09x14 - Big Tech monopolies

[bunniefuu]

LAST WEEK TONIGHT
WITH JOHN OLIVER

Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver.

Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been another busy week.

Boris Johnson narrowly survived
a no-confidence vote,

the U.S. Postal Service
unveiled a Nancy Reagan stamp

in an apparent attempt
to cancel out Pride Month,

and the House committee
investigating January 6th

held its first prime-time hearing,

prompting a crisis
for conservative media.

Fox News opted not to air it at all,

and OAN went one step better,
airing a tribute to Tr*mp instead,

featuring this exquisite
transition to commercials.

You have inspired countless,
millions

and shown our nation
what it truly means

to make America great, again.

For One America News,
I'm Pearson Sharp.

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delivered within 48 hours

in discreet packaging on approval.

No one will know but you…

And your mailbox.

Perfect. Absolutely no notes.

With the sole exception of maybe
spare a thought for the mailbox there.

It got given a raging flag boner
by discreetly packaged pills,

and now it needs
to sit there frustrated

and hope for a pigeon
to land just right.

But we're going to start by checking
in on the midterm elections again.

In Arizona, currently represented
by two Democrats in the Senate:

Kyrsten Sinema,
the only senator who seems to buy

all her clothes exclusively
from girl boss pyramid schemes,

and Mark Kelly,
who is up for reelection.

Republicans actually think they have
a real chance of unseating him,

which has led
to a competitive primary.

The best-known contender
is probably Mark Brnovich,

Arizona's current AG,
and whose whole vibe

can probably best be summed up
by this video that he released

to celebrate the end
of the state's ban on nunchucks,

which proved so popular,
he later released this sequel.

People, you want more chucks?
You got more chucks.

I know that that is ridiculous,

but I personally am enjoying
Danny McBride's newest character

and I'm excited
to see where he goes with it.

But Brnovich faces resistance
from die-hard Tr*mp supporters,

who feel that he didn't do enough
to try and overturn the 2020 election.

Which has opened up space
for candidates like Jim Lamon,

a retired energy executive
who has made waves with this TV spot.

OLD JOE

SHIFTY KELLY

CRAZYFACE PELOSI

The good people of Arizona
have had enough of you.

It's time for a showdown.

I'm Jim Lamon
and I approve this message.

You shouldn't have approved it, Jim,
because your ad is terrible.

Shifty Kelly
is supposed to be Mark Kelly,

who's married to Gabby Giffords, who
survived being sh*t in the head in 2011.

sh**ting at her husband
is at best insensitive.

And it's frankly amazing that a grown
man dressed in a sheriff costume

that looks like it was discontinued
by Party City

is somehow just the second most
distasteful part of that ad.

But surprisingly,
Tr*mp didn't endorse Lamon, either.

Instead, he's endorsed Blake Masters.

If you think his name alone makes him
sound like a third-tier Bond villain,

wait until you hear
about his everything else.

Masters is a Peter Thielbacked,
self-described conservative nationalist.

And since Tr*mp's endorsement, things
have started to surface about him,

like this audio from a podcast
that he appeared on back in April.

We do have g*n v*olence problem in
this country, and it's g*ng v*olence.

Right? It's gangs,
it's people in Chicago, St. Louis,

sh**ting each other.

Very often,
Black people, frankly.

Blaming Black people
for g*n v*olence in America

is just outrageously,
un creatively r*cist.

But also, it's unsurprising
from someone who, and this is true,

was called an "immigration patriot"
by the white nationalist website VDARE,

which praised him,
saying he "checks all the right boxes".

And "he's an immigration patriot who
checks all the white supremacist boxes"

just isn't what you want to hear
about a man running for office.

You don't even want to hear it
in a "Sex and the City" voiceover.

"That night, Charlotte met Blake,

who was an immigration patriot
who checked all the boxes.

I couldn't help but wonder, were we
just searching for our white knight?"

Masters also embraces
a national abortion ban,

has questioned whether January 6th
was set up by the FBI,

and then there is this interview,

in which he chooses the exact
wrong answer to the softball question,

"Who's a subversive thinker
who's underrated?"

- Subversive thinker that's underrated?
- Yeah.

I'll probably get in trouble
for saying this.

I'd say, how about,
like, Theodore Kaczynski?

Good one actually, yeah.

Probably not great to be talking about
the Unabomber while campaigning.

