<story><title>A Supreme Court Case That Could Give Tech Giants More Power</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/the-supreme-court-case-that-could-give-tech-giants-more-power.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway8995</author><text>I don’t want to detract too much from this discussion, but I can provide insight into what kind of bullying company AmEx truly is, and how their ethos permeates throughout everything they do.&lt;p&gt;I worked for AmEx for about 5 years. Everything was going great, and they announced a 5-month paternity leave program. I’m not going to lie, but it made it a lot easier to decide on having a child.  Long story short, my son was born, I took paternity leave, and got laid off after 2 months into my paternity.&lt;p&gt;I get that I’m an at will employee, which is what lawyers keep telling me. It’s true that large companies, not just tech companies exert a lot of power, especially when it comes to swaying what’s ethical and what’s not. That’s a whole separate discussion, but AmEx clearly used me to send a message- don’t act on our gesture... or else.  Influencing future behavior is what AmEx is really good at. Not credit cards.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Supreme Court Case That Could Give Tech Giants More Power</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/the-supreme-court-case-that-could-give-tech-giants-more-power.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>laser</author><text>In the case being tried, why is it not straightforward to demonstrate that higher costs for the merchants due to anti-competitive practices by credit card companies leads to higher costs for consumers, and therefore meets the two-sided market standard that the author fears?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure on the edges whether the concept of harming competition for the benefit of consumers is just, but at least in the example case I don&amp;#x27;t see how this is an issue.&lt;p&gt;Are the standards for demonstrating harm so high that you can&amp;#x27;t make a strong legal case that higher costs for merchants gets passed to consumers?</text></comment>