Too Many Companies Drain Value from the Economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-03/capitalism-in-trouble-when-companies-drain-value-from-economy <comment> temp-dude-87844 Regulations are a double-edged sword and serve many lords, just like most actions of government. It's possible for the same regulation to vastly decrease the risk of harm to consumers, yet act as a barrier to entry for smaller players. This can happen both intentionally and unintentionally. It also doesn't help that drafting effective regulations requires domain expertise, so the field is vulnerable to infiltration by industry to further their own ends. Then there's the sort of regulations that account to little more than elaborate CYAs, or data collections for some governmental official's pet project.

On the other hand, it's bewildering to think that every area of life has been subject to so much regulatory capture (in dozens of jurisdictions nonetheless) that the year 2000 formed a tipping point of corporate profits in the US. Half of the years have been under administrations more friendly to mergers, so the vertical consolidations in the style of CVS-Aetna or Cigna-Express Scripts could have gone on to become a tool for deep-pocket entrants to enter heavily- regulated markets. Instead, horizontal consolidation mergers like GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer-Wyeth dominated. Don't forget AOL-Time Warner, Comcast buying AT&T Broadband, or the saga where SBC bought Ameritech and then the remnants of the original AT&T, renamed itself to AT&T, and then bought BellSouth too. Or any number of big bank mergers. Or oil companies.

So, it seems instead of entering new markets during a time of favorable regulatory environment, companies chose to buy out competitors instead, lay off a bunch of newly-redundant staff, and pocket the profit. Hmm.

<comment><USER2> You mention an excess of mergers over the decades which reminds me of a new problem with the inverse: anti-trust enforcement.

It appears that anti-trust, which was rare to begin with, may now have been politicized.

For example, it's hard to understand why favoritism is shown to ISPs yet effort is put into breaking up large software companies. Especially in light of the difference in campaign contributions in 2018.

<comment><USER3> "May now have been politicized"? Anti-trust has been politicized for a long time. It just seems like it's politicized now, because it's _our_ companies which are being targeted. When the Obama-era Justice Department prevented the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, that was considered to be a just and fair application of anti-trust law, but somehow when the same scrutiny is applied to Google and Facebook, that's considered "politicization".

To be clear, I'm don't disagree with the Obama Justice Department's blocking of the Sprint/T-Mobile merger. Such a merger would certainly have reduced the competition in wireless markets, and would probably have led to higher prices and poorer service. But it's hard to characterize the decision to pursue telecom companies (while ignoring big tech) or the reverse (pursuing big tech while ignoring telecoms) as anything but political.

<comment><USER4> > When the Obama-era Justice Department prevented the T-Mobile/Sprint merger

Wasn't it the ATT/T-Mobile merger? Which is a bit different from T-Mobile/Sprint in various aspects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is not a particularly compelling article.

First, it shows that corporate profits fluctuate between 5-10% of GDP since 1947? The article paints that as "less for everyone else"\--but it seems like a lot for everyone else.

Second, it cites a study, but then immediately admits it "should be taken with a grain of salt" because it refers to a hypothetical model without necessarily connecting it to the actual economy or ruling out alternative explanations. But then it proceeds to take the assumption that corporations are "extracting economic rents" as a given.

It cites the decline in labor share of income: [https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/images/publications/re...](https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/images/publications/research/themacrobulletin/2018/trendsinlaborshare/tuzemen_marshchart1.svg). It tries to link that to rent extraction, but the timing is peculiar: [https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and- gr...](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new- look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states).

Given the narrative of rent extraction, you'd expect the declines in labor share of income to have happened during the long period of deregulation, reduced antitrust enforcement, etc., starting in the 1970s. But labor share of income was 65% in 1950, and 63% in 2000. It's 57% today, and the vast majority of the decline happened in the last two decades.

Most of the decline is the result of a handful of sectors: [https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and- gr...](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/employment-and-growth/a-new- look-at-the-declining-labor-share-of-income-in-the-united-states). Half of them are ones where technology has turned workers into commodities, like retail, or where technology enables massive productivity without much labor, like internet or software.

<comment><USER6> The Tobin Q measurement mentioned in the article is also suspect:

> But in most industries, economists Germán Gutiérrez and Thomas Philippon > believe, this process has broken down. In a new paper, they attempted to > measure how much new business entry responded to the market opportunity > available in an industry. Gutiérrez and Philippon used a measure called > Tobin's Q, which represents the ratio of a company's market value to the > book value of the company's assets. When Q is high, it should mean that new > competitors have an opportunity to come in and take some of the profits in > that industry, thus reducing existing companies' price premium and bringing > Q down. Indeed, the authors found that this was common up until the late > 1990s. But after 2000 -- right around the same time that profits started to > rise to unprecedented levels -- the relationship broke down. High Q levels > no longer seem to attract new market entrants.

It's the ratio of market value to book value. Hasn't book value become less reliable in the age of software? They mention 2000 as the somewhat mysterious starting point of unprecedented profit levels. Doesn't seem so mysterious if 2000 was when companies starting adopting technology more intensively.

<comment><USER7> I would guess it has something to do with intangible assets linked to fad usage. There are ten thousand people that could made a usable clone of Instagram in a day but none of them would likely come close to competing.

Untrue if you're entering say the car repair, grocery stores, heavy machinery, food production, etc etc.

So many days business are branded and everything that isn't has had it's margins shrunk to zero. You can't drop in replacements for FAANG or Microsoft or a whole lot of consumer products because they aren't and can't be commodities as they have set themselves up as walled gardens.

Good for business, investors, and valued employees. Bad for consumers.

Lack of interoperability or replacibility is the monopoly of the 21st century and when we get past it we'll be in the beginnings of a post scarcity economy.

<comment><USER8> They're not just walled gardens - they're choke points on important global data flows, and silos for distilled intelligence that can be abstracted from those flows.

Closed Data - controlled by monopolies, and generated by the enclosure and privatisation of user activity - is far more of an issue than Closed Source ever was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Observing this American debate from Norway, one of the supposed big government types of countries, I notice an inability to distinguish the size of a government in terms of employees and taxes on one side and the complexity of the legal system and regulations on the other side.

Norway as many other Nordic countries have high taxation levels and many government employees, but this is primarily because education and health care and a lot of child care is run by the government. It does not imply a larger bureaucracy.

However this does not stop us from having efficient and simple government. We have much simpler tax code than the US e.g. Despite health care being public, our health care bureaucracy, regulations and rules are much simpler.

You actually need some regulations to stop complex regulations from creeping in. E.g. we have strict rules regarding political advertisement and campaign contributions which means money is not an important thing in Norwegian politics. Consequently politicians are not bought and we have much less of this business initiated regulations and red tape that the US has.

Yet we have stronger regulations with respect to workers rights, unions, environment etc. But that does not mean it is more complex.

Having a "bigger government" does not necessarily mean a more complex one. In fact it often reduces complexity by setting more common standards.

<comment><USER10> The US has 60x the population of Norway on 25x the land.

Honest question: given what you know about politics in Norway, do you personally believe Norway's complexity reduction through agreement on common standards can scale to a country the size of the US?

Could 60 Norways mutually agree on common standards?

<comment><USER11> The US is a federation of 50 states and in theory is highly liberal. Therefore at most your example should scale at the state level. As most states have fewer inhabitants than Norway then I don't see your point.

<comment><USER12> People always bring out the population or area size of the US as an excuse against why we can't try to do better.

<comment><USER13> I think people bring out the population or area size in order to explain where facile comparisons fall down. Scale matters.

<comment><USER11> This fictional scaling problem makes as much sense as correlating the effect of some public policies on the height of the political leader or average temperature. It's a silly scapegoat that makes no sense at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the key problem right here:

"They also found that lobbying expenditures in that industry are correlated with increased regulation, higher profits and lower entry. Unsurprisingly, they found that lobbying and regulation tended to keep out smaller companies to the benefit of larger ones."

<comment><USER15> Brit here, so I don't really understand lobbying in the US, and how such huge sums of money can be involved without blatant corruption - googling reveals ~3.4 billion USD spent on lobbying during 2018.

Let's say I'm Boeing and I pay a lobbying firm 15M USD - what happens next? Where does the money go?

<comment><USER16> A good lobbyist will help drafting laws or regulations and bring them in front of lawmakers. A lot of laws are written directly by lobbyists.

They may also start a PR campaign for your case.

<comment><USER17> The language we use tends to shape our views, having that in mind "good lobbyist" is an oxymoron, is like saying "good mass murderer", it's better say "effective lobbyist" or similar wording that can't be confused with a moral judgement.

<comment><USER18> So, I've donated money to the Nature Conservancy and the ACLU both with the intent that they would engage in lobbying on my behalf, both of which I consider to be "good lobbying".

