4 ms·

I feel like your brewery examples doesn't support your thesis. In brewing we have a couple of mega breweries. There are thousands of upstart local breweries. Th

by rnk 4y ago

I feel like your brewery examples doesn't support your thesis. In brewing we have a couple of mega breweries. There are thousands of upstart local breweries. They have trouble distributing beer because most states have enforced useless middlemen that control this, the liquor distributors. The distributors control whether the local breweries can get on supermarket shelves or into bars. The breweries can't just do this on their own in most states. And guess who owns most of the liquor distributors. Yes, it is other mega breweries. In reality the booming beer industry would be far advanced if there wasn't the constant sequence of breweries selling out to big beer (because the monopolists limit the ability of the small breweries to grow and succeed). We need to break up the monopolists controlling the industry.

darksaints 4y ago
De-regulation of brewing took us from 90 breweries to over 8000. So at the very least at the local level brewing can thrive. You're right that distribution inhibits smaller breweries from growing a national presence. But again, that is due to regulation. Alcohol distribution is heavily regulated, and there is tons of legacy regulatory capture, and larger distributors are constantly lobbying for more regulations to maintain their stranglehold on distribution. Brewing - deregulated. Distribution - heavily regulated. Maybe you don't need to break up the brewing giants, just dismantle the captured regulation stranglehold they have on distribution.