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This is a really thorough article on the topic [1]. Here is the conclusion. "American antitrust laws date from a time when changes in transportation, communica

This is a really thorough article on the topic [1]. Here is the conclusion. "American antitrust laws date from a time when changes in transportation, communications, and manufacturing technologies generated unprecedented economies of scale, fueling the rise of industrial behemoths. Today, dramatic advances in information technology, combined with globalization, are fueling the growth of large and efficient “superstar firms” that are capturing a growing share of economic activity. The emergence of the tech titans is especially dramatic. These economic conditions call for a reinvigoration of antitrust enforcement in the United States to promote competition, protect consumers and workers, and spur economic growth. These valuable aims can be achieved by taking a tougher stance toward mergers involving market leaders and by vigilantly preventing dominant firms from engaging in conduct that excludes their rivals. However, moving in that direction is a slow process, requiring the antitrust enforcement agencies to take the lead and convince inertial and possibly skeptical courts to follow. Those who expect dramatic and rapid changes in antitrust will be disappointed, unless new legislation is passed. Likewise, those who expect antitrust to solve problems unrelated to competition will be disappointed. Stronger antitrust enforcement, while needed, is not a substitute for badly needed regulations directed at reducing the political influence of corporations, protecting privacy and data security, and limiting the spread of disinformation." [1] https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.33.3.69 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.33.3.69

Spooky23 5y ago
Positive progress is not going to happen anytime soon. When the more reactionary members of the legal profession moved beyond the various topics that interested then in the 50s and 60s, the new generation moved on to business matters, as big companies were getting tired of dealing with unions and tight regulatory controls. Over time, the interpretation of the antitrust law was changed by “judicial legislation” to narrowly define monopolies to a standard involving price increases for consumers. That’s why the government allows, say oil distribution infrastructure to regionally consolidate to two players, while Staples and OfficeMax cannot merge despite their irrelevance. The current system incentives cartels. So when Microsoft buys Walmart or Google buys Verizon, that will be fine. 20 years from now, 80% of consumer spending will probably be directed at a half dozen companies. Eventually, something really bad will happen. The US will get spanked in a war, a regional natural disaster will trigger a famine, etc. At that point, maybe you’ll see some change. But change is slow - the US House passed anti-lynching legislation for like 40 years and it never got out of Senate committee until Lyndon Johnson championed it.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  > Over time, the interpretation of the antitrust law was changed by “judicial legislation” to narrowly define monopolies to a standard involving price increases for consumers. And many of today's biggest tech companies largely get a pass because antitrust law focuses on price and ignores all other negative externalities that result from monopolistic behavior like quality, timeliness, ease of access to customer service, user privacy, and corporate social responsibility. But the product is "free" so how can the consumer possibly derive any further benefit?(/s) When there is competition in a market not only do prices fall but the customer experience improves. Businesses don't (and can't) compete on price. They compete on value. But US antitrust law ignores value entirely and consumers everywhere pay the price.
- elcritch 5y ago
  There was a lot of progress in the 1910's, iirc. It's possible that enough people will become frustrated enough to lobby for effective change. Generally that requires a few leaders capable of capturing the angst in a useful way.
  - voidfunc 5y ago
    People are significantly more exposed to the stock market these days than in 1910. Considering tons of people's 401k's are basically made up of the biggest companies in the US thanks to index funds there is a lot of incentive to not fuck with those companies. If any leaders gets really serious about breaking up some of the Big Tech companies you'll see enormous pressure to get them out of office ASAP.
    - maxwell 5y ago
      Google's brand protection racket [1] and manipulation of ad exchanges [2] has resulted in lost economic activity. Apple's crippling of the iOS ecosystem [3] has resulted in lost economic activity. Breaking them up should raise overall economic activity, nationally and globally, along with actually increasing the value of the Baby Googs and Apple Seeds, as previously with Standard Oil and, until allowed to reassemble in '96 [4], AT&T. I would think that index funds vs. individual stocks would translate to investors caring less about particular firms and more about economic activity and the resulting increases in asset values. Pressured out of office? Most U.S. politicians have now spoken out against Big Tech, the Department of Justice and several states have active antitrust suits, a House report concluded that Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google have monopoly power and should be split up [5], etc. 1. https://altitudemarketing.com/blog/competitors-buying-my-name-google-ads https://altitudemarketing.com/blog/competitors-buying-my-nam... 2. https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-ad-market-lawsuit https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-ad-market-lawsu... 3. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996#Claims_made_in_opposition_to_the_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996... 5. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/house-amazon-facebook-apple-google-have-monopoly-power-should-be-split https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/house-amazon-fac...
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> Likewise, those who expect antitrust to solve problems unrelated to competition will be disappointed. Stronger antitrust enforcement, while needed, is not a substitute for badly needed regulations directed at reducing the political influence of corporations, protecting privacy and data security, and limiting the spread of disinformation. This is wrong. The "political influence of corporations" comes from their size and vertical integration. Google has outsized influence in politics because it controls the dominant search engine and YouTube etc., which gives political influence to every other subsidiary of the same company in a way that would not occur if they were independent entities. Privacy and security problems are proportional to size. Bigger entities attract stronger attacks (because the benefit to the attacker is larger) and then more people are compromised at once. Misinformation is primarily a problem as a result of filter bubbles that prevent people from hearing the rebuttal to incorrect arguments. Diversity of information distribution addresses this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Spooky23 5y ago