Yeah, probably not!
I'm sorry, Theodore Kaczynski?

What are you,
his mom when he's in trouble?

"Theodore John Kaczynski,
have you been sending mail bombs

to airlines and universities
around the country

from a remote cabin
in the Montana wilderness?

You are so grounded, mister!
Naughty Theodore!"

Masters insists that he doesn't endorse
the b*mb aspect of the Unabomber,

which to be fair, was a pretty
key part of his whole deal.

But Jim Lamon has now produced
an att*ck ad featuring that,

and many other terrible things
that Masters has said,

and his pushback to it
was full of even more red flags.

As my competitors self-destruct,
these att*cks are going to increase.

Right, they'll interview
my classmates from middle school.

They'll pore over whatever
I may have written as a teenager,

try to twist it all out of proportion.

But I'm not going to get sucked into
that kind of petty, dirty politics.

Holy sh*t. "They will pore over
what I may have written as a teenager"

is just not a normal thing
to worry about.

It's like saying, "My petty opponents
will go from dog pound to dog pound,

asking the staff what I may have
done with all those stray dogs.

Classic petty, dirty politics."
Except no! It isn't, Blake!

It's weird, specific politics that
we now need to know a lot more about.

This primary
is very much up in the air.

And we don't know whether
it'll go to Nunchucks McGee,

the world's most pathetic cowboy,

or a guy who liked the Unabomber's
earlier, funnier stuff.

What we do know is that things
are going to intensify in Arizona,

that these results could well shift
the balance of power in the Senate,

and that, crucially,
someone probably needs

to interview Blake Masters' middle
school classmates as soon as possible.

And now, this!

And Now…

Sean Hannity's Favorite Joke.

To coin a phrase, was a total Schiff
show, if you know what I mean.

We call it the 2020 DNC
Adam Schiff Show.

Capitol Hill is now descended
into a total Adam Schiff show.

Adam Schiff show, as I call it.

I call it an Adam Schiff show.
This latest Schiff show.

Another Schiff show.
Schiff show.

Moscow doesn't give
a Adam Schiff about sanctions.

And they're full of, you know what,
Adam Schiff.

And then you could stop speaking
out of your Adam Schiff-hole.

You can't make this Adam Schiff up.

He bombed the living Adam Schiff
out of !sis.

Let me put it a delicate way.
They're Adam Schiff-ing in their pants.

That's actually total bull-Schiff.
Bull-Schiff.

It's total B.S. or total B. Schiff.
Adam Schiff.

Spotify is in deep trouble,
or Adam Schiff, as I call it.

Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns the internet,

a world-changing resource
that was initially sold to us like this.

We installed the internet on our
computer just a short time ago,

and I haven't been able
to get the kids off it ever since.

Not only do they play the typical
computer games that all the kids enjoy,

but their curiosity
for learning has skyrocketed.

Peter is constantly
quoting sports statistics,

and he can tell you the best
surfing spots around the globe.

Not to mention the improvement
in Peter's grades, and Dasha's, too.

Okay, first, Peter was not checking
surfing spots or sports statistics.

Peter was masturbating.
That is what Peter was doing.

But also, spare a thought for Dasha
there, who gets "also good grades."

I hope you grew up to be
an early investor in cell phones,

made millions of dollars, and never
spoke to your weird family ever again.

We're going to talk about the fact
that our experiences on the internet

are now dominated
by a very small handful of companies,

who are getting pretty used
to throwing their weight around.

In 2020, the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Antitrust

released a massive 450-page report

detailing anticompetitive conduct
by Apple, Amazon, Facebook,

and Alphabet,
that's the parent company of Google.

And the findings
couldn't have been clearer.

"Each platform serves as a gatekeeper
over a key channel of distribution,"

allowing these giants to pick "winners
and losers throughout our economy."

And I know, for some,
that's part of the appeal.

Apple's the empire of the smartphone
with all its attendant services.

Facebook's the repository
of your identity.

Amazon's the online world
backed by cloud infrastructure.

And Alphabet
is all things search.

These companies have created
products that we can't live without.

They are gargantuan businesses
that are, for the most part,

loved and respected by the most
important people, their customers.

Are they monopolists?
I honestly don't care. I don't!

Wake me up when someone
else can do it better!

Okay, so,
there's a few problems with that.

