[HN Gopher] Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Opt...
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Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft Weave a Fiber-Optic Web of Power
Author : gralx
Score : 38 points
Date : 2022-01-15 17:12 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| boxed wrote:
| Google? Or Alphabet?
|
| I don't understand why Facebooks rebrand should be honored when
| we just ignore Googles.
| thebean11 wrote:
| It's a different structure. Google the company still exists and
| is owned by Alphabet. Its products include Google search and
| YouTube. There is no longer a company called Facebook; Facebook
| is a product owned by Meta.
| zo1 wrote:
| They use this phrasing in the article text:
|
| "four tech giants-- Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Meta
| (formerly Facebook ) and Amazon"
|
| So I guess the distinction in their eyes is that Facebook
| renamed itself whilst Google sold itself to a parent company?
| Can someone chime in on the legal entities and mechanics used
| for the two?
| tomklein wrote:
| Google LLC is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Don't know about
| Facebook/Meta though
| MertsA wrote:
| Facebook was a straight rename to Meta, no parent company
| or anything.
| Laremere wrote:
| This is likely the correct way to state things.
|
| Facebook the product is run by a company named Meta. Google the
| product is run by a company named Google, which is owned by the
| conglomerate Alphabet. Google is the vast majority of Alphabet,
| and they share CEO and CFO. So when you talk about Alphabet's
| finances or stock price, you're mostly just talking about
| Google but the name Alphabet is correct. However if you're
| talking about a company doing thing, you're almost certainly
| talking about one of the subsidiaries.
|
| Eg, "Google made AlphaGo" or "Google's Deepmind made AlphaGo"
| is incorrect, but "Deepmind made AlphaGo" or "Alphabet's
| Deepmind made AlphaGo" are correct, while "Alphabet made
| AlphaGo" is technically correct but unspecific.
| ksec wrote:
| It would be a lot more worrisome if they were actually owned and
| operated completely in a close system by the four and only rented
| out the bandwidth. But this is not the case here.
|
| Yes, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft invest in
| international undersea cables. But those Cables are done by a
| Consortium of companies. Not just between the four listed but
| many Telecom companies in the regions.
|
| Pacific Light Cable Network for example, connecting between Hong
| Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and the US only cost $300M with
| 120Tbps according to the same WSJ. That is such a small amount of
| money by modern standard. Not to mention while the cost wont
| likely go down, the total bandwidth you get from deployment will
| continue to go up in the future. A 1 Pbps undersea connection
| isn't too far fetch within 10 - 15 years time.
| simpleguitar wrote:
| My 10 year old self couldn't imagine having these massive
| artificial brains scattered throughout the world connected by
| high speed fiber network being a real thing.
| BogdanPetre wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220115105055/https://www.wsj.c...
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Don't forget Apple. Building a computer or a phone company today
| is basically impossible. We're heading towards a state of extreme
| monopolies. There is no way to vertically integrate like Apple
| without having access to crazy amount of resources and time. If
| there is competition, Apple's cash reserves will come to rescue
| and crush any competition.
|
| I love Apple products but this is all so worrying.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Building a computer or a phone company today is basically
| impossible. We're heading towards a state of extreme
| monopolies. There is no way to vertically integrate like Apple
| without having access to crazy amount of resources and time.
|
| If you're building a new hardware company today, you wouldn't
| want to start out vertically integrated. You'd start by
| whitelabeling from an ODM, and as you gain experience and
| hopefully sales, figure out what parts you can design and get
| manufactured yourself. You can't differentiate much when you're
| selling the same ODM kit as everyone else, but maybe support or
| updates or meaningful changelogs or a splash or color or less
| spyware or ?
| salawat wrote:
| This is the crux though: Hyperoptimization is contagion. It
| increases the barrier to entry for everyone. You could build
| a reasonable handset without having 90% of your decisions
| made for you by the elephants in the room.
|
| We've allowed too much consolidation. We need to break things
| up.
| smitty1e wrote:
| With absolutely no partisan bias whatsoever, I submit that
| rational people should find the concentration of power worrisome.
| btmiller wrote:
| The oceans are pretty big though. Adding more cables right now
| isn't a heavily constrained space. So yeah you have some giants
| laying their own. However, I don't think that more privately
| owned links is necessarily a sign of power concentration,
| rather a symptom of it perhaps. You have these giants
| leveraging economies of scale to gain an advantage, and it's
| not necessarily something a non-giant couldn't do themselves if
| they were motivated enough. Example, if Meta didn't own and
| operate Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp (i.e. regulators
| force the split of their social media platforms) they could
| conceivably still lay these new cables.
| supertrope wrote:
| What's the difference between a .com oligopoly owning the
| cables versus a telecom oligopoly?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Vertical integration.
|
| But break up the telecom oligopoly too.
| [deleted]
| arrosenberg wrote:
| We've at least tried to break up the telecom one before?
| ncmncm wrote:
| We did, and then allowed them to consolidate again, under
| influence from lobbyists and biased economists.
|
| The anti-trust legislation is still in force, but it needs
| participation from the Justice Department, which is
| systematically neglecting its duty.
|
| It is not against the law to have a monopoly, but when you
| choose to have one you become subject to a body of law that
| monopolies are supposed to observe. But that body of law
| has been chipped away at in the courts, as the Public
| Interest is only fitfully represented.
| smitty1e wrote:
| Possibly making Sherman[1] into a function that gets
| applied annually at the Fortune 500 level?
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act_o
| f_189...
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| I would very much like a fiber-optic web weaved my way,
| unfortunately most of us are stuck with asymmetric lines from
| Comcast and Spectrum.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| So Naval submarines patrolling waters protecting submarine cables
| is taxpayers funding tech giants and telcos private security!
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