4 ms·
> This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against M
by kgantchev 6y ago
> This is not true at all. Anti monopoly regulations, for example, exist for the sole purpose of privileging new entrants over incumbents. The actions against Microsoft, or the breaking up of AT&T certainly did not help the incumbents.
The intended purpose is to help the new entrants, but I don't see Microsoft or AT&T losing anything or their smaller competitors gaining anything after the regulatory action against them.
> An example closer to home is that entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley is often attributed to California law forbidding non competes in employment contracts. This is regulation, without which, as you see in nearly every other state, workers are severely bound by their employment contracts in the work they can do while and after being employed by a company.
That's a matter of negotiation. I always (successfully) negotiated with my employer to exclude my personal projects from the contract. I find that employees have a lot more negotiating power than they realize.
> If regulations seem to benefit incumbents, it’s because incumbents exist and therefore can play a role in setting regulations.
I think that's synonymous with the original statement made by OP. You're just providing another reason why it's true.
- reaperducer 6y agoI don't see ... AT&T losing anything AT&T lost big. It ended up going bankrupt. The "AT&T" you know today is not the same company. It is Southwestern Bell, which bought the AT&T brand in the bankruptcy fire sale and renamed itself. It did so because AT&T was a more valuable brand than Southwestern Bell. Looks like it worked.
- sea_level 6y agoTechnically Southwestern Bell was spun off from the AT&T breakup from the 80's. So basically SBC was one of many companies spun off from AT&T, then it bought up several of the other Baby Bell companies spun off, too. Really, it was AT&T buying AT&T. It worked on paper, but the victor was still from the same tree.
- kgantchev 6y agoMicrosoft didn't lose anything. > It is Southwestern Bell, which bought the AT&T brand in the bankruptcy fire sale and renamed itself. Southwestern Bell was the same subsidiary that broke off from AT&T Corporation. AT&T Inc was the merger of the companies that were originally broken up from AT&T Corporation. Here is the org chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Chart_of_AT&T_Baby_Bells https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#Chart_of_AT&T_Baby_Bell... AT&T became even bigger after the breakup: https://www.businessinsider.com/att-breakup-1982-directv-bell-system-2018-02 https://www.businessinsider.com/att-breakup-1982-directv-bel... You think that AT&T Corporation going broke and selling to a company that originated from the AT&T Corporation, which later renamed itself to AT&T Inc is a good example of a government-imposed corporate breakup?! It literally divested from those companies only to have most of them merge under the same name again.
- macintux 6y ago> Microsoft didn't lose anything. Quite a few observers, including people internal to Microsoft, felt it cost the company significant momentum at the time, and confidence after. Before the court case, Microsoft was a brutal competitor (remember the Simpsons episode?). Not so much after.