In order to be woken up, at some
point you do need to go to sleep,

something that I feel Jim Cramer,
a man who constantly exudes

big "running late
to my child's thing" energy,

hasn't done in the last decade.

But second, a big thing these
companies are accused of doing

is suppressing
their competition so completely

that we'd never actually know
if someone else could do it better

because they'll never
get a fair chance to try.

That is the problem here.

It's not that tech companies are
inherently bad because they are big,

it's that they're engaging
in anticompetitive behavior.

And here's where, unusually,
I might have some good news.

Because there are two bills
before Congress right now,

with bipartisan support,

that could curtail at least
some of big tech's excesses.

But for reasons
that we will get into later,

if they don't pass in the next month,
they're not likely to pass at all.

So, tonight,
let's talk about tech monopolies,

the hidden harm that they can do,
and how best to address that.

And let's start
with a tiny bit of history.

In the past, the U.S. has taken strong
action to break up harmful monopolies.

In the early 20th century,
we broke up Standard Oil.

And as recently as 40 years ago,

the government took action
against who else but AT&T,

our business daddy who left
for cigarettes and never came home.

They were actually "the largest
firm on the planet" back then,

and broadly well-respected
and considered good.

Which is to say, unrecognizable
from the AT&T of today.

But crucially,
that popularity may well have been

because people had no alternatives,

you had to rent your phone
from AT&T,

and they were in charge of both
local and long-distance services,

which, as we now know,
were wildly overpriced.

And when MCI,
a much smaller company,

tried to offer long distance
phone service at a lower rate,

AT&T was not having it.

MCI, which charges
up to 50 percent less than Bell,

argued that AT&T
tried to put it out of business

by refusing to provide equipment
needed for long-distance transmission.

A key exhibit: AT&T's own notes
of a 1972 Florida meeting

by company executives
in which one said,

"Let's choke them off
before they get started".

Obviously, f*ck AT&T
now and forever.

But is that what that said?

'Cause the only bits of squiggle
that I can decode there are the words,

"Dangerous to Samanthas,"
a dollar sign,

something that weirdly
might be "Covid,"

and then there is something that's
no question, capital B, "Balls."

The DOJ then actually
filed an antitrust lawsuit,

which AT&T fought vigorously
for a decade.

And when, in 1984, it was "formally
broken up by the government,"

AT&T's chairman
warned the public

that we would come to regret
what had just happened.

I've had the conviction

and taken the position
in more than one forum

that the country
in the long run will be sorry.

I find it difficult to believe that
things will work as well in the future

as they have worked in the past.

But he was wrong.
Things actually worked better.

Because it turns out, ending a monopoly
is almost always a good thing,

whether it's AT&T or Standard Oil
or literally any game of Monopoly.

We didn't know it at the time,

but AT&T's dominance
was seriously holding back innovation.

But as soon as it wasn't controlling
the phone lines

and what you could attach
to its network,

many new products
started proliferating,

from the answering machine
to the modem.

The breakup of AT&T

was actually a key step
in producing the internet revolution,

giving us the web
as we now know it,

and Peter the ability to look up
sports stats, surfing spots,

and what we all know
he was really doing there.

The point is, when harmful monopolies
end, innovation flourishes.

And I want you
to bear that in mind

as we talk about the monopolies
of today, tech companies.

And tonight,
we're going to focus

on just one way that they
use their monopoly power,

something called self preferencing.

It's when companies unfairly favor
their products on their own platforms,

which have become so big that most
of us have no choice but to use them.

This is a particularly big problem
with these three companies,

and we're going to start with Apple.

Specifically, its App Store,
which is, basically,

the only place to download
software for your iPhone.

Which is already a little bit weird
when you think about it, right?

You can download any software
you like to your desktop computer,

but if you have an iPhone,

Apple has set it up so that its
App Store is the only game in town.

And Apple has been accused
of unfairly pushing its own apps

to the top of search results.

The company denies doing this,
but the Wall Street Journal found

Apple apps that generate revenue
through subscriptions or sales,

like music or books, showed up
first in 95 percent of searches

related to those apps.

But regardless, perhaps more important
is the stranglehold

that Apple has on developers who want
to get their apps onto your phone.

Because they are required
to use Apple's payment processor,

which takes a huge piece
of every dollar

that customers spend on those apps
and any digital purchases within them.

Apple takes a 30% commission
on sales of apps and in-app purchases.

So, if an app costs 4.99 upfront,
Apple collects $1.50.