<comment><USER17> Nah, is good only in a very narrow specific sense but is still damaging in the big scheme of things; by perpetuating the "lobbying-based-democracy" instead of trying to achieve actual democracy (as in vote for nature conservancy, vote for better education, etc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is a cycle in a 'free' economy that runs in the long term, typically over decades. That cycle is in many senses, related to technical developments: Something emerges that fundamentally changes the way we live and work (steam power, electricity, gasoline engines, mainframe computers, mini-computers, micro-computers, smart phones, ...).

At each emergence, new enterprises are born and start an arc of relevance. Amplitudes and periods vary greatly, but companies like Sears & Roebuck have their days of high growth, maximum employment, then stagnation and decline as successor WalMart transpires through its cycle and takes the reins for a while.

These companies pay varying amount of taxes, but can't get away from paying wages. Consider how many families are supported by MacDonald's or Bank of America. They contribute to society by employing people and enabling them to pay income taxes much more than their employers pay through corporate tax payments.

Society gets into trouble when a pair of declining and ascending firms create a discontinuity for employees. If an employee of WalMart loses their position because WalMart has lost market share to Amazon, that employee is not likely able to move their employment to Amazon. Distribution centers are not in the same places as WalMart retail stores, and, the skills they need are not the same. Both are selling the same items to the same customers, but due to the different business models, the employees of one do not map onto the needs of the other and you have a discontinuity.

On the one hand, Amazon is more efficient than WalMart and delivers more goods dollars for the same wage dollar (revenue per employee). So fewer workers are needed and there will be workers left unemployed or underemployed during the transition. On the other hand, Amazon should, over all, be therefore able to charge lower prices, benefiting all consumers.

My point is that getting to the bottom of the question about how much and what type of value an enterprise delivers to society is a deeply complex question. Bloomberg's opinion seems superficial.

<comment><USER20> > [corporations] contribute to society by employing people and enabling them > to pay income taxes more than their employers pay through corporate tax > payments.

I can't let this point go undebated.

The taxes paid by workers cannot be counted as the corporation's contribution to society, because this tax would've been paid regardless of the employer - it is a contribution from the worker to society.

A corp that does not pay enough corp taxes is a corp that doesn't contribute. Providing employment is not a form of contribution, since the employment makes profit. Unless the corp employs people at a loss (in which case, it can be called a contribution - provided they do not reclaim tax credits to offset the cost).

<comment><USER21> > The taxes paid by workers cannot be counted as the corporation's > contribution to society, because this tax would've been paid regardless of > the employer

This only makes sense if you're assuming the total number jobs, salaries, or GDP can't change. If you decrease the number and/or size of businesses, income tax collected will absolutely go down. That's what happens in a recession.

Whether you consider income tax to be a worker's contribution or their employer's contribution is a meaningless distinction. Any policy that attacks either side (causing fewer or lower paid workers, or fewer or worse paying employers) will reduce the amount of income tax collected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I thought the goal of companies is to return value to shareholders, not necessarily add value to the economy. I don't mean to sound cynical, but it's a fair statement with regards to how things are today.

<comment><USER23> "Only shareholders matter" has been gospel for about a generation. And I do think that attitude is responsible for a lot that is wrong with the US.

But it is, I think, fair to note that corporations are not responsible for making sure the rules under which they function work for everyone. That particular failure belongs to government, or in the alternative, all of us for allowing such a shitty government.

<comment><USER24> Corporations spend a lot on lobbying to make sure those government rules work only for them. They should absolutely not get to avoid blame for corrupting the government with the tired excuse that government is supposed to be incorruptible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It is difficult to fight back against anti competitive regulations, because most are viewed as important safety precautions. As always, the pharmaceutical industry is the best example of these conflicts and breakdowns relating to monopolies

</comment><comment><USER26> Blames free markets. Describes non-free markets.

<comment> munk-a "Free Market" is a terrible term, the freedom of the market needs to be defined. Does the market a business exists in give you the freedom to not be burgled? Does it give you the freedom to not have to pay for healthcare for your employees? Does it provide some level of free training to those employees? If you're a fisherman and there's another fisherman does the market ensure that other fisherman won't exhaust the ecosystem?

<comment><USER27> Exactly, free markets do not exist in a vacuum.

To simply exist, free markets require a ton of government-backed regulations, the most obvious one being the right to private property.

There's this dichotomy between the Good free markets and the Bad big government. They're actually two sides of the same coin : they need each other to exist.

Radical advocates of free markets (and anarchists) always seem to forget the violent nature of humans.

<comment><USER28> > _To simply exist, free markets require a ton of government-backed > regulations, the most obvious one being the right to private property._

Actually, that's pretty much the only one.

<comment><USER29> Realistically, if you stop there you're gonna have information asymmetry problems so damaging that if you don't fix them the torches and pitchforks will come out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _In a healthy economy, competition should get rid of rents, because new > companies will enter the market and vie for a slice of that pie, offering > lower prices and higher wages until the rents mostly disappear. In some > industries, like semiconductors, this still happens._

Not proprietary semiconductors from a single vendor, only maybe decades-old commodity parts that are drop-in substitutable, either due to numerous implementations of the same signaling, or outright licensing of the original IP to many vendors.

The entry barrier to competing with a silicon vendor that has a complex, well established proprietary product stack is extremely difficult.

(Which is not to say it constitutes economic rent.)

Silicon vendors don't want to offer lower prices; they want to produce something differentiated from the rest, and then charge as much as they can get away with.

(BTW, good luck offering lower prices and higher wages at the same time. That is only possible if it can be made up for in volume.)

</comment><comment><USER31> The graph that shows the percentage of corporate profits versus GDP seems like it shows nothing. GDP goes up, profit goes up at the same rate, so profit as a percentage remains static.

The comparison to the S&P500 is confusing. Why would GDP be linked to the S&P500? GDP is a static measure of what the economy is producing, where the S&P500 is a measure of expected future profits. You wouldn't expect them to track the same.

<comment><USER32> > The graph that shows the percentage of corporate profits versus GDP seems > like it shows nothing. GDP goes up, profit goes up at the same rate, so > profit as a percentage remains static.

Assume you're referring to the second graph. That graph starts in July 2009, which is just the very-rightmost section of the _first_ graph, which starts all the way back in ~1947. And while corp profits as a percentage of GDP hasn't changed much since 2009, this percentage is much higher than post-war average right up until the Great Recession.

Regarding S&P not tracking to the GDP, while yes you would except them not to line up 1-1, long term equity valuations can't grow faster than GDP without some other fundamental economic change,e.g. a permanent reduction in the risk- free rate (and rates over the past ~30 years _are_ significantly lower - remains to be seen how permanent this ends up being). For more info google Buffett ratio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> With markets, "free" is orthogonal to "competitive". Yet all the political rhetoric is about free or not, regulated or not. What we really need to be talking about is how competitive a market is and whether regulations make it more or less competitive.

Free and uncompetitive: social networks

Free and competitive: breakfast cereal

Unfree and competitive: stock markets

Unfree and uncompetitive: comcast, san francisco landlords, NFL

</comment><comment><USER34> It sometimes feels that more and more economic activity (in the USK is totally pointless, or zero sum like advertising. Suppose this is true, heterodox as it may be. Certainly as a programmer consultant it seems that so much technology work is pointless searching for a profit and problem, never meeting a pre- existing demand.

In such a low stakes weird economy, it's really hard to compete because nobody needs anything. For your corporate desk worker, keeping the existing deal is inertia while changing it is work and career risk. So rather than effort ~ dMoney, effort ~ d^2Money. That's alread explanes so much even before saying deals are corrupt steak dinner affairs or whatever.

The right is correct in saying that the things people really need, housing food and healthcare, are super regulated. But the left right in that land use and especially ealthcare are totally unsuited for a free market anyways. (Though LVT is more powerful and magical than any healthcare rule.)

</comment><comment><USER35> The Tobin Q ratio is market value / replacement cost of assets. The problem is, what is the replacement cost of an Twitter or Uber of Amazon? The cost of the software itself is trivial, and yet it would be near impossible to replace either. The whole notion of valuing new-era (or whatever you want to call it) companies using "replacement cost" doesn't make sense. The proponents of Q say that ultimately the profit margins will be so juicy that somebody will start to compete for those dollars. Maybe. There's no evidence of that yet.

</comment><comment><USER36> Interestingly, the article doesn't look at its own chart carefully. When economy is booming, everyone becomes an expert in everything. Companies which have no business existing or entering certain segments do anyways because - why not? They need to earn yields above and beyond the market normal.

When there is a recession, many companies are wiped out and/or acquired, thereby reducing the overall tax numbers.

Honestly, all these articles bemoaning current state of the market tell me that we might be nearing a high.

</comment><comment><USER37> another issue is companies that profit from exploiting the commons and push their costs to the general population e.g. shale gas and oil as well as other mining operations. [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/11/taxpayer...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/11/taxpayers- fracking-pollution-companies)

<comment><USER38> Also nuclear power. Run a profitable fleet of nuclear reactors and when the reactors get too old to operate you decommission them and then eventually the company goes bust...leaving the government to fund the never ending legacy costs of depleted fuel storage/containment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> One of the comments in the article was "They found that redistribution from workers to shareholders accounted for 54% of increased stock wealth."

