Author: Li Chuanqi
Editor: Li Chuanqi
Produced by: Quantum Technology Group
Cover picture author: Pat Whelen
Jack Ma may not have had a very "peaceful" Christmas Eve, at least not enough peace of mind. Since Jack Ma’s violent speech at the financial forum, Ant Group’s listing has been suspended.
In fact, a signal was already being released at that time. The squeezing effect of the Internet, finance, and real estate on other industries would not be allowed to continue indefinitely.
Immediately afterwards, anti-monopoly and combating financial capital were included in the 14th Five-Year Plan and the 2021 Central Work Economic Report without expansion.
Then, Alibaba was put under antitrust investigation, and Ant Group was interviewed by the financial regulatory authorities. Prior to this, Ant Group had successively removed bank deposit products and lowered the Huabei consumption limit for young people.
Today I want to talk about these recent things about Alibaba, what we should know and what we should think about.
About "choose one from two"
1. The so-called "choose one from two" is "choose one from Tmall or JD.com". To be more specific, it is Alibaba It is required that "many brand merchants such as clothing and home furnishings who have opened stores on Tmall Mall are not allowed to participate in 618, Double 11 and other promotional activities on JD Mall, are not allowed to open stores on JD Mall for business, and can even only open stores on one platform of Tmall Mall. Business behavior. ”
2. As early as 2017, JD.com, the other party in the “choose one” incident, had already filed a lawsuit against Alibaba for abusing its market dominance. Unfortunately, there has been no substantial progress so far.
3. Wang Shuai, chairman of the Alibaba Market Public Relations Committee, previously stated on Weibo that "choosing one of the two is normal market behavior." This is the simplest business rule. ”
4. If the report is true, Ali may face huge penalties.
Is Alibaba a monopoly?
Domestic e-commerce is flourishing, including not only JD.com owned by Qiangdong, but also the well-established Suning.com, and even Pinduoduo, which “wants to overtake in corners”. How can Alibaba be considered a monopoly?
This requires a precise definition of the word monopoly. Since each antitrust law book is thicker and thicker than the last, as a non-lawyer, I feel dizzy when I read it. If I were to explain it to you, it would be even more incomprehensible and authoritative.
However, this group can list some key information for your reference.
In economics, if one company's market share reaches 50%, it is considered a monopoly; if two companies' share reaches 60% or three companies' share reaches 70%, it is considered an oligopoly.
In the "Ranking of China's Top Ten E-commerce Market Shares", Alibaba ranked first with a market share of 58.2%, while JD.com and Pinduoduo, ranked second and third, only held 16.3% and 5.2% %. From an economic perspective, Alibaba has reached the standard of oligopoly.
Of course, legally judging whether a monopoly is a monopoly is not so simple. Let’s sort out three typical monopolistic behaviors: 1. Abuse of market dominance; 2. Agreements to restrict competition; 3. Business mergers to gain market dominance.
The investigation is still ongoing. We can’t say whether Alibaba has a monopoly or not. We have to wait for the results.
Has Alibaba violated the Anti-Monopoly Law?
In fact, in the market, all competition is for monopoly, but only competition that does not allow others to compete can constitute a real monopoly. It is understandable that everyone wants to make their own cake bigger. When the cake becomes bigger, you will have a monopoly market position.
After you have a monopoly market position, whether you will use your dominant position in the market to attack your opponents and restrict transactions is related to monopolistic market behavior. Whether a company has a monopoly market position but has monopolized the market behavior is the focus of attention in the court.
For example, in the previous online ride-hailing war, Didi and Kuaidi formed the standard of oligopoly. They not only used subsidies to combat rentals, but also merged in the end, which violated antitrust laws.
As in the previous Qualcomm antitrust case, Qualcomm mainly used its market dominance to sell chips at high prices and collect unnecessary patent fees.
Whether Alibaba has violated the Anti-Monopoly Law must be investigated from the perspective of whether it is suspected of restricting transactions, and whether it is using its market dominance to increase commission rates from merchants, etc.
Will Alibaba decline as a result?
First of all, considering the source, Alibaba will definitely give up its behavior of restricting transactions in the future. The loss of those brands that have signed exclusive agreements will naturally damage its competitiveness. Of course, merchants who have lowered their commissions may reciprocate prices and services, and therefore may bring certain returns, but no one can say for sure.
But there is no doubt that monopoly dividends will disappear. The part that does business well will not be punished, but the part that is out of line will certainly be punished. At the same time, it also reminds Ali that doing what he should do well is the most important thing.
Qualcomm, Intel, and Microsoft have all encountered antitrust investigations, but in the end it had little impact on their competitiveness because they are technology-based companies. Large-scale enterprises such as Alibaba, Meituan, and Tencent will definitely be affected.
The above is what we should know about this incident. Now that we know what we need to know, what should we think of?
Cannot be viewed in isolation
As for Jack Ma, I believe that most people who eat melons mainly watch the fun, but if you want to say that it is the big mouth that caused this trouble, the author really cannot agree. . We cannot look at problems one-sidedly, we must look at the essence through the phenomenon.
When it comes to being playful, there are too many people like this. Now is a society governed by the rule of law. If you just talk too much, at most you will be asked to pay more attention to what you say.
Ali has been "choosing one of the two" for so many years, why is justice only coming now? Because not only Alibaba, but also the whole world is supervising digital companies suspected of being monopolistic.
The Internet giants have begun to be closely supervised. This phenomenon does not only happen in China, nor does it only happen to Alibaba. The whole world is alert to those digital giants that may monopolize.
Of course, I understand that people associate big mouth with being under supervision. As people who eat melons, we should have an entertainment mentality. However, if we always only think about such superficial and superficial essence, it will be very difficult. It is difficult to supervise these giants, so we should eat the melon, but we still need to think about the problem.
Antitrust is not about curbing the development of Internet companies
In terms of antitrust, Microsoft was almost defeated. Microsoft was once asked to be dismembered by the attorneys general of 20 states of the U.S. Department of Justice. This was not an attempt to kill the donkey, but a growing monopoly of Microsoft - Microsoft was trying to use its monopoly position to eliminate its competitor Netscape.
The People’s Daily commented that “In addition to monetizing traffic, accumulated data and algorithms can also be used to promote technological innovation.”
In the long run, maintaining the vitality of innovation is always better Thinking about the "choose one" business competition is much more important.
In the future, the competition on the Internet will only become more and more intense. You cannot survive by staring at the wallets of old men and women. Innovation, innovation, innovation, important things have to be said three times. Innovation is the foothold of the future. the foundation.
Is there anything new in China’s Internet today? After Douyin Kuaishou, I really can’t think of anything new. What is certain is that the whole world will face repairs after the epidemic. The current innovation situation really has to make people worry.
Monopoly cannot be the way out.
Antitrust is to make you abide by the rules, not to defeat Alibaba, but to give the next Alibaba a better development environment. It was through anti-monopoly that Europe and the United States restricted Microsoft and IBM, and then Facebook and Apple came to be. After all, the first to get rich must lead the latter to get rich, rather than blocking the way to the latter.
Just imagine, if Apple had succeeded in suppressing Android, what would our current mobile phone market be like?
The author is happy to see giants being regulated. The Internet is ushering in close supervision. This is a historic turning point. Regulation is not to destroy, but to guide it to change.
As a melon-eating crowd, you need to have a big picture in order to eat the most fragrant melons.