Same goes for if you use an app to buy
digital goods, like virtual weapons,

or sign up for a subscription
to a monthly service.

It's true.
And that was pretty shocking to me.

It means that every time someone
spent money on the Jeremy Renner app,

something real people actually did,
to boost their posts about him

so they could hashtag
Be Seen by Jeremy Rennerm

again something humans wanted,

an amounts ranging from 1.99
to nearly 100 actual dollars,

Apple got a cut of that.

And that is blood money
right there.

Apple makes literally
billions and billions every year,

just on commissions
on App Store purchases.

And some app developers
have tried to find ways around this.

Tinder, for instance,
charges a higher price

if you subscribe through the app
than if you do it on their website.

If you open Netflix on your iPhone
and you don't have an account,

you get a message reading,
"Trying to join Netflix?

You can't sign up for Netflix
in the app. We know it's a hassle.

After you're a member,
you can start watching in the app."

And you can see
why Netflix would do that.

It doesn't want to lose a third
of its subscription revenue to Apple.

Because it needs that money to promote
its Netflix Pride Month collection!

Which is absolutely great.
Scroll by the dozen standup specials

mocking the trans community
and it's right there!

Shine with pride, guys!

And while Apple will say
that it's lowered its commissions

for certain small app developers,
and now even allows some apps

to link to an external website
and bypass commissions,

a key reason that happened is that
they were put under extreme pressure

from lawsuits
and from regulators overseas.

And if you are thinking, "Apple
is not the only game in town, right?"

What about Google's app store?"

They charge similarly
high commissions to developers.

And the fact is,
"over 99 percent of smartphones"

"are part of either Google's
or Apple's app ecosystem."

Let's actually talk a bit
about Google now.

Because their app store is clearly
only a small part of their story.

As I'm sure you know, they
absolutely dominate online searches.

Last year, Google conducted 90%
of the world's internet searches.

When billions of people
asked trillions of questions,

it was Google
that provided the answers,

using computer algorithms
known only to Google.

They have this phrase they use,
"Competition is just a click away."

They have no competition.

Bing, their competition,
has 2 percent of the market.

They have 90 percent.

Exactly.

People use Google to the extent that
"googling" something is now a verb.

You can't say that
for any other search engine.

No one has ever said
"I'm going to Bing it,"

except for maybe Bing Crosby
announcing he's about to masturbate.

But that's it.

And Google has exploited
their market dominance in subtle ways,

having to do with the search results
that it shows you.

Because it used to be,
when you googled something,

you got a page
that looked like this,

a series of blue links
to various pages across the internet

that Google's algorithm had determined
to be the most relevant.

And that was the company's goal
at the time.

As its co-founder Larry Page
said in 2004,

"Most portals show their own content
above content elsewhere on the web.

We feel that's a conflict of interest.

We want to get you out of Google and
to the right place as fast as possible."

But when you search
for something today,

you get a lot of Google content
before anything else appears.

The Markup found Google

devotes 41 percent of the first page
of its results on mobile devices

to its own properties,
and what it calls direct answers.

Meaning that "a user would have
to scroll nearly halfway down the page

before reaching the first organic
result in that search."

Now, Google
disputes their methodology,

but think about what it is like
when you search for something.

Let's say you want to look
up dolphins.

So, you google, "dolphin animal,"
and you get this.

A bunch of pictures of dolphins
on Google Images.

A bunch of buttons up
top like "sounds"

that mostly lead you
to videos on YouTube,

also owned by Google,
by the way,

a section on the right side that's mostly
links to related Google searches,

like "orca" or "Amazon river dolphin"
and a box of answers to questions

that people have asked
about dolphins,

like "What are five interesting facts
about dolphins?"

or "Is dolphin a friendly animal?",
"Can a dolphin love you?"

And while you've never even thought
of that as a possibility,

suddenly, you're curious,
so, you click on it, and it says

"dolphins have also shown loving
emotions towards humans."

And your heart
kind of flutters for a moment

because who knew that there was room
in a dolphin's heart for love?

Maybe there is room in one for you?

And then you see more questions
like "Do dolphins protect humans?"

Which they must, right? After all,
we now learned, they can love us.

But the answer is "there just isn't
any reliable evidence that it's true."

And what the f*ck does that mean?

That they're willing to love,
but not protect us?

They're just going to throw
our love away?