I wonder if the same premise still applies with employee-owned companies? or does that turn the article's premise upside down?

</comment><comment><USER40> You've gotta be skeptical of an article in the financial press that hearteningly acknowledges the blindingly obvious macroeconomic problems and proceeds to suggest the solution is some kind of reduction of regulation. They didn't even offer a single convincing mechanism by way of example.

I am 100% on board with the idea that large companies have captured key agencies. You don't need a scientific study to note the antics of Ajit Pai or the hostile takeover of the CPFB by a guy that just showed up and just sat in an office there until people started doing what he said. However, the idea that somehow cutting regulations will cause monopolies to be less monopolistic is laughable.

Look at Uber, the poster child for dysregulation. They openly and actively thwart any kind of rule of law that would constrain them, and they can fund their operations at shocking losses in the mere hope that they can corner the market permanently. Look at the arms manufacturers that openly lament that there isn't enough of a left wing ruckus to scare people into buying more guns. Look at the right wing rebellion in Oregon over a nothing cap-and-trade bill that called for armed militia to protect the interests of oil.

When you have money, the fewer constraints you have, the more you can do. It's the golden rule.

<comment><USER41> _Look at the arms manufacturers that openly lament that there isn 't enough of a left wing ruckus to scare people into buying more guns. Look at the right wing rebellion in Oregon over a nothing cap-and-trade bill that called for armed militia to protect the interests of oil._

What do either of these examples have to do with monopolies?

<comment><USER40> Mainly that there are players that are big enough, with enough concentrated power to care about politics and influence it. When such large industries lament that prices are falling because there's not enough fear, the logical question to ask is "What are they thinking of doing in response?" I don't think there's a constituency of ordinary people that's willing to go to war over cap-and-trade by itself (they will defend right wing politicians though), but what interests would be willing to push their puppets to take such drastic action? The energy companies of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Could it also be consumers are less cost sensitive and more brand sensitive?

</comment><comment><USER43> _Game of Mates_ gave a detailed explanation of how this process happened in Australia.

[https://gameofmates.com/](https://gameofmates.com/)

</comment><comment><USER44> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

</comment><comment><USER37> it sounds like they didn't take into account strategies like Amazon selling books for below cost to starve competitors and then getting an effective monopoly as a result

<comment><USER38> Or companies like Adobe creating PDF format to allow anyone to sell their book on their website or give it away for free direct to the consumer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I didn't understand what the article wanted to say. I feel than rather than explaining what a source wanted to say, it namedropped 4 papers (and 1 with conflicting results with one of those 4 for intellectual honesty), and tried to fit some narrative to it, which I didn't understand very well.

I did understand that the title means "A great number of companies drain value from the economy", rather than "Having too many companies drains value from the economy".

Did anyone understand the message the article wanted to communicate aside from the title? What was it? Is it a valid message based on the sources it linked?

<comment><USER46> > Did anyone understand the message the article wanted to communicate aside > from the title? What was it? Is it a valid message based on the sources it > linked?

The phenomenon:

"in recent years, stock valuations have increased faster than either profits or the economy itself"

The explanation:

"They found that redistribution from workers to shareholders accounted for 54% of increased stock wealth. Falling interest rates, rising investor appetites for risk and economic growth comprised the remaining 46%."

Additional information/context:

"But their finding is consistent with evidence by economists Loukas Karabarbounis and Brent Neiman showing that labor's share of income has declined all over the world. It's also consistent with work by economist Simcha Barkai, who found that business profits have increased much faster than the value of the capital they own."

The previous theory:

"But this leaves the question of how shareholders have managed to extract increasing rent from the economy. In a healthy economy, competition should get rid of rents, because new companies will enter the market and vie for a slice of that pie, offering lower prices and higher wages until the rents mostly disappear."

Evidence that previous theory is wrong:

"But Gutiérrez and Philippon estimate that increasing returns to scale aren't correlated with the breakdown of the relationship between Q and new business entry, casting doubt on this explanation. Instead, the authors point the finger at increasing regulation. They found that the higher the volume of new regulation in an industry -- measured by analyzing the text of the Code of Federal Regulation -- the less new entry is driven by high Q. "

To summarize, stock valuations have increased. Several studies support the idea this is due to an increase in the proportion of profits going towards shareholders instead of laborers. Previously people might have thought that in a free market new competition would appear which prevents this from happening but other studies suggest this isn't happening because of increasing regulation, possibly due to increased lobbying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I don't think it's any coincidence that one large market with essentially zero regulation, software development, has pushed prices to literally $0.

</comment><comment><USER48> I agree that corporations taking bigger share of GDP is a good point (possibly because of technology / automation / information economy?), but "stock valuations have increased faster than either profits or the economy" is a red herring.

The fair value of a company is the net present value of future profits. To calculate NPV, you take some profit in the future, and discount it to the present by dividing it with the _discount rate_ (usually inflation or risk- free rate), and repeat. Due to FED's quantitative easing, the discount rate has been historically low for the past decade!

<comment><USER49> This is true, but there were runups like this before the Federal Reserve. Quite a few, as it happens.

What, for example, is the NPV of a tulip bulb? Or a share in the South Sea Company?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I don't understand the second graph. If corporate after-tax profits are only 10% of GDP, how come they have the same number in the second graph?

</comment><comment><USER51> If the economy had to completely take negative environmental externalities into account, would any company add value?

</comment><comment><USER52> Let the Great Depression of 2019 begin! Caused by an overvalued stock marked compared to the underlying economy.

<comment><USER22> Not that you're suggesting this, but I fail to see how a stock market correction could improve things for the common worker. I think some people cheer on the idea to buy stocks at a discount -- that ignores quite a bit of pain caused to people. There's real, tangible consequences. Workers lose jobs. Most don't, but some do. In fact, the '08 crisis helped the investment class scoop up working class wealth at bargain real estate prices, when people couldn't hold on.

<comment><USER53> not only do workers loose jobs, but people turn to hard drugs, families break up, kids grow up with out a stable family, generational wealth declines, social mobility is hurt... for millions of people. then you get the "populist" politicians with "easy answers" like blame the immigrants etc and more political instability...

economic downturns are looked at like they are just numbers on a chart, but they have real visceral and sociological results for millions of people and can be felt for a generation or more

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So who decides which company stays and which goes? Merge them all? This is a classic example of Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit". There is no way any government or person would know everything or be able to see the future so as to manage such economy of monopolies.

</comment><comment><USER55> "So it's possible that big companies are increasing their market power by using lobbying to capture politicians and regulators. If this is true, it's very bad news for free markets and capitalism."

So, they managed to blame capitalism and the free market for the effects of lack of free market and the will of politicians and the public to accept regulation that causes less free market? What the hell!!!! This is the kind of culture that makes it possible for estabilished companies to lobby for increasing regulations. If there were a "free market at all cost" approach, maybe even punishment for those who attack the free market with lobbying, there would not be this kind of problem. There would be other problems, of course, but not this one. Of course, they had to blame even the lack of free market on the free market. Come on!

</comment><comment><USER3>
        So it's possible that big companies are increasing their market power by
        using lobbying to capture politicians and regulators. If this is true, it's
        very bad news for free markets and capitalism. It would validate the claims
        of Senator Bernie Sanders, the socialist presidential candidate who has
        blamed corporate interests for the woes of American workers.

I'm not sure how the conclusion follows from the premise. The rest of the article talks about how increased regulations, rather than helping the consumer, just give corporations more avenues by which to lobby the government and suppress competition. But somehow that supports the claims of Bernie Sanders, whose platform calls for massive increases in corporate regulation? That seems like dubious logic to me.

<comment><USER56> The article specifically only says that:

      It would validate the claims of Senator Bernie Sanders,
      the socialist presidential candidate who has blamed
      corporate interests for the woes of American workers

It doesn't mention his platform of regulation, just his "blaming corporate interests". Which is quite the bland statement overall, no matter where it lies on the truthiness scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> _So it's possible that big companies are increasing their market power by using lobbying to capture politicians and regulators. If this is true, it's very bad news for free markets and capitalism. It would validate the claims of Senator Bernie Sanders, the socialist presidential candidate who has blamed corporate interests for the woes of American workers. Why exactly big companies and their lobbyists might have become more successful in bending regulation to their will since 2000 is still a mystery, but it's a phenomenon that deserves more attention and investigation. The future of capitalism could be at stake._

I'm not sure how that author makes the segue from regulation being a problem to _more_ government control being the answer.

<comment><USER9> It is, if you actually understand the nuance of the argument. The world can't be dumbed down to "more" or "less" government. It is ACTUALLY important HOW government works.

I could use my native Norway as an example, where corporation has not taken an increasing share of the economy and workers are better compensated.

We have been run for many years by Bernie style guys. However we tend to have much simpler regulation than the US, which has been run mostly pro business/capitalism types of people.

