> So much modern antitrust action against tech companies is like pushing on a string: the reason these companies have power is because so many customers choose to use them<p>That's not the only reason though? For example, Google "abused its market dominance by imposing a number of restrictive clauses in contracts with third-party websites which prevented Google's rivals from placing their search adverts on these websites" [0]. Facebook "has maintained its position by acquiring, copying or killing its competitors" [1].<p>The quoted statement seems to miss the point, which is that anti-competitive behaviour reduces the choice of the consumer. Of course they choose to use those services: they don't have much recourse to alternatives.<p>[0] <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_1770" rel="nofollow">https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-committee-facebook-monopoly-buys-kills-competitors.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-antitrust-committee-fa...</a>
Many of the problems caused by excessive corporate power could be resolved by prosecuting corporate officers, for actions taken under their direction, as individuals, clawing back their bonuses and locking them up. Laws enabling this have always been on the books, but somehow people have come to tolerate corporate officers getting a free pass. Prosecutors don't even try to fulfill their public duty.<p>Exxon and coal executives are personally responsible for a substantial part of global climate disruption. Paint executives are responsible for deliberately poisoning hundreds of millions of children. Tobacco executives got millions of children addicted to nicotine. Coke and Pepsi are poisoning whole generations. Yet, the most we seem able to do is fine shareholders, when shareholders really have hardly any say in what companies do. A nut job who shoots up a bus station triggers a nationwide manhunt, yet these rich bastards kill by the millions, wholesale, and more horribly, and are allowed to retire to their yachts. It would not take much prosecution to bring about a sea change in how corporate executives behave.