And as the feeling of betrayal
starts to creep in,

you see that others have searched
"Are dolphins evil?"

And the answer is, "Dolphins
have a huge capacity for evil."

Which, of course they do.
They're monsters with no understanding

that you might've opened up to them
for the first time in a long time,

and they'd abandon you
like you're nothing?

And then you see
"What do dolphins think of humans?"

And you can barely even breathe
as you open this one,

but you know the truth
before it even appears:

"dolphins are essentially bribed
with fish to interact with humans."

Even though you're hurt, at least
you can accept that it's not you,

it was never you,
it was the f*cking dolphin!

And the point is, throughout
that whole emotional rollercoaster,

you never even left Google.

In fact, one analysis found
that two-thirds of searches on Google

ended without ever clicking
to another web property.

Information that Google
feeds you in searches like that

may have been
"copied from other sources,

sometimes without their knowledge
or consent."

And if you're thinking, "It's free
information. Why does it matter

if I read it on Google or on the site
that they took it from?"

Site traffic is one of the major tools
that many websites,

especially free ones,
use to sell ad space,

so taking away visitors to their site

is, essentially,
taking money out of their pocket.

And when Yelp explicitly
refused to have their data scraped,

Google told them the only way to have
their site's content removed

was for it to be "removed from
Google's general results entirely."

And as the CEO of Yelp explains,
that is basically a death sentence.

- How important is that first page?
- It's the first few links on the page.

Is the majority of where user attention
goes, where the traffic flows.

If you're not at the top of the page
or at the bottom of the first page,

or on the second page,
that's going to affect your business?

If you're on the second page,
forget it, you're not a real business.

Exactly.

And putting the merits of Yelp aside,
Google's algorithm shouldn't determine

whether or not
someone's business is real.

Frankly, that distinction
should only be withheld

if someone's business includes
the words "Instagram influencer."

Because that is not a job, you're
not a business, you're just attractive,

independently wealthy,
and it's sunny outside.

That is all that is happening there.

And before Jim Cramer says,
"Who cares?

Build a better product
and you'll land on the front page,"

the top results Google feeds you
may not be the best ones.

Take Google Flights.

It used to be that if you googled
"NYC to Boise,"

your top results
would be links to sites like these.

But now, you'll almost always
get this Google Flights widget

at the top of the page,

already set up, so that you can stay
on Google and find a flight,

without clicking anywhere else.

And while you, personally,
might scroll down past that,

many don't,
and the industry has felt this.

As one travel analyst wrote,

"The fact that Google is leveraging
its dominance as a search engine

into taking market share
away from travel competitors

is no longer even debatable."

And Google might say that it's
at the top because it is the best.

But The Markup found that Google
flights did not always display

the cheapest fares
or all available flights.

So, I guess that does kind of explain
why Google Flights' banner image

is a woman
and a child hiking somewhere

while pointing at an airplane
that they are not on,

seemingly saying, "What the f*ck?
There are flights here?

Google told us our best option
was to walk to Denver!"

Google, like Apple, will quibble with
a lot of what I have just told you.

They will tell you they send billions
of clicks outside of Google every day,

and that they don't preference
Google Flights in searches,

which, okay, Google.

They will also tell you that Yelp
and other companies

now have tools to specify
what information gets scraped,

although that only happened
after serious pressure from the FTC.

And if you're noticing
a theme here,

that these companies do the right thing
when they're pushed up against the wall

that's a little bit the point.

But arguably the company
most guilty of self-preferencing

is Amazon, founded, of course, by a man
rich enough to buy absolutely anything,

including, seemingly,
the rights to Pitbull's identity.

Amazon reportedly controls


online marketplace sales.

It hosts about 2.3 million
active third-party sellers

from all around the world.

And to those sellers, like this man,
who sold sporting goods,

it is close to the only game in town.

You've got to be on Amazon.

You have to be there
because that's where everyone is.

That 100 million Prime subscribers.

Amazon executives have told us
that there are many options out there.

There is Walmart, there is Alibaba,
as a seller, you've got options.

I've heard that response from Amazon
executives before and we did that.

We listed all of our products
on every other online marketplace.

All of the others
that were non-Amazon combined

did about 10 percent
of what we were doing on Amazon.

Exactly. Amazon basically
is the marketplace.

It's essentially the only place
to sell anything on the internet,

unless, that is, you're looking
to offload some human teeth.

