Time to update the anti-trust laws, Part 1
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
The old theory and basis for our anti-trust laws were that monopolies or oligopolies could control prices paid to consumer, thereby allowing them to charge consumers prices that were set without or with little competition.
The most famous “trust buster” of the day was President Theodore Roosevelt.
Through actions initiated by his administration, Standard Oil, American Tobacco and some of the railroads were broken into smaller companies. In modern times, AT&T was broken into “Baby Bells,” an action which unleashed tremendous growth in the voice and digital communications industry.
Examples of the monoliths of today are Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Wal-Mart and today’s communications service providers, such as Spectrum, Disney and more.
Also, to be included in this are the large health insurance companies and major hospital chains. The airlines, cruise ship and lodging industry could have been included up until a few weeks ago, however the virus has left the entire travel industry in deep trouble.
We are going to cover this in two parts. Most of the companies I have mentioned provide tremendous value for the hard dollars expended. In the communications world, for instance, long distance has gone away.
Today’s youngsters (up to age 30) ask, “What is long distance?” The big retail chains offer such low prices that they have made it very difficult for a plethora of small and specialty shops to compete. More goods are available at better prices and with a better selection than any time in the history of civilization.
I cannot think of any way to bring anti-trust charges against any of these companies using historical criteria – prices and limited selection. They have gone to school on the anti-trust laws of the past and are very careful to avoid any criteria which would get them in trouble there.
Price as such is not where the problem lies. The issue is service. With most of the categories I have listed (and there is one exception we will talk about in a minute), if things are going along “normally” there is no problem. However, any deviation from what they consider normal can be frustrating.
Efforts to attract their attention usually starts with a phone call. Sometimes it must, such as when my internet service is disrupted. When you start with a phone call, you can expect to be led through an extremely long and complicated set of choices, attempting to get you to the source of your solution.
These are all frustrating to me, but none more so than those that start with voice recognition. My past 20-year history in the exciting world of cancer adventures has left me with a voice that often works poorly. Many days, these systems cannot recognize what I am saying and put me in endless loops of “I didn’t understand you; can you repeat that?”
Of course, if you do spend five or 10 minutes navigating this morass, it often takes you to a place that is a comprise at best, for addressing your needs.
Big corporations save millions, perhaps billions of dollars a year with this practice. For in essence, what they have done is transfer their cost of providing customer service to you, the consumer. For all the hours involved in great customer service is, in reality, a zero-sum game. For if the corporations do not have to spend the time to do this, we, the consumer must. It is a cost to us.
If these corporations have not colluded in this mass transfer of costs to the consumer, they have at least noticed each other’s systems and hence successfully passed this cost on to us. It is a cost of commerce that we cannot avoid.
There is one company that has a better way, and that company is Amazon. Your call to Amazon will get answered by a human in fairly short order. I think this is because Mr. Bezos has always been driven by the idea of a “frictionless” purchasing experience. You may not like Amazon for other reasons, but they do customer service correctly.
So, this whole issue is, in my opinion an anti-trust issue not addressed in our current anti-trust laws. It is a mass transfer of costs to the consumer, in the form of our time.
Large corporations are saying, “We value our time, we don’t value yours.”
It is a tremendous insult and a tremendous cost to the consumer.
This part of the anti-trust discussion is about a nuisance and a cost. Next week, we will get into the really scary stuff.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.
HCP columnist
The old theory and basis for our anti-trust laws were that monopolies or oligopolies could control prices paid to consumer, thereby allowing them to charge consumers prices that were set without or with little competition.
The most famous “trust buster” of the day was President Theodore Roosevelt.
Through actions initiated by his administration, Standard Oil, American Tobacco and some of the railroads were broken into smaller companies. In modern times, AT&T was broken into “Baby Bells,” an action which unleashed tremendous growth in the voice and digital communications industry.
Examples of the monoliths of today are Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Wal-Mart and today’s communications service providers, such as Spectrum, Disney and more.
Also, to be included in this are the large health insurance companies and major hospital chains. The airlines, cruise ship and lodging industry could have been included up until a few weeks ago, however the virus has left the entire travel industry in deep trouble.
We are going to cover this in two parts. Most of the companies I have mentioned provide tremendous value for the hard dollars expended. In the communications world, for instance, long distance has gone away.
Today’s youngsters (up to age 30) ask, “What is long distance?” The big retail chains offer such low prices that they have made it very difficult for a plethora of small and specialty shops to compete. More goods are available at better prices and with a better selection than any time in the history of civilization.
I cannot think of any way to bring anti-trust charges against any of these companies using historical criteria – prices and limited selection. They have gone to school on the anti-trust laws of the past and are very careful to avoid any criteria which would get them in trouble there.
Price as such is not where the problem lies. The issue is service. With most of the categories I have listed (and there is one exception we will talk about in a minute), if things are going along “normally” there is no problem. However, any deviation from what they consider normal can be frustrating.
Efforts to attract their attention usually starts with a phone call. Sometimes it must, such as when my internet service is disrupted. When you start with a phone call, you can expect to be led through an extremely long and complicated set of choices, attempting to get you to the source of your solution.
These are all frustrating to me, but none more so than those that start with voice recognition. My past 20-year history in the exciting world of cancer adventures has left me with a voice that often works poorly. Many days, these systems cannot recognize what I am saying and put me in endless loops of “I didn’t understand you; can you repeat that?”
Of course, if you do spend five or 10 minutes navigating this morass, it often takes you to a place that is a comprise at best, for addressing your needs.
Big corporations save millions, perhaps billions of dollars a year with this practice. For in essence, what they have done is transfer their cost of providing customer service to you, the consumer. For all the hours involved in great customer service is, in reality, a zero-sum game. For if the corporations do not have to spend the time to do this, we, the consumer must. It is a cost to us.
If these corporations have not colluded in this mass transfer of costs to the consumer, they have at least noticed each other’s systems and hence successfully passed this cost on to us. It is a cost of commerce that we cannot avoid.
There is one company that has a better way, and that company is Amazon. Your call to Amazon will get answered by a human in fairly short order. I think this is because Mr. Bezos has always been driven by the idea of a “frictionless” purchasing experience. You may not like Amazon for other reasons, but they do customer service correctly.
So, this whole issue is, in my opinion an anti-trust issue not addressed in our current anti-trust laws. It is a mass transfer of costs to the consumer, in the form of our time.
Large corporations are saying, “We value our time, we don’t value yours.”
It is a tremendous insult and a tremendous cost to the consumer.
This part of the anti-trust discussion is about a nuisance and a cost. Next week, we will get into the really scary stuff.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He may be reached at jthompson@taii.com.