Size of government and regulation complexity is NOT the same thing. The amount a country taxes its citizens and the complexity of the tax code e.g. is not remotely related. But conservative rhetoric implies that it is. In Norway we have considerably higher taxes than the US, but our tax code is far simpler.

Likewise our health care system is mostly government controlled, but US health care system while mostly private is encased in far more complicated regulations. Our health care rules and regulations are far simpler. The bureaucracy surrounding US health care is mind boggling.

Although this is hard to impress on an American, a more powerful government often means LESS and SIMPLER regulations not more complexity. A more powerful government less influenced by special interests can simplify things by creating common standards for things.

We have a lot of that in Norway, where the US has lots of incompatible standards, because government is weak or heavily influence by business interests. E.g. there is a standard for electronic prescriptions, so I can get a prescription with any doctor and that will automatically be available in any pharmacy regardless of the company operating that pharmacy.

It isn't hard to explain why things are this way. US politicians can easily be bought, and companies pay them to create complicated regulations which benefit them by keeping competition out.

Why do you think the most complicated bureaucracies exist in developing countries? It is because government is so corrupt. Corruption drives complexity. If you want simpler rules you need cleaner government. Then you need to get money out of politics. Bernie Sanders is the guy to do that.

<comment><USER41> They unfortunately do not make a detailed argument like that in the article.

What prevents government from being influenced by business in Norway? What keeps it "strong"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It is not just companies. There are agencies of the government that make a practice of using consumer money first to accomplish things for the benefit of enterprises.

</comment><comment><USER28> So Noah Smith has discovered that the economy is over-regulated.

Conservatives and libertarians have said this for decades, but they don't exist in his world, so he treats it as a brand new independent discovery?

</comment><comment><USER58> > So it's possible that big companies are increasing their market power by > using lobbying to capture politicians and regulators. If this is true, it's > very bad news for free markets and capitalism.

A market where companies engage in regulatory capture is not a free market. The word you're looking for is "corporatism", Noah Smith.

<comment><USER59> Isn't that kind of a no-true-Scotsman point? Starting from a totally free market, regulatory capture is inevitable (or other anti-competitive practice destructive to free markets). Achieving a persistently "free" market requires at least enough regulation to prevent that transition.

<comment><USER60> > Starting from a totally free market, regulatory capture is inevitable.

How?

<comment><USER59> Companies obtain money and power. Companies use money and power to secure their position, because "make the best product" is usually not the best investment whenever "prevent competitors from reaching the market" is on the table, and regulation is one of the popular ways to achieve the latter.

<comment><USER60> > whenever "prevent competitors from reaching the market" is on the table

So when you _don't_ have a free market?

<comment><USER59> I think you are confusing the possibility being present with the possibility being realized. In a free market, that possibility is present but unrealized. The _possibility_ doesn't make the market non-free (and anything that would _prevent_ such possibility would make the market strictly speaking non-free), but when entities choose to _act_ on that possibility the market is no longer free.

<comment><USER60> You didn't say it was _possible_ (which almost anything is in this context). You said it was _inevitable_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Are companies acting in their interest the problem or is it the system that allows incumbents to lobby and close the doors to new entrants behind them?

The status quo is a bastardization of capitalism.

</comment><comment><USER62> This article is one huge strawman fallacy. How is monopolies or lobbying the fault of capitalism? If this was an assertion in a random blogpost, so be it, but I would expect more from Bloomberg.

</comment><comment><USER63> Its almost as if capitalism was made to extract as much surplus value from the worker to the capitalist as possible! (shareholder I mean I forgot its the 21th century)

<comment><USER64> It's almost as if most Americans depend on 401Ks for their retirement and therefore are the shareholders you decry.

<comment><USER65> March 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 44% of private industry workers participate in a 401k.

So no, most Americans do not have a 401k and seeing as that would be one of the easiest / most common ways to access the stock market, therefore have no shareholdings.

<comment><USER31> Add in pensions as well. Where do you think CalPers invests their money? Under their mattress?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Given the number of corporate apologists floating around this site, I fully expect that the top voted comment here will be some form of "rent-seeking behavior isn't always bad". Someone will point at the GDP going up and say this justifies literally everything that corporations do. Someone will draw comparisons between two lines on a graph and say this is why Facebook never did anything wrong.

Is this really what we've sunk to? Is this really what everyone thinks? Are we so jaded by the failures of our economic system we can't even tell when it's falling apart?

Surely, even the most staunch supporter of the free market can admit that at a bare minimum, capitalism in this country is in desperate need of better anti- trust regulation to stop monopolies from crushing all competition. Surely we can admit that simply making a bunch of tech startups with weird website URLs is not going to fix the economy by themselves, and might even be making the problem worse.

Of course, given that we can't even agree that global warming is a problem as the arctic permafrost melts, I'm not particularly hopeful.

<comment><USER67> > Surely, even the most staunch supporter of the free market can admit that at > a bare minimum, capitalism in this country is in desperate need of better > anti-trust regulation to stop monopolies

Not taking the position, but free market supporters typically point to regulations as the main reason why monopolies exist.

<comment><USER68> And they're somewhere between wrong and disingenuous to do so, though it's an awfully common trope.

Contrast the treatment of monopoly in Marshall's _Principles_ (the leading text from the 1880s through the 1940s) -- a full chapter, plus numerous other mentions -- with, say, Hazlitt's _One Lesson_ , where it escapes mention entirely, save a note at the end. Hazlitt's book is corporate propaganda.

[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.217841/page/n5...](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.217841/page/n515)

[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.217841/page/n9...](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.217841/page/n907)

[https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one- lesson/](https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson/) 9full text in one page)

<comment><USER69> I think Martin Gardner when writing about bad science roughly said unless there are strong countervailing forces orthodoxy eventually becomes a reflection of cultural biases. I feel modern economics is if anything about generating obsequious corporate propaganda.

<comment><USER68> That tendency goes way back. To the point of coopting anticorporate texts as corporate propaganda, such as _Wealth of Nations_.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is code documentation such a painful process? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> In my experience, code documentation is painful because people often try to maintain perfectly comprehensive formal docs and the expectation is too high. Aiming for perfection instead of iterative improvements can feel intimidating and painful.

I recently wrote this blog post on how you can use lightweight daily habits in git and [https://bytebase.io](https://bytebase.io) (I'm one of the creators) to avoid the dreaded "Docs Overhaul" that seems to happen every couple of months.

Blog Post: [https://medium.com/better-programming/daily-habits-to- turn-y...](https://medium.com/better-programming/daily-habits-to-turn-your- git-history-into-valuable-documentation-15113e1bf312)

The main idea is to capture small chunks of context as part of your regular coding routine. This can be in a git commit message if it closely relates to code or in an external knowledge sharing tool if it is higher level context.

</comment><comment><USER3> Writing feels fluid to me when I think I know what I am talking about and I can imagine someone what parts of my writing someone wants to pay attention to.

When writing documentation, you often either:

1) Know the system very well -- So it is hard to know what the reader needs to know.

2) Don't know the system well at all -- so WTF do you write?

Documentation is better written as a pair between an engineer familiar with the system and an engineer who has self-confidence, passing familiarity with the languages, and no knowledge of the system.

Product idea: As two engineers pair-writing documentation, I want to turn on a product that records what we say and where the senior engineer navigates in the codebase into a very-rough first draft of documentation. Look at the Otter.ai API.

</comment><comment><USER4> I actually read a great answer on Stack Exchange about it recently:

>In my opinion, any system that is used productively and is supposed to be maintained by people, should have documentation at reach of those people who are responsible for its support. The reason is, simply because:

Not all developers have the same IQ - You want every one to get it not only smart John.

Not all code is obvious, complex algorithms are not quite readable by all.

Business rules, while may be readable, may not alone show why they are there. Take for example this line in a reporting application:

if (lastname>="ZZ") then goto loop it is somewhat clear to the reader what is happening but not why this is the case?

Finding out details take long time, it is a waste of business money.

Dependency between pieces of the system may not always be obvious. Especially in batch processes where each job looks like an independent program but the execution sequence is a package that must be processed according to certain rules (like monthly runs, etc.).

Documentation should help you understand logs and whether the results are correct or not.

When you understand the function of each component you can answer business questions. Say Suzan calls from accounting and asks why are we missing 5 checks this month? Some programmers may respond, well, I ran the job and gave me no error - This can't help Suzan. If you know which part of the system does the data extraction for processing the checks and then know what are business rules applied to qualify a check to be printed you can provide an useful answer - Assuming there were no bugs.

Remember that documentation go way beyond the comments that are inserted in code. They include ERD, Business Requirements documents, Design documents, etc.

In short: good documentation gives the developers the necessary control to maintain a system.

source: [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1217...](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/121775/why- should-you-document-code)

</comment><comment><USER5> Because writing documentation after the implementation is hard and error- prone.

I've found that writing the documentation before and using it as guide for developers works best.

</comment><comment><USER6> It gets outdated fast, it becomes messy and it's difficult to explain all concepts with words etc

<comment><USER7> I totally agree with this. Good codebase evolves all the time thru constant refactoring. Looking after code documentation in this context is a pain.

