ICYMI: Experts highlight tech competition before House Judiciary
Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee heard from representatives of leading tech services, antitrust experts, and tech critics as part of the ongoing examination of competition in tech. Beyond robust competition, witnesses noted tech services drive innovation with significant R&D investments, offer consumers unparalleled choice and quality, and lower barriers for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Highlights below.
Consumers, workers, and small businesses benefit from the lower costs, expanded access, and greater efficiencies that leading tech services provide
Morgan Reed, App Alliance: “In the 1990s, it cost a million dollars to start up a software company. Now, it’s a hundred thousand dollars in sweat equity. And thanks to these changes, the average cost for consumer software has dropped from fifty dollars to three.”
Carl Szabo, NetChoice: “Anti-business advocates claim that ‘big is bad.’ But for America’s small and mid-size businesses, the bigger the platform the better for reaching larger audiences. Consider the local custom furniture store. Just fifteen years ago businesses like this could barely afford to place an ad in a local newspaper, let alone on TV or radio. Thanks to large online platforms, for less than ten dollars a small business can reach thousands of potential customers and target them more accurately than ever. Large online platforms have given new growth opportunities to America’s small businesses.”
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-WI: “Big online platforms can present small companies in many sections with a better way to reach the most customers. Breaking up big businesses simply because they are large could end up hurting lots of small businesses throughout the country.”
Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-ND: “I come from a very rural area. The closest what you would consider ‘big box’ store is Minneapolis or Denver. So when we’re talking about competition and all of this, I also think we’ve got to remember at no point in time, from my house in Dickinson, North Dakota, have I had more access to more diverse and cheap consumer products. Things that often would require a plane ticket or a nine-hour car ride to buy can now be brought to our house. So I think, when we’re talking about consumers, we need to remember that side of it too.”
Antitrust law exists to protect competition, not competitors, and it shouldn’t be used as a cudgel against successful companies
Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-WI: “Just because a business is big doesn’t mean that it is bad. Antitrust law’s focus on the conduct of companies and whether that conduct is anti-competitive. They do not exist to punish businesses just because they’re big. Likewise, the antitrust laws do not exist to punish success. On the contrary, they exist to foster it. Most innovative, successful, and competitive companies often become very big, not through anti-competitive conduct or violations of antitrust laws, but simply by providing a better service or product than the other companies in the marketplace.”
Maureen Ohlhausen, Baker Botts: “The U.S. has consistently been a strong voice globally in advocating for competition law to focus on consumer welfare goals and not to include other policy goals. I fear that abandoning this clear position in the U.S. will encourage regimes around the world to pursue industrial policy goals, such as favoring domestic industry, to the detriment of U.S. consumer and business interests.”
Tech companies are constantly innovating to stay ahead of the curve and improve the services they provide
Carl Szabo, NetChoice: “Today, thanks to the internet, consumers have access to a smorgasbord of products, businesses, and information about pricing. With a couple of clicks customers can find the lowest prices for goods they want.”
Adam Cohen, Google: “Technology companies are America’s largest spenders on research and development, reflecting robust competition. Google last year spent $21.4 billion on research, development, and related areas, three times more than in 2013.”
Matt Perault, Facebook: “Our investments in research and development have played an important role in fueling our innovation. We devoted nearly 20 percent of our revenue last year to investments in innovation, and we’ve made significant advancements in areas like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and energy-efficient data centers.”
Kyle Andeer, Apple: “Apple is a proud American company with a forty-year history of innovation in very competitive marketplaces. Our mission is to make the best products and services in the world in each of the markets where we compete — for us it’s never been about making the most, it’s always about making the best. We design our technology to be easy to use, and safe and secure for all our customers.”