers, Internet Explorer was the top 110 years ago and now chrome is. That came through competition one, ten jessica. Who was the original search engine. Remember yahoo . It was 1998 companies that said how they won the search wars. They are the new aol and nobody can compete with them. And then this is a 2007 cover of Forbes Magazine where they said nokia. Who is ever going catch nokia . In 2007 the iphones came out. Then American Companies to compete. I think ten years from now youre going to see a lot of Different Things going on in this space, and these particular leaders understand you have to innovate or you die. Keeping up with the competition just an example that we are on the zoo. Whom came out of nowhere and was a winter because the responded to consumers. I dont need members of congress who dont i worked with the Tech Community a lot but i would not pretend to be an expert on technology in any way and certainly these members of congress have never run a business, try to start a company. There are stories, you can read books, yahoo , search and how they lost their dominance. Lets let the free market work this out. That has always been the republican position. I certainly was happy to see represented sensenbrenner who is worked on this a long time talk about we dont need new antitrust laws. We can look at particular examples, see if they have any violations but we dont need the kind of new laws that chairman sicily is like but were we go in and break up our most Successful Companies that are investing like 20, billions and billions of dollars. Some these companies are investing 3 billion in r d so we can compete. Entropy with temperatures are biggest competition right out in the tech space. The eu lost in the tech space a long time ago, yet we have people like chairman sicily any kind advocate for eu [inaudible] the Great American Success Stories anymore. I have a theory to that. One is corporations exert extreme market dominance. Amazon is 75 in ecommerce. Facebook and google controlled Digital Advertising markets. They have monopoly. Thats a of the ticket when an apple controls the app app stoe which the millions of developers which consumers. So theres a whole range of issues both related to market power and the predatory behavior that that market power enables these companies to participate in. It was remarkable to me that you acidulated Mark Zuckerberg and jeff bezos admitting to acquiring competitors to shut down competition. Rather than investing in the innovation that Barbara Comstock was talking about. That is been their strategy from the beginning, to buy it competitors, to squash competition and to maintain dominance through through a stf monopolizing markets and through leveraging Network Effects. On another point the china talking point is really quite tiresome. Its a good scare tactic but our economy has not been successful because we have a handful of goliaths that dont really innovate, that maintain a dominant position. China has infinite state capital to support these large institutions, but our strength as an economy has always been because of our dynamism and because of the innovation that real competition creates. So this is really a myth that we should look towards and not fear of authoritarian communist regimes about our economy after, and it is a really dangerous one. Facebook, amazon, google, they are all squashing innovation and crushing competition, and at the same time hurting businesses all across the country and really putting people out of business. I think some of these talking points about china, its really a scare tactic, quite honestly, and its not rooted in what has historically made our economy so strong, which is our ability for somebody with a good idea to compete on the merits and drawn that way. That is not have these corporations are growing now. In the very beginning, yes, they were innovative, no question about it and to deliver important services. But they could do that in an environment that is competitive. Essentially the failure of antitrust enforcers and the policymakers to understand that these corporations were achieving dominance and to buy into the talking points about being innovators really has been a huge problem for the last 12 years or so. So i think her point about 2007, early 2000s needs to be updated. We weve not seen the type of innovation in years and that is because you cannot compete anymore in in a realistic way against facebook and google. They can crush you, they can off your belly to reach customers, amazon is the same. Guest i want to make clear that my point on china is china has very different model and im not advocating for that at all. Im advocating for us to continue the light touch regulation, not the heavy government knows best, the chairman telling us he knows how to run a tech Company Wants to go in and decide what peace it should be together or not. I think when you let the recently succeeded for years in the tech space and has bipartisan support for this was because we have these Tech Companies who are thriving on these are American Companies, american Success Stories. Yahoo passed up the opportunity to buy google, and some of these comp is say hey, im not going to get bought and they go on to be huge successes. Certainly if you listen to the ceos yesterday, when jeff bezos left his job and started out, the dot com double hit in the late 90s, he wasnt even profitable than by the state added. These are american Success Stories that are working. Here are on zoom, another american Success Story can but we want to have American Free market principles. What im saying is we dont want to adopt the european model. The chinese model is off the table, but china is competition. When you look in areas like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, our major Tech Companies are making major investments. Weve been helping nih and our Healthcare Community insurer, help us live, cure for diseases. Google helps are small pieces. Certainly if you want to start at the business, you grow with google over or with amazon ande their tools. You can didnt go off and start your own company. Probably the next google or the next facebook will come from the talent pool at these companies support. I think the most important thing that the u. S. Government should invest in and these companies certainly do is the talent, pipeline, and human capital. All of these companies are companies that have invested in people and invested in education and creating the pipeline of talent and they are so important to that, and certainly the u. S. Government, one of the things i worked him when i was in congress was more money for the tech Talent Pipeline because those are the jobs of the future, the jobs will make the United States able to what would be a challenging environment with china and the threats we face with them, not by adopting china tactics but by adopting the Great American Success Stories that have allowed our Tech Community to be number one in the world. And i want people talk about breaking it up, what is going to come after that . We dont know. You and i havent run Tech Companies. I want the people who know how to do this to go out and do this and let thousands of flowers bloom and allow the ecosystem, the ecosystem for great talent, for great immunity and technology is to have that Talent Pipeline and have companies that can innovate, make mistakes. All the companies you have for the come they made mistakes. They had failures as well as successes. Thats the story of technology, and whe