Complex algos should be covered by tests and not so much by comprehensive documentation.

Code documentation works well on external API, which is meant to be relatively static.</comment></comment>


Google May Step into Gaming with 'Yeti' Streaming Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-may-step-into-gaming-with-yeti-streaming-service <comment><USER2> For anyone confused like I was, this is about streaming the actual game (playing the game over the internet without install), not streaming gameplay video (a la Twitch). The latter is something they're already doing, via YouTube Gaming[1].

1\. [https://gaming.youtube.com](https://gaming.youtube.com)</comment>


A Tour of the Tiny and Obfuscated Image Decoder - <AUTHOR> http://eastfarthing.com/blog/2020-09-14-decoder/ <comment><AUTHOR> There's been some discussion on HN [1] of this IOCCC-winning program by Fabrice Bellard before, but no real explanation of how it works. This post is my attempt at a thorough exegesis (and something of a tutorial on modern lossy image compression techniques).

At some point, I plan to write a followup post describing the encoder that I wrote. Enjoy!

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17011872)

<comment><USER2> Thank you for doing this, it was a wonderful read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In summary, Bellard took pieces of JPEG, H.264, and H.265 and combined them together into a tiny and highly efficient image codec. Were this anyone else, I would think it's extremely impressive; but it being Bellard somehow makes it seem like par for the course, given everything else he has done...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the impressive thing to me was discovering just how many such pieces he managed to cram in to a such a small amount of source code, and the judiciousness with which he chose them.

While working on an encoder for it (for a future post!), I did find myself wishing that it'd also had a deblocking filter. But that might have been asking for a miracle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow! I'm impressed at how such an image can be decoded from only 4 KB.

Would any mathematicians be able to take it an order of magnitude further? The legendary DeCSS code is only 433 bytes, and can be represented as a prime number [0]. Imagine if images could be represented as prime numbers.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime)

<comment><AUTHOR> As the sibling comments here say, that should certainly be possible.

However, I don't think that would result in any real compression. At 433 bytes, the DeCSS code takes 3464 bits. Reading the Wikipedia page you linked tells me that the smallest of the prime representations for it was 1401 decimal digits. That's worth 1401 log2(10) ≈ 4654 bits of information. So I believe that encoding it as a prime represents an increase in size in this case.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's an increase in storage size. However, it might be a decrease in network bandwidth.

It doesn't take many bits for me to send you the illegal prime in decimal exponent representation: k*256^211+99

With a sufficiently powerful CPU on the receiving end, you can decode that into DeCSS. I would enjoy being able to send you a picture just by telling you a prime number like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice! I guess you'll be the first to publish an encoder for this format. I wonder if Fabrice Bellard deliberately never published his encoder in order to encourage curiosity leading to this kind of research. Even then I never expected I would see an analysis with this level of detail, it's almost like a course on compression techniques (but more entertaining).

<comment><AUTHOR> I expect I will be the first, unless someone takes what I've posted here and uses it to create and publish their own before I write up mine (or the original one used for the contest gets published). Still, I've posted a new image file in this format at the end to prove that I've done it.

I've corresponded a bit with Fabrice Bellard. He'd indicated that he simply hadn't found the time to clean up his encoder for publication. To be fair, I wouldn't yet consider mine to be publishable. I'll be very curious to compare them if he ever does -- the neat thing about modern lossy codecs is that there tends to be a lot of latitude for the encoders to make choices.

I'm glad you enjoyed all the detail. I had worried that perhaps there was too much but I like to be thorough.

<comment><USER6> > I've posted a new image file in this format

I couldn't resist the urge to follow along and rewrite the code you've presented in Rust, and what do I find at midnight after finally getting it to work and running your test image through? You got me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent! I was hoping that someone would notice that and get a small chuckle out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly offtopic, I'm having some problems accessing this site due to use of... Older technology.

Curl reports: SSL connection using TLSv1.0 / DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA

Which Firefox will refuse to load without forcibly enabling TLS 1.0, which is actually marked for complete removal at some near point in the future. I believe Chrome's approach is similar, with the same expectation of removal.

Now might be a good time to check the site's architecture. As annoying as that probably is. (Especially as it does just appear to be a static blog).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heads up. That's odd since it works for me in Firefox (on both desktop and the new mobile) and I don't think I've had to do force enable anything.

But it is true that I need to get a certificate and upgrade it to support https. That's been on my to-do list but lower priority since, as you say, it's a static blog.

<comment><USER7> Ah, that'll be it. Your web host actually already supports https, but in a broken way.

> TLSv1.0 (IN), TLS handshake, Finished (20):

> SSL connection using TLSv1.0 / DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA

> ALPN, server did not agree to a protocol

> Server certificate:

> subject: CN=*.phpwebhosting.com

> start date: Apr 7 00:07:56 2020 GMT

> expire date: Apr 8 00:07:56 2021 GMT

> subjectAltName does not match eastfarthing.com

They serve up a wildcard certificate that uses a deprecated TLS.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Amazon delisted me – what do I do? - <AUTHOR> I'm at my wits end with big tech platforms. I run a popular photography product company (which was a Kickstarter project in 2014) [0] which gets a lot of love for its ability to help photographers take interesting images.
But I'm continually running into walls with BigTechCos. I'm just coming off the end of having had my Instagram account deleted by Facebook because a graffiti artist and his trolls were able to flag my IG account and left me unable to appeal[1]. 20k followers, 4 years of work gone. My entire customer base is primarily on IG and they are shocked to find that I'm not; so I feel the pain every day and the fact that I'm no longer advertising on FB because of it is a loss-loss in my opinion. Can not explain how upsetting it is for me.
To add insult to injury Amazon randomly delisted my product. I randomly received an email that they removed me [2]. I checked the listing and saw that a customer had left a bad review. I went to contact that customer [3] and saw that the seller in that instance wasn't me, it was Adorama, a retailer who sells the product I created. I figured this was the sale that got my account flagged, so I responded trying to explain that I sell an OEM product so I wouldn't sell anything used/broken[4]. They then respond that my response is not sufficient[5]. I then decide to give them what they want, contact my manufacturer, come up with a plan [6]. Pretty long, with evidence, a spreadsheet, and even more detailed notes at the end of the email.
Today they've just gotten back to me saying they refuse to reinstate it and that I'm shit out of luck [7]. I am livid at this point. What else did they want? And if they weren't going to reinstate me in the first place, why not just say that? According to my account dashboard my account is in perfect 'health'[8] and there is absolutely no indication that there is anything wrong. I feel like I am being trolled.
It feels so perverse because I live in Seattle so I am always rooting for Amazon. Now, after having finally taken the leap and quit my job and started a company that's beginning to do well, the companies that I've always applauded are totally screwing up my business and leaving me stranded with no options. Not even a customer support number. I don't typically get stressed but the helplessness in the hands of these companies has been keeping me up at night. I feel the stress.
Does anyone have any ideas of what I could do? I live in Seattle so are there any offices or people I could try reasoning with in person? And also if anyone can tell me what I did wrong. If anyone has any information that could be useful I would seriously appreciate it because this is quite literally my livelihood and my entire life.
Thank you for reading. Also sorry for the rant; I am not usually so forthcoming; the entire situation though, is just so dis-empowering.
Edit: here is also the product listing in question [9]
[0] https://www.getfractals.com
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19166053
[2] https://imgur.com/a/aQLThvj
[3] https://imgur.com/a/xm8dAoI
[4] https://imgur.com/a/8biKZlT
[5] https://imgur.com/a/ZSVz7vn
[6] https://imgur.com/a/IZgOfuA
[7] https://imgur.com/a/j81rJyk
[8] https://imgur.com/a/dP11fCc
[9] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OHD49R6?ref=myi_title_dp <comment><USER2> You need professional help. It's unfortunate, but there's a very specific format you need to be responding in that's not intuitive unless you've written a bunch of these.

Check out any of the following (I've met both of them and can recommend them):

Ed Rosenberg, ASGTG

Chris McCabe, ecommerceChris

You'll pay somewhere in the $1-2k range for a listing reinstatement, they'll write a professional letter to Amazon in the format they want and hitting all the right points, and you'll be back in business.

Alternatively, you can sell wholesale to other sellers who will sell on Amazon, and not have to deal with this crap yourself.

<comment><USER3> Or just figure it out on your own and then turn around and charge a few grand to all the folks amazon will do it to next week.

apparently helping sellers get reinstated might be more profitable than actually being a seller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's going to be a massive rise in this sort of stuff over the next few years. Firstly consolidation, then organisations too large to care about their clients, then semi-automated punishment. Always remember that Amazon is in the same business as everyone and they can burn you down in a second if they decide they don't care. It's a pond full of bureaucratic crocodiles and the biggest one is boss. On numerous occasions companies have shipped me "fuck you" instead of what I paid for and Amazon won't deal with that. It's no better than a traditional market now. The good traders lose to the bad ones, the customers lose to everyone and the only winner is the landlord.