Positive progress is not going to happen anytime soon. When the more reactionary members of the legal profession moved beyond the various topics that interested then in the 50s and 60s, the new generation moved on to business matters, as big companies were getting tired of dealing with unions and tight regulatory controls. Over time, the interpretation of the antitrust law was changed by “judicial legislation” to narrowly define monopolies to a standard involving price increases for consumers. That’s why the government allows, say oil distribution infrastructure to regionally consolidate to two players, while Staples and OfficeMax cannot merge despite their irrelevance. The current system incentives cartels. So when Microsoft buys Walmart or Google buys Verizon, that will be fine. 20 years from now, 80% of consumer spending will probably be directed at a half dozen companies. Eventually, something really bad will happen. The US will get spanked in a war, a regional natural disaster will trigger a famine, etc. At that point, maybe you’ll see some change. But change is slow - the US House passed anti-lynching legislation for like 40 years and it never got out of Senate committee until Lyndon Johnson championed it.

elliekelly 5y ago
> Over time, the interpretation of the antitrust law was changed by “judicial legislation” to narrowly define monopolies to a standard involving price increases for consumers. And many of today's biggest tech companies largely get a pass because antitrust law focuses on price and ignores all other negative externalities that result from monopolistic behavior like quality, timeliness, ease of access to customer service, user privacy, and corporate social responsibility. But the product is "free" so how can the consumer possibly derive any further benefit?(/s) When there is competition in a market not only do prices fall but the customer experience improves. Businesses don't (and can't) compete on price. They compete on value. But US antitrust law ignores value entirely and consumers everywhere pay the price.
elcritch 5y ago
There was a lot of progress in the 1910's, iirc. It's possible that enough people will become frustrated enough to lobby for effective change. Generally that requires a few leaders capable of capturing the angst in a useful way.
- voidfunc 5y ago
  People are significantly more exposed to the stock market these days than in 1910. Considering tons of people's 401k's are basically made up of the biggest companies in the US thanks to index funds there is a lot of incentive to not fuck with those companies. If any leaders gets really serious about breaking up some of the Big Tech companies you'll see enormous pressure to get them out of office ASAP.
  - maxwell 5y ago
    Google's brand protection racket [1] and manipulation of ad exchanges [2] has resulted in lost economic activity. Apple's crippling of the iOS ecosystem [3] has resulted in lost economic activity. Breaking them up should raise overall economic activity, nationally and globally, along with actually increasing the value of the Baby Googs and Apple Seeds, as previously with Standard Oil and, until allowed to reassemble in '96 [4], AT&T. I would think that index funds vs. individual stocks would translate to investors caring less about particular firms and more about economic activity and the resulting increases in asset values. Pressured out of office? Most U.S. politicians have now spoken out against Big Tech, the Department of Justice and several states have active antitrust suits, a House report concluded that Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google have monopoly power and should be split up [5], etc. 1. https://altitudemarketing.com/blog/competitors-buying-my-name-google-ads https://altitudemarketing.com/blog/competitors-buying-my-nam... 2. https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-ad-market-lawsuit https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-ad-market-lawsu... 3. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG-116-JU05-20190716-SD036.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/109793/HHRG... 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996#Claims_made_in_opposition_to_the_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996... 5. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/house-amazon-facebook-apple-google-have-monopoly-power-should-be-split https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/house-amazon-fac...

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> Likewise, those who expect antitrust to solve problems unrelated to competition will be disappointed. Stronger antitrust enforcement, while needed, is not a substitute for badly needed regulations directed at reducing the political influence of corporations, protecting privacy and data security, and limiting the spread of disinformation. This is wrong. The "political influence of corporations" comes from their size and vertical integration. Google has outsized influence in politics because it controls the dominant search engine and YouTube etc., which gives political influence to every other subsidiary of the same company in a way that would not occur if they were independent entities. Privacy and security problems are proportional to size. Bigger entities attract stronger attacks (because the benefit to the attacker is larger) and then more people are compromised at once. Misinformation is primarily a problem as a result of filter bubbles that prevent people from hearing the rebuttal to incorrect arguments. Diversity of information distribution addresses this.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]