Allow me to temper some of the glee exhibited in the comments and even in some of the reports but a key line here is:<p><i>"The divvying of antitrust enforcement does not mean that the agencies have opened official investigations"</i><p>It is worth keeping in mind that antitrust enforcement in the US doesn't care about whiny competitors but if the enduser and customer is harmed and it doesn't appear to be the case when it comes to any of these corporations.<p>This whole thing is terribly misguided, there is a long list of companies and markets worthy of antitrust scrutiny and these tech companies if they are on that list then they are at the very bottom of it. The real drag on the economy are the high prices of healthcare and housing, there is also the case that ISPs have obvious monopolies and are providing inferior products and services and the list goes on.<p>The role of the media here shouldn't be ignored, they coined the term "big tech" to conjure negative associations and they continuously publish alarmist coverage about any combination of these firms, they also stand to benefit if any enforcement action were to occur.
In my career, first it was IBM, the unstoppable juggernaut that was going to take over the world. Then it was Microsoft, and everyone forgot about IBM. Then it was Apple, and everyone forgot about Microsoft.<p>Before IBM, it was RCA. Everyone has forgotten about RCA.<p>It's like in retail. First it's Sears, the unstoppable juggernaut that will take over the world. Then it's Walmart, and Sears is bankrupt. Now it's Amazon, and Walmart is the underdog.<p>It's almost as if the theory that monopolies inevitably grow to take over the world has serious problems :-)
So the companies that have more or less sprung up out of nowhere are...to blame for the economic stagnation of the middle class over the last 40 to 50 years?<p>Pardon the editorial but here we go again, politicians pinning the tail on the wrong donkey (i.e., spinning root causes out of symptoms and correlation); the voters will fall for it, and five to ten years down the road we'll all realize we wasted our time (as the root causes further strengthened their stranglehold).
Unsurprising. The government needs to appease the public after killing net neutrality.<p>And, now that ISPs don't need to follow net neutrality, the regional broadband monopolies are free to zero-rate their own video services like AT&T openly does [1]. Next they can throttle Netflix, charge them a premium, and pass costs to the consumer without taking any sort of financial hit for doing so.<p>[1] <a href="https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2019/02/13/isps-are-violating-the-old-net-neutrality-rules/" rel="nofollow">https://potsandpansbyccg.com/2019/02/13/isps-are-violating-t...</a>
I realize this is probably not a popular opinion but Amazon, Google and Facebook are natural monopolies in the businesses they operate in. That is to say the optimal market structure in almost all internet businesses is high concentration with a single organization controlling +80% of market share. So breaking up these organizations doesn’t necessarily solve the problems we are facing today. This is not an antitrust issue. Economically speaking, it will likely be impossible to prove that someone like Amazon behaved in a anti-competitive manner. Same goes for Google. Facebook is the only one I can see broken up largely due to all the negative publicity.
The potential cases against the large tech firms are all coming in at the same time. I wonder what could be driving it.<p>If they move foward, I hope that the nature of the results are good for the public (i.e. preventing anti-competitive behavior)
The WP reported that Rep Cicilline said the "Internet is broken". I agree -- because the ISPs broke the internet, and Congress is letting the FCC allow that. Why aren't they fixing that?
I'm glad we're finally taking anti-trust seriously, but this timing is incredibly suspicious. Right after we put sanctions on Chinese tech, we start taking steps to limit our own?<p>A good, plausibly deniable soft power attack would be to make an antitrust case, present it to the feds with the work already done, and let them do their thing now that they basically have to take action or look foolish.<p>No malicious actors involved, except for the people who choose to trigger the audit at the opportune moment.
I guess we'll see how this plays out. I would of course like to see anti competitive behavior be minimized, but how they will go about that I'm not sure. Even if they are broken up, I doubt we will see much improvement for lowering the barrier of entry for these industries. I would like to hear what other users' thoughts are about what to do to prevent anti competitive tactics without regulating the market too heavily.
Surprised to not see Amazon on here, esp. given DJT's hatred of Bezos. But maybe they're saving the best for last. Certainly would not be surprising given Amazon's developing vertical monopoly on all things bought and sold.
When tech companies become collectible trading cards. Clearly this is the best timeline.<p>On a more serious note, I hope the government gets to the telecom, oil, tobacco, military arms, and financial industries too at some point...
This is literally politicians co-opting popular rage to make themselves look good, and everyone here is stroking themselves because their old tech fantasies aren't cool anymore (and everyone loves a good car crash).<p>There are so many horrible companies in the world that are actually anti-competitive, but <i>this</i> is the force of evil that needs to be dealt with? An ad company, a consumer products company, a social media company, and an incorporeal futuristic version of Walmart? The last one is perhaps the most applicable, the rest are just pointless makers of gadgets nobody actually needs, like wanting to break up Hasbro.
Considering FB just handed over a private citizens data to a convicted hacker simply because he requested it, I would say I'm pretty happy about this development.
Advertisers, and others, could be paying higher prices due to market dominance, while users of so-called free services could be experiencing lower quality offerings with reduced innovation and variety, as well as excessive data appropriation. These effects, and others, would constitute reduced consumer welfare.
I would like to see Paypal added to the list.
Although, part of this monopoly is a very high regulatory barrier of entry for Paypal competition.
But they should look if paypal engages into practices 'steer' regulators (or politicians) to not to allow others in.<p>I also thought about Ebay monopoly, however we have newEgg and Amazon, and unless they are setting up barriers for others to entry, or fixing prices, or coordinating to black-list certain business/consumers -- I doubt that they will be looked at.
I think this might be because of the right wing of the Republican party that thinks that Google/Facebook etc are unfairly censoring their point of view. This action might be designed to cut them down to size.
I can't log out of Facebook on Firefox, FB seems to have bugged the dropdown containing the log-out button so it loads forever instead of appearing :(
The Chinese government must be slathering at the mouth about this. Assuming there are some inherent advantages to large tech companies (a collection of smaller companies can't achieve the same economy of scale as one big one), then if America breaks up its large tech companies it will be the perfect opportunity for Chinese ones to fill their place. This would not only expand China's soft power but also their ability to monitor global information flows. Given that much recent development in deep learning is also funded by the deep pockets of monopolistic tech companies, breaking them up (and removing this surplus profit) would slow down US AI development relative to China.