The only thing you can do is refuse to play.

I'd get a (off shelf) storefront up on a domain you control and can remain in control of and start looking for alternative sources of customers. If you have a customer database of any kind, send out marketing emails with product / brand relaunch. Start posting on twitter, insta, google adwords, popular related forums, everything you can. If you have a loyal customer base they will find you again. I know I would.

<comment><USER5> > On numerous occasions companies have shipped me "fuck you" instead of what I > paid for and Amazon won't deal with that.

What? I've never once had a problem with an Amazon return. You click "return this item", choose the return method (their newer "Locker" thing around the corner is pretty convenient) and that's all that needs to happen.

I mean... there's lots to complain about with Amazon, as there is for any big company. But customer service just isn't one of them as I see it.

What has your experience been that you think Amazon "doesn't deal with" returns?

<comment><USER6> their automated systems are fine, but their actual service is terrible. anytime you need to do something outside of their "system", it is a complete mess and most of the time a complete dead end.

as an example, in the past year, i have had to return/replace greater than 50% of the books i received from them since the books have ranged from being damaged, torn, or just plain dirty. it may be less than 50%, but there have definitely been windows of time where it's greater than that. this is a MASSIVE inconvenience because although all i have to do to initiate the return is click a button, i also have to handle repacking the books and then physical driving or walking them to a dropoff point, all of which takes an hour round trip. i have contacted amazon multiple times, and i am not even able to get the point across. they see that i returned or exchanged the book, so the problem is solved from their end. when i explain that this wastes so much of my time and effectively negates the amazon prime benefit of one or two day shipping (since once the book ships, arrives, i see it's damaged, initiate return process, wait on new shipping which defaults to two days even for books that shipped in one day in the first place takes about a week), they offer a $5 amazon gift card. there was no escalation process whatsoever or even concern.

just this week, i have had to return two books back to them because both books basically arrived used, with dirty and damaged covers and stained pages. the box is in my car ready to be dropped of at ups. it's to the point that i am beginning to have no reason to shop on amazon for books anymore, and i am even considering canceling prime. i have noticed a marked dropped in quality of the books and packing, and i am also just tired of their terrible website. they were the originator of the online book sales, yet their website remains absolutely horrid for books, especially when it comes to multiple editions, releases, paperback vs hardback, etc.

earlier this week, i came across a product listing that had reviews that were clearly for another product. there is no button to report such instances of reviews. try contacting amazon and see if anything even remotely helpful is done. and that's a case of _you_ trying to help _them_.

amazon, apple, and google are perfect examples of what you get at "scale": companies that treat customers as replaceable resources that should have interactions minimized. the less these companies have to deal with customers and users, the better, from their perspective.

<comment><USER3> calling them in always a fiasco, both times i've had to call, the operator agreed with me that it was completely stupid how they run things and how complex certain things were. When your own employees agree, there might be a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It looks like your listing is removed but your account is still active. Is that right?

You need to do a little bit of research on the type of response they are looking for as far as your "plan". You are talking to them and sending them screenshots as if you are talking to a human that cares. They do not. Your messages are going into a queue of thousands where low paid, unskilled workers are skimming through then as fast as possible and clicking approve or deny.

You need to work the system, adjust your responses according to what their blanket response says and just keep at it. Modify your plan and resend it. But wait for them to respond each time before you message again.

Don't over do the detail. But create a numbered list with what you are going to do to correct the problem. I had the same issue with one of my accounts. It took maybe 9 letters until they finally reinstated me. There was nothing special in that 9th letter. It probably just got read by someone in a good mood that day.

If this is your first issue and you don't have any other serious issues with your account, you should be able to get it back.

<comment><USER8> Yeah it is insane. Trying to approach these appeals like you are talking to a regular person just results in failure. A whole industry has popped up around writing Amazon appeals.

It is silly, the whole process encourages you to wildly over promise in your plan, a reasonable set of steps to solve the problem likely won't get you anywhere. Even have to admit to and propose a fix to problems that were never there to fix their check boxes.

There is also a wall between account managers and the seller performance teams, we have had account mangers pushing to get our account back on and not being able to help.

OP- There is a lot of information online so just continue to research and work out exactly what they are looking for, what their check boxes look like, and then write something that hits them all. On the positive side it is rare a final determination from them is actually final and they will generally still look at things after the deadlines they have set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A family member had the same problem recently. Amazon "deleted" all seller accounts in Europe, because they allegedly didn't sell anything. There was only an US seller account left to contact support. We send support requests over the request platform (forgot the name), to one of the email addresses we got from another support request and to a local post address of Amazon. We got answers from all sources, from different persons with quit different results. Some told us to use the EU support request platform (which was no longer available). Some answers told us the same thing the automatic email said. There is no quality control here, no due process. Luckily (literally luck), all stores got reinstated after a week. At some point, we provided evidence that those seller accounts did in fact sell products and our requests were forwarded to an internal business department. There, finally, someone realized that Amazon made a mistake.

Our case isn't yours, but that's the only thing I can tell you. Shotgun initial requests to 3-5 addresses. Make it quit clear that you a) are generating value for Amazon b) want to continue doing so and c) fixed the issue (or better that there actually wasn't an issue and you got flagged for the wrong reason).

Ultimately, this is a question about policy. Big platforms need to be regulated. They are no longer a single business you can avoid. They are a platform, a monopoly holding influence over our daily lives, with the power to destroy financial existences due to algorithmic decisions. You never know beforehand what could go wrong, there is no proper way to contact Amazon in emergencies (like a hotline). You have no way to reinstate your seller account if Amazon simply says "no". (Maybe you could sue them, but you're going to be bankrupt long before that process is finished). Power imbalance is at the root of all injustice and exactly the reason we need rights to protect those with less.

I sincerely hope you can save your business.

<comment><USER10> > Amazon "deleted" all seller accounts in Europe, because they allegedly > didn't sell anything.

In the US, I used to use Amazon to re-sell things I no longer wanted / needed. Old books, especially technical ones, usually got a great price. Electronics I'd replaced would also do really well, especially since I kept the original packaging. And before I'd move to a new city, I'd sell as much as I could. Back then it was essentially encouraged, with a button showing "You purchased this item on <date>, click here to sell it!". I'd had excellent reviews from all buyers and as far as I was concerned it was the best way to get rid of quality goods because the sale was already made - I just needed to package and ship.

About a year later, I tried to go on to sell some things I'd replaced and it turned out they killed my seller account. Worse, I couldn't contact customer service because authentication on their Seller site was required, and my account was closed.

I called a few numbers and finally got hold of someone and was told my account was closed because I hadn't sold anything in a while. Seemed odd. I asked if they could re-open my account, which had been left in excellent standing, and that was denied. The support person suggested I just start a new account with a new email address. That seemed ridiculous to me. I don't want a new email address.

All that good will I'd built with the hundred or so things I'd sold: Gone, with no chance of return. Since I'm not trying to make a living on the platform, I was tossed. I'm surely not a blip on their radar, but I easily would have sold at least another $10k worth of stuff through them over the next few years.

It was a pretty great thing. Unfortunate how they've ruined it so.

<comment><USER9> > The support person suggested I just start a new account with a new email > address. That seemed ridiculous to me. I don't want a new email address.

One of the replies told us exactly the same. Just reopen with a new email address. Ridiculous on it's own, but we had inventory in Amazons warehouses left, worth thousands of euros. What would have happened with that? Destroyed without compensation is my best guess.

<comment><USER11> I am surprised the support person suggested to just start a new account as I doubt this is sanctioned advice by Amazon and could lead you to be banned again in the future.

Best to try to email firstname.lastname@example.com and be polite and succinct with your issue and desired outcome. Even perhaps mention that you were told to simply create a new account but that you doubt that this is the right approach. Hopefully someone from his team will respond.

I believe Dave Clark (SVP of Ops) is also on Twitter so you could try to reach out to him and see if he can direct you to the right person. Best of luck, hope you resolve the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Though it may not help your position, I wouldn't dismiss the idea that petty / bureaucratic staff are giving you the runaround.

I had exactly that happen with the Apple App Review squad. I managed to somehow offend a mid-level manager type and she purposefully kept moving the bar to get our app through review.

"Did I say you need one of those? I meant one or two. You need two."

I had an old contact there that was way up the food chain and he contacted her boss on my behalf -- who called and apologized and took the idiot woman off the case.

If I didn't have that contact, we would have been at the mercy of some worthless drone who wanted to flex her muscles.

Big tech absolutely should be broken up. There is no such thing as Amazon -- well, there's Amazon the monopoly, but the Amazon you deal with is one of a 100 rent-seeking fiefdoms staffed with people who got picked last in school.

Collectively they do much more harm than good. (And that's ignoring the more pressing problem of political bias and censorship.)

<comment><USER13> Creating a tmp account to roast minimum wage workers, classy.

Feel free to go work as a reviewer at amazon/apple if you feel like you can improve the process. I'm sure you'll enjoy getting 20% of your current salary + being treated like an animal by basically everyone.