Because then,
it's Craigslist all the way, baby.

And for a third-party seller,

the most important thing in the world
is something called the "buy box."

It's that little box that shows up
on any Amazon product page,

where you can instantly click to buy.

So, when we searched
for Duracell AAA batteries,

we got this page, and here
is the buy box, right here,

where with just one click,
we could buy a pack for $14.

And you might assume
that that is the best deal,

but if you click
on this little box below,

you can see multiple other sellers
who are offering the same product,

many at a lower price.

The problem is,
most people aren't going to see that

because an estimated 80% of Amazon
sales go through that first buy box,

and it's even more
for mobile purchases.

Because, if we've learned
anything so far tonight,

it's that nobody ever,
ever wants to scroll down.

So, only one seller
gets to be in that box.

And nobody except Amazon knows
how its algorithm picks the winner.

But it sure seems
to consistently favor Amazon,

with one analysis finding that the
company chose itself for the buy box

for about 40 percent of products,

while the next highest seller got in
just half of 1% of popular products.

And even when the buy box
did go to a third-party seller,

nine out of 10 times, it went to those
that used Amazon's shipping service,

"Fulfilled by Amazon."

Basically, it is Amazon's playground,
they make the rules,

and they do seem to win
a lot of the time.

And as this expert points out,

if they're competing with you,
you're basically dead.

Third-party sellers have told me
that once they see that Amazon

is selling the same good
that they're selling,

they liquidate their inventory.

They know it's impossible to compete
against Amazon on Amazon's platform.

Of course. Think about it, of course,
it is. You don't stand a chance.

Amazon is to retailers
what dolphins are to the human heart,

if they take an interest in you,
you're going to wind up devastated.

f*ck you, Flipper!

Amazon isn't just a marketplace
or indeed a shipping company,

it's also started coming up
with its own products now.

'Cause it currently has "approximately


across 45 in-house brands."

It has been accused of preferencing
them over its competitors,

or even worse,
making clear knockoffs

of products that have been
successfully sold on its website.

Take a small company
called Peak Design.

It made this camera bag, and when
it noticed a suspiciously similar bag

being sold by Amazon, it made this
pretty decent snarky video in response.

This is the Everyday Sling
by Peak Design.

And this is the Everyday Sling
by Amazon Basics.

It looks suspiciously
like the Peak Design Everyday Sling,

but you don't have to pay for all
those needless bells and whistles

like years of research
and development,

recycled Bluesignapproved materials,
a lifetime warranty,

fairly paid factory workers,
and total carbon neutrality.

Instead, you just get a bag

designed by the cr*ck team
at the Amazon Basics department.

And it does sure seem that Amazon
is putting out a cheap copy

with essentially
the same name and design.

And it's pretty weird that one of the
biggest companies in the world

seems to be using the same strategy
as knock-off DVDs

designed to confuse parents.

"Hey kids, we got you the movies
that you asked for:

"Ratatoing," "Transmorphers,"
and "Chop Kick Panda!"

Why are you crying?
It's what you wanted!"

And Amazon has a huge advantage
over its competitors,

because it runs the marketplace,

and it has access
to all the independent seller data,

like, I don't know, hypothetically,
what bag is proving popular.

Amazon denies that they preference
themselves, their own products,

or sellers that pay
for their logistics services.

And they also deny ripping
off products based on internal data,

though when Jeff Bezos was asked
about that, his answer wasn't great.

Let me ask you, Mr. Bezos,
does Amazon ever access

and use third-party seller data
when making business decisions?

- And just a yes or no will suffice.
- I can't answer yes or no.

What I can tell you is we have a policy
against using seller-specific data

to aid our private label business.

But I can't guarantee you that
that policy has never been violated.

"We have a policy but I can't guarantee
you it hasn't been violated"

has gotta be one of the more
incriminating ways to answer.

It's right up there with answering,

"Did you break the law,"
with, "Which law?"

It is pretty clear,
self-preferencing stifles competition,

hurts small business,

and often results in serving consumers
an inferior product.

So, what can we do here?

That brings me back to the good news
that I mentioned earlier.

Because these two bills
are currently before Congress

and would address some of the
problems that you've seen tonight.

Among other things, they'd stop massive
companies that operate app stores,

like Apple and Google,
from requiring developers

use the company's
own in-app payment processor,

and they'd "ban advantaging
a platform's own products,

services, or lines of business
over those of a rival."

