As I see it, the problem is essentially an antitrust issue, but our notion of antitrust hasn't evolved since the early 1900s to cover the realities of today's e

As I see it, the problem is essentially an antitrust issue, but our notion of antitrust hasn't evolved since the early 1900s to cover the realities of today's economy. Whether a company has complete market domination is a red herring used to dismiss other types of market failure. Cartel behavior does not involve monopolies. Vertical integration of supply chains does not require a monopoly to be a problem. Markets are defined in a way that makes it look like on paper the leader doesn't have a dominant position simply because they don't have 100% market share, but it hides that market share doesn't tell the whole story. Facebook should have never been allowed to buy their most promising competitors in Instagram and WhatsApp, for example. Intentionally confusing the market for phones with App stores is an example of a problem that 20th century antitrust never had to deal with. Just because two products look the same doesn't mean they compete with each other if there are other reasons, such as identity politics or vendor lock-in, which cause people to not treat them as replacements for each other. All these things are issues which government should legitimately be regulating, and at one point did regulate. But there is no will left to do that anymore, and the poor quality of our politicians is partly to blame for it.