<comment><USER14> I don't think a "mid-level manager" makes minimum wage.

<comment><USER15> I'd assume the average wage here is more than 5x minimum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only way to protect against commercial deplatforming is to promote and sell through your own website, with a choice of payment processors.

It's hard work but there's really nothing else to say.

Every other presence should be considered as a disposable inbound funnel. Instagram or Twitter deleted you? Start a new account and link back to your website again.

<comment><USER17> Whenever I read this advice, I can't help but feel it's futile.

Do you realize how hard it is to gain people's attention without being on one of the major platforms? How do you get people to come to your website, to trust your service and give you their credit card details? How do you accept payments? You have to use something like PayPal or Stripe, also platforms which can ban you for any (or no) reason. The economics are unworkable, and platforms are unavoidable.

This is our new reality.

<comment><USER18> Depends what you mean by "platform", and it might depend on what you are selling, but other channels you might want to look at are SEO, discussion forums, integration marketing etc. Take a look at the book "Traction".

<comment><USER19> Which "Traction" book is this? There seem to be a few with this title.

<comment><USER20> [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22091581-traction](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22091581-traction)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Are you communicating with Seller Central, A-to-z, or Seller Performance?

You need to be talking to Seller Performance. That's the legal team. My mom had some return fraud, same person, second time at a new address. I proved beyond a doubt the damage photos were photoshopped and we refused to refund and refused to replace. We pre-emptively contacted Seller Performance before denying to take care of the customer as it was in a grey area of the seller contract. Seller Performance said it was our customer and we could do as we saw fit. A-to-z got all unreasonable with us and threatened to terminate our account until we referred them to the Seller Performance email stream. Yes, all this over a shitty pair of $5 sunglasses...but it's the principle of the matter.

Talk to the lawyers. Be brief, clear and truthful. That's your best bet.

<comment><USER2> Seller performance is not the legal team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a customer, not a seller, I'm now activelly avoiding Amazon as much as I can. Even if it is inconvenient.

Especially since I read this article about commingling (you need to register (free) to read): [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon-...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/03/20/1553085361000/Amazon --sub-Prime-/)

They are now dangerously close to be a monopoly AND a monopsony in way too many markets.

They just don't need to care anymore and it shows.

<comment><USER2> He clearly doesn't understand what he's writing about - his example is Apple Earpods, where Amazon is the only seller due to an exclusive contract between Amazon and Apple, and there's no commingling at all going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have personally purchased your product as a gift for my sister and she loved it. I really hope that Amazon realizes their mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much!! That means so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Once (and if) you exhaust all options mentioned by HNers, trying emailing Jeff Bezos and write a proper explanation with kind of tldr; in the first para.

I know it sounds stupid but it worked for me. I had a $$$ of affiliate payment pending with them and the CS staff dilly-dallied the payment - to my Indian account - for more than 10 months. I emailed, Jeff intervened, deputed his secretary on my case. He, in turn, got me in touch with India manager. The Indian manager bent over backwards and was extremely apologetic for the trouble I had to face and sent the amount quickly. He ended the last call saying for any kind of trouble with Amazon I can contact him.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is reassuring to hear that Jeff at least operates like a decent human. It is so nihilistic to imagine a future where leaders of these insanely powerful tech companies act moreso like, say, characters on wall street.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Don't know what to say. You should move away from amazon. It is already a monopoly. Recently I flagged a product which has all 5 _(10s of them, not a singe 4_ or -ve reviews!). Looked at the reviews on page 1, all single lines, great product, received promptly etc. None properly describing the product. I was almost convinced to buy, then dig through the reviews and found that the reviews are not related to the product at all. The product is a vitamin supplement, the reviews related to some skin cream not available on street. And it's directly an amazon prime product (not from market place).I was raged and immediately contacted amazon cs and had a lengthy chat and they said some one will get back to me and do something about it. Never heard anything back and the product stays and people still get fooled.

</comment><comment><USER26> Unfortunately, your best bet is to hope this gets enough attention here that an Amazon employee on some higher level happens to see it. This is more or less the case with a lot of these tech companies right now. You have my upvotes, hope it helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also to further your point into existential territory. I remember hearing Elizabeth Warren saying her plan was to break up BigTechCo's and thinking to myself about how ridiculous it is and how she's totally pointing her guns in the wrong direction. But after these events and some reflection; it's true. These companies are clearly only accountable to themselves leaving everyone else to go f* themselves. Consumers may win in the short term with the low prices that commerce conglomerate Amazon can offer, but I think the long run; retail death will only further widen income gaps and continue to tear our country's social fibers further apart.

I feel like I did everything I could to be on the correct side of this economic gamble; having worked for a few BigTechCo's; studying, training hard, teaching myself to code. But still, they don't even treat me right. It's like they're accountable to no one. They are more and moreso becoming public enemy #1 and I feel like that's a position for which they are totally deserving.

<comment><USER27> I can't see how breaking up Amazon helps this kind of thing. Sure you could break of AWS, you could separate fulfilment stuff from the main marketplace and have Amazon itself just another marketplace seller, you could insist they use 3rd party courier companies, not start their own etc.

But fundamentally there is still a website that has listings and someone has to patrol it for quality / spam. Those people will have to use algorithms, and they will make mistakes.

Don't get me wrong. Breaking up Amazon is a good idea, and should happen, but it's unlikely to help here.

<comment><USER28> > I can't see how breaking up Amazon helps this kind of thing

Read up on the break-up of Standard Oil.[0]

If we took that approach with a tech giant, we'd end up with lots of smaller independent companies _which compete with each other_ in their markets, not companies which each (still!) completely dominate one particular market segment.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil#Breakup)

<comment><USER29> That doesn't seem like it would work in this context. Whichever retains the Amazon domain name (or if somehow forfeited the most memorable/closest) would retain the lion's share for the one stop shop. Barnes and Noble is still around but that market seems fairly winner takes all.

MmThe break en up mantra seems demagogic pandering as opposed to a real solution- especially when actual abusive and far more dominant, abusive, and all consuming monopolies walk by in the background whistling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> First: DO NOT email email@example.com, DO NOT Do media or any of crazy stuff like that.

I have to be honest with you OP. This is a case of you not understanding how the platform works, while Amazon is unclear in their policies. If you give them what they need, they will collaborate with you most of the time.

Here's what I believe happened based on what you provided.

Your product listing, you must have created using manufacturer's barcode. You can check your seller central Settings -> Fulfillment By Amazon [http://prntscr.com/n6j53l](http://prntscr.com/n6j53l)

If you had this at manufacturer barcode, or created the listing with manufacturer barcode. Then your products are commingled with the other sellers.

From what I saw in the image, it looks like the other seller Adorama sent in a product that looked used to the buyer. Then buyer complained. Now you are on the hook since the products are commingled.

If this is indeed the case you will need to write a Plan of action that addresses what Amazon is asking.

Point them to your manufacturer's website ([https://www.getfractals.com](https://www.getfractals.com))

Root cause \- inventory commmingling

Action Taken \- removed all inventory to verify no issues

Prevention \- no more commingling

Sourcing: I source directly from manufacturer, I am the brand owner and manufacturer. point to the your website, and LINK the verifiable information back to you (same address, same storefront name, same personal nam etc), this is to prove you are sourcing from legitimate source.

Listing: You have double checked listing to make sure product matches

Packaging & Shipping: address this if necessary

Buyer communication: I've reached out to buyer, and found out this product is from a commingled seller.

Also you will need to draft a invoice to yourself (your manufacturer identity to your own seller identity) in order to give the document amazon needs to pass this.

If you draft the correct POA plan, Amazon will accept it. Also make sure you never use commingling if you create your own products!

<comment><USER2> Strongly disagree.

First of all, Adorama is selling merchant fulfilled, not FBA. So commingling is irrelevant here.

Second, it's unlikely the Adorama order is what caused the issue, being as it wasn't even FBA. My guess is it's a different order that caused the issue, they haven't identified it properly, and that's why they're getting rejected.

<comment><USER31> If there is anything I may be able to assist you with, you are most welcome to email me: email@example.com

Helen Oster Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My advice: Think long and hard about which third platforms your products rely on. I understand that it's not practical or even advisable to completely avoid third party providers, but at least your store should be independent and reachable under yourdomain.com. It should be the primary destination for your customers.

I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy customer, but a service like Shopify will enable you to run your own store without a technological background or server administration and it doesn't prevent you from also selling via external channels like Amazon, eBay or others. The difference is that your primary store, or in the worst case your domain, will be there even if Amazon & Co. decide to stop selling your products over night.

</comment><comment><USER33> I recommend that you read the article below. At the very least, you might find some solace in knowing that you are not alone. Alternatively, you could reach out to some of the consultants mentioned in the article, who specialise in unravelling the Amazon ToS and act as arbitrers.