And unsurprisingly, tech companies
are fighting these bills hard,

making basically the same arguments
that AT&T made 40 years ago,

that if you tamper with them,

things just won't work as well
in the future as they did in the past.

Although this time they have trade
groups running ridiculous ads like this.

Washington is full of problems,
not solutions.

Every time they get involved
in a new area of our lives,

they seem to make things worse.

And now, politicians
are boasting about a plan

to control my devices
and how I use them?

Their silly ideas could ruin
some of the services I rely on.

If I need directions,

I simply click one button and it gets
me straight to where I need to go.

In their search
for popularity and power,

D.C. doesn't care whether they mess
up what I need from the internet.

My message to Washington:
focus on fixing America's real problems

and leave my phone alone.

What is going on
with that unsettling man?

"Focus on America's real problems,
like me, and whatever my deal is.

Because what is going on with me?
What's that thing in my truck?

Is it a trashcan taped to a desk?

A Jabba the Hutt barge
taped to a chimney?

Also, what did I just do to it,
and why?

My broader point seems to be
that I'd like government

to pay less attention to whatever
weird sh*t that I'm definitely up to.

To leave my phone and whatever
incriminating sh*t is on there alone,

or I will lunge right at you,
Washington!"

These companies
have pushed some wild arguments,

from claiming the bills
will help China,

to saying they'll somehow
hurt people of color.

And we don't have time
to go through every bullshit boogeyman

that they have come up with,
but none of them really stand up,

and some
have fallen apart spectacularly.

Apple, for instance,
claims that they have to have

exclusive control of the apps
you can download,

otherwise, it would "expose users
to serious security risks."

Ignoring the fact that these bills
have explicit carve outs for that,

if Apple can prove
that those risks genuinely exist.

Now, as for Amazon and Google,
they've been arguing

that small businesses
would be harmed by these bills,

funding lobbying groups like this
one, the Connected Commerce Council,

which supposedly represents


who all oppose antitrust regulation.

But when Politico reached out
to its members,

nearly all of the businesses
that it contacted

said they'd never heard
of the Connected Commerce Council.

And I do get why Amazon, in particular,
wouldn't have filled them in about it,

because when it asked its third party
sellers to oppose these bills,

one of them wrote back,

"Any informed seller
is going to support

massive action taken against Amazon
in the antitrust arena.

We are not morons and know
how to read and think for ourselves."

Which is basically
a polite way of saying,

"f*ck you and the spaceship
that you rode in on."

The truth is, these bills are narrow,
arguably, too narrow.

But that is probably why they do have
broad bipartisan support.

Both Bernie Sanders and Josh
Hawley want to pass these bills.

That's basically the only
thing they have in common.

Apart from the fact that their smiles
are exclusively upper teeth, no lip.

So, why haven't the bills
moved forward?

Some believe that it doesn't help
that at least 17 members of Congress

currently have children
who work or have recently worked

for four of the biggest tech companies,
including, crucially,

Chuck Schumer's daughters,

one of whom works
as a marketing manager at Meta

and one of whom is a literal
registered lobbyist for Amazon.

And the reason that is interesting
is because Chuck Schumer

is the person who needs
to call these bills to a vote.

And while he has certainly
said he will do that,

he also hasn't done it yet,

and if he doesn't do it before
Congress leaves for its August recess,

the bills are probably
dead, because in the fall,

everyone's going to have moved on
to focusing on the midterm elections,

where, as we all know, the Democrats
will be absolutely annihilated.

So, we have a very small window
to actually do something about this.

And if any part of you is thinking,
"Things work fine for me right now."

It's just worth remembering,
people thought that things

worked fine with AT&T
before they were broken up,

because they literally
did not know what they were missing.

The problem with letting
a few companies

control whole sectors
of the economy

is that it limits
what is possible for startups

by, and if I may quote
AT&T's incoherent memo,

"Choking them before
they can even get started."

An innovative app, website or product
might never get off the ground,

because it could be surcharged
to death, buried in search results,

or ripped off completely.

These bills would cr*ck the door
back open for innovation

and nudge the internet back toward what
it was supposed to be from the start:

a revolutionary tool that expands
global access to information,

and the absolute best place
to research surfing spots.

Get yours, Peter. Get yours!

Thank you so much for watching.
We'll see you next week. Good night!