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The regulations may not have existed at the time these companies established themselves, but could have evolved over time. It's a known practice of larger corpo
by MontagFTB 5y ago
The regulations may not have existed at the time these companies established themselves, but could have evolved over time. It's a known practice of larger corporations to promote regulations that take them little effort to adhere to. However, those same regulations raise the bar for startups to gain entry and compete in an industry. Ironically enough, it's the regulations themselves that become anti-competitive.
This isn't true for regulations categorically, to be sure- the established companies can wield lobbying power for particular regulations to pass. That makes them look good in the public eye, the government wins for adding "oversight", but the actual competitive landscape becomes more encumbered, not less.
- wpietri 5y agoSure, regulations are a way already-established monopolies can entrench dominance. But given that major new monopolies came up in low-regulation areas of business, regulation is not a primary driver of why they exist.
- tablespoon 5y ago> It's a known practice of larger corporations to promote regulations that take them little effort to adhere to. However, those same regulations raise the bar for startups to gain entry and compete in an industry. Ironically enough, it's the regulations themselves that become anti-competitive. This point about "regulatory capture" is a often brought up as a clever anti-regulation/free market parry, to create a demotivating feeling of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" that breaks in the free marketeers' favor. I think the rhetorical tactic only really works if you look at part of the problem in isolation, and it's eliminated or at least mitigated with the consideration of action in other areas (e.g. more aggressive anti-trust/pro-competition regulation, or the kind of oversight regulated monopolies get).