Good luck.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon- marketpl...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace- scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement)

</comment><comment> toby- Don't try to make a new account as others have suggested. You're essentially guaranteed to be permanently delisted by Amazon if you do this and they react. Instead, send a polite but compelling email to firstname.lastname@example.com explaining the situation in full.

I once had an issue that Amazon's customer service wouldn't address. I emailed email@example.com and had a response within a week, with a full resolution to the matter.

Worth a shot?

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm going to echo a lot of people's response here, and say that your best bet is to reduce and/or eliminate your dependence on Amazon. As far as IG, I think that it's a channel worth pursuing because your product fits the platform so well.

Just an idea: you mentioned that you had a successful Kickstarter in 2014. If you still have the list of backers, and their emails, this is a good opportunity to start an email list, and tell your story to them. The primary goal will be to tell them why you're not on Amazon, and on IG, and how it happened.

It is an opportunity to also direct them to your new selling channel (or tell them that you are working on one). You can also appeal to your customer to lend your their support (I don't know how, but it is a good opportunity to figure out how that support could look like).

</comment><comment><USER35> > because a graffiti artist and his trolls were able to flag my IG account

Super curious about the story behind this..

<comment><AUTHOR> Look no further.

[https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/37238/does-this- imag...](https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/37238/does-this-image-with-a- subject-containing-graffiti-in-the-background-infringe-on)

<comment><USER36> Seems like people are saying art is art, and copyrighted, even if it was illegal graffiti.

That begs the question:

1) what if I start tagging everything possible in public space, and if anyone takes photos of it then I can claim copyright violation or royalties? Evidence in the comments seems to show that this _actually works_ to get settlements.

And this was brought up by a commenter:

2) what if a my car window is smashed (as a work of art), and I take a photo of it for evidence?

Seems like copyrighting artwork done on public property (or other people's property) is an unfair and unjust invasion of one's personal vision space (it's forcing me to look at it). It reduces my personal rights to take photos of a public area and retain what would be my rights to the contents of a photo by having someone's copyrighted artwork imposed there (often illegitimately). In my opinion, if I am forced—that is to say I have no choice—to see something then it should lose copyright (or be applicable as fair use).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I always found dealing with Amazon Kafkaesque outside of "my parcel didn't arrive - ok we send a new one" or "I don't want this - ok send it back". Some of my interactions ended with involving the police who solved them in my favor.

</comment><comment><USER38> Ask this in the Amazon sellercentral forums, not here. Yes there are pro Amazon sellers here but most people here don't really know anything about how the Amazon reinstatement system works at all - as others pointed out it's unfortunately somewhat byzantine in nature.

BTW - same deal with IG, there's a process to reinstatement. Now to think about it - there's actually a skill involved with talking to BigCos, understanding how support teams are structured (and who has power/discretion), and getting resolutions in your favor. A lot of these issues come from overarching policies followed up by corner cases, so you need to present yours well basically.

</comment><comment><USER39> When you try to make a living outside of the big corporations, you can feel the invisible wall that they've built to protect their business interests from small players. It's ridiculous that if I work for a corporation, I can get paid a huge salary with huge options package for doing very little actual work but if I try to do my own business, I can produce much more of the same work but can't make 10% of the salary.

</comment><comment><USER40> It is entirely possible to get your Instagram reinstated. What you need to do is know someone who has a close relationship with FB. In the past I used a friend who owns an influencer agency. After months of submitting my own appeals his single appeal did the trick.

</comment><comment><USER41> Tweet at the company and the CEO of such company with details. That is what the media is watching. This will get their attention. Worked for a couple of people I know personally.

<comment><USER42> This can be a powerful tool, but in this specific instance it's probably more likely to get his account locked down for good.

</comment></comment><comment> who-knows95 Hello, i completely understand your frustration, reading the messages it's clearly some drone on the other side replying.

I would echo the statement to put up your own store, hosted on your own domain, and to stop relying on third party suppliers that are not interested in your well being. (but i have no personal experience)

i have seen YouTubers echo this statement in regards to ads disappearing, and i have seen amazon wipe companies out with these idiotic issues.

i wish you the best, and i love your product design/idea!

<comment><USER19> I think this is right. It is possible to sell on your own site. Luxury goods do it right now. For example, if you want to buy perfume directly from Chanel, you cannot do it through Amazon. My sense is that Chanel wouldn't give Amazon product even if they asked for it.

That said, I think this approach is best combined with voting for and supporting candidates and social movements which will break up big tech and/or socialize their assets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Wow, thanks for sharing, unbelievable story, hope you can find a quick resolution. Hopefully the buzz from this post ends up being a net positive for your business.

To anyone questioning why breaking up big tech is important, just imagine doing nothing wrong an receiving a form email like this in regards to your livelihood: [https://i.imgur.com/gWewbd1.png](https://i.imgur.com/gWewbd1.png)

</comment><comment><USER44> I have no idea how to help but your product looks wonderful and I think I'm going to buy it - I'm sorry you're going through this

<comment><USER45> +1 looks like a really cool product and I'm probably gonna buy one as a gift. Insane that a clearly legit product like this can be banned with no recourse at these sites. They should invest some of their smart people into improving the UX for these situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> At least this is on the homepage of HN now. That might get it some attention from someone who works for Amazon.

But that really sucks, hope you can resolve this!

</comment><comment><USER47> If you live in Seattle, perhaps you have friends who work at Amazon who can intro you to someone in the right team? You're trying to deal with a giant bureaucracy, so access to someone on the inside is going to be really effective.

</comment><comment><USER48> Push your own ecommerce channels, there is no need to rely solely on Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER49> What does "US Patent #14/205-314" mean?

Is that a new patent-number style? Because it does not look like a normal patent number.

<comment><USER50> That is a patent application number. USPTO Public PAIR [0] shows that the application went abandoned 12-12-2016.

[0] [https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair](https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think I might be able to help - I've just sent an email to the address listed under "contact" on your site.

</comment><comment><USER52> Surprised no one has mentioned a lawyer. Even if Amazon/FB is in full rights to do what they've done, having a lawyer send a letter usually gets a more indepth and careful examination of your issue(s).

</comment><comment><USER53> Make a new account - the only thing that works.

Amazon has no qualms delisting businesses making tenth of megabucks on Amazon, and it is very unlikely that they will make an exception for a small business.

<comment><USER8> Very hard to successfully do this, basically have to commit to going full stealth with a different company, owners, emails, bank accounts, IPs ect.

<comment><USER53> 9 times out of 10, they seem to don't mind.

I know no Amazon vendor in China that doesn't deal with random closures by just reopening the account, and often with the same credentials.

<comment><USER54> That's a really bad advice for US residents. Maybe their flagging ML system doesn't work well on random Chinese addresses, but with US history they pretty much either prevent a creation of a new account in any way associated with an old banned account, immediately flag it for a review requiring extensive internal company documentation/proofs or remove it in regular (quarterly?) sweeps when they kick bunches of sellers from their platform.

"Funny" thing is their anomaly detection algorithms are really bad and they tend to keep counterfeit sellers while kicking out genuine ones more often with no way to appeal in a reasonable fashion, i.e. paying some external company with individual ties to Amazon managers to reinstate sellers... Complete mafia around selling on that badly designed platform.

<comment><USER53> My hypothesis is that they intentionally disabled or relaxed fuzzy string match based ban lists in China.

It is common knowledge that you have much better chance to re-register without any trickery in a big city, than in a small one.

Imagine, you have few hundreds Liu Chens running some undescript Zhongguo Electronics in every megacity, and very likely all having addresses like "Northern/Western/Eastern Industrial Park Zone 123" – add some fuzzy logic here and you have a recipe for disaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I remember the internet before Amazon, people controlled their own stuff. Do likewise, respond like it's 2002.</comment>


Iwant HN: Stackable CPU's - <AUTHOR> I want CPU's I can stack on top of each other to increase computing power at will.  Or PCIe for cpu's <comment><USER2> 1u?

<comment><AUTHOR> like this

[http://img07.deviantart.net/004a/i/2011/282/9/6/stack_of_old...](http://img07.deviantart.net/004a/i/2011/282/9/6/stack_of_old_amd_processors_by_famous1994-d4ccjce.jpg)

<comment><USER3> How would you make connections to all the pins?

How would you cool them sufficiently to keep them from melting?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought maybe pins would be like a leggo, male&female, top to bottom, silicon between the pins?? It might also be time to get rid of pins altogether.

And cooling maybe peltier elements? or something like them?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Picdeck – Tweetdeck for Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://picdeck.co/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone,

Just wanted to show you the outcome out our first internal hackday, a tweetdeck style viewer for Instagram.

We had a lot of fun making it, hope you like it!</comment>


Surveillance state: NSW intensifies citizen tracking - <AUTHOR> https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/surveillance-state-nsw-intensifies-citizen-tracking-20181019-p50atw.html <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of an article I read on NPR last month. Funny seeing this here now.

[https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/627249909/australia-and- new-z...](https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/627249909/australia-and-new-zealand- are-ground-zero-for-chinese-influence)</comment>