4 ms·

Amazing that 20 years on, the USA has essentially given up on anti-trust tech regulation. Facebook acquired and repeatedly copied its closest competitors, no p

Amazing that 20 years on, the USA has essentially given up on anti-trust tech regulation. Facebook acquired and repeatedly copied its closest competitors, no problem. Adobe buys up its competitors, no problem. Google aggressively pushes Chrome and fails to makes its own websites fully compatible with competitors, carry on. Apple refuses to give users the freedom to run their own apps on their purchased phones, no biggie. Was there some kind of official policy shift, or did the government just give up?

neogodless 4y ago
I certainly don't know for sure, but one theory would be the 2010 Citizens United ruling. https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/citizens-united https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/ci...
smoldesu 4y ago
My guess is that the government realized that FAANG makes for better bedfellows than sworn enemies. They can wave economic incentives in front of their face in exchange for international power beyond what other countries can offer. Having Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft under your thumb gives you control over ~80% of the internet and <95% of all PII. There is obviously a domestic interest in controlling that, so it would make sense that our intelligence agencies trade surveillance capabilities for SEC mulligans. That also explains our bipartisan indifference towards real data regulation and privacy legislation.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  define "the government" -- who and what exactly is controlling this supposed policy?
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Well, I guess the NSA makes the most sense. They've been integrated into the corporate structure of FAANG for over a decade now, and they're the primary government entity making demands over this stuff. The who is a lot harder to track down - maybe there is a Wizard of Oz hiding behind one of our administrative curtains, but I think it's more of a bureaucratic process. Judging by what we know about America's surveillance infrastructure (eg. XKeyscore, Tempora, Boundless Informant), it would make sense if most of this software is developed in-house and then passed off to FAANG to implement and obfuscate. Again, all of this is conjecture. There's a lot of strangeness that surrounds the US intelligence agencies though, so I'm inclined to make some sense of it.
    - hunter-gatherer 4y ago
      I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this and not believed by hardly anyone on this crowd so I'll keep it short and without evidence, only testimony: I was a US intelligence officer for some time. Not woth NSA, but did a lot of work with NSA, CIA, and the Bureau. The involvement between the US intelligence agencies and FAANG (in terms of the rough narrative involved) is a lot less impressive and threatening than people here suppose. The reality is that the US government hires some smart people to solve hard problems. When the problems get harder, they higher more smart people. The costs arent completely opaque, either. So at the end of the FY the costs get seen by elected officials and actions get justified and legally scrutinized. As it turns out, the US government is a lot less interested in spying on people who aren't threats to the state, and the intelligence agencies have to be judicial in who they target, because there are limited resources for such activities. The US intelligence service is also a bureaucracy, and people seem to forget that. Just because something is "secret" doesn't mean it is romantic or Bornesque. Context: I have not held a TS clearance or been employed with the US government nor contractor for a little over 3 years.
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        I won't downvote you, but I have a really hard time believing you (and prefer to entertain the possibility you didn't have complete insight into the intelligence agencies). Thank you for replying though, it's interesting to hear alternate perspectives on the topic!
        Wiring8490 4y ago
        Bleh. I'll use up a spare account. hunter-gatherer sounds about right on the money. I've previously held a TS SCI clearance within an organization. I wasn't an S-2 guy, but worked with them and troubleshot stuff in the SCIF from time-to-time. I did some auditing in well-known buildings, blah blah blah. Basically, the more secretive things get, the more bureaucratic and tedious they get. The more impossibly hard it is to do literally anything without at least 5 or 6 meetings to discuss the poteintal outcomes and risks therein. I suppose when you get to the kinds of things POTUS wants done right now, it could get weird? I don't know, never been in that position. But the amount of oversight and auditing that gets done by people that refuse to do anything that could risk their retirement? It is excessive. At more than a few points I found myself "preparing for the pre-inspection, inspection." That inspection, which would happen however often, was essentially always happening. You were either "learning from the last one" or you were "cleaning up for the next one". Just absolutely soul crushing. I should also mention, even though some of the words I used above might sound interesting, it really comes down to carpeting. Carpeting sucks everywhere in the government. They can spend tons of cash on stupid meeting room tables for conference calls or whatever, but the thing you walk and stand on is just absolutely awful. Except in an executive officers office. The office that goes completely unused because they're out doing...whatever it is they do. Golf? Lunch? Who knows. Once you notice the little things like that, or light fixtures just looking like trash, you realize that all of the magical ideas people have about the big scary government is just kind of...quaint. Like things can be important or sensitive or whatever, but it's just not the way people imagine it being. It's too bogged down in the mud to be what people think it is. Getting basic things like light fixtures changed out becomes a major hassle because, if it requires a dude on a ladder, now that dude on a ladder also has to have a clearance, and the room has to be sanitized. Don't forget to turn on the red light, so no one forgets that there is a guy up on that ladder! Getting one bulb changed can interrupt your work for at least an hour or two. It's insane. Like, we had one cleaning lady. For a building of...a lot of people. Everyone loved her and treated her great. Do you know why that was? (Well, she was totally awesome and nice. But besides that.) It was because if she quit, there would be no one to replace her. That would mean every desk jockey in the building would be lugging their trash to the locked dumpster halfway across the parking lot in the hot sun. Then have to go through all of the fun stuff that goes with getting through the front door. They treated her like royalty! Right before I left, they did actually get some young guy in there. If I had to guess, they went with him because they were hoping he would stick around for at least two to three decades.
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    I mean... It's pervasive? Many elected officials across both parties in the United States have advanced the surveillance state and have passed legislation at the behest of 3 letter agencies. Of the last 4 presidents, 3 were pretty involved with advancing it: Bush, Obama, and Biden. I don't know if Trump did anything to advance the surveillance state. Bush+Cheney did the PSP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Surveillance_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Surveillance_Pro... The courts found that unconstitutional: https://www.aaup.org/brief/aclu-v-nsa-493-f3d-644-6th-cir-2007 https://www.aaup.org/brief/aclu-v-nsa-493-f3d-644-6th-cir-20... Obama publicly condemned the Patriot Act, but extended it in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act Meanwhile Obama's VP (Joseph Biden) claims to have written the Patriot Act: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-biden-wrote-patriot-act https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-biden-w... In '91, the FBI got Joseph Biden to introduce a bill banning encrypted cellphone calls in the United States (Subtitle B: Electronic Communications): https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/266 https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/266 This move by Joseph Biden was condemned by the founder of the EFF: https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-palace https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-palace You can watch a gaggle of senators from both parties go to bat defending the PSP in 2013 here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... After the PSP was found to be unconstitutional, you can watch another gaggle of senators from both parties go to bat defending the PSP in 2017 here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation-0 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... A notable quote from the above video from Senator Wyden suggests the 3 letter agencies are harvesting location data in mass from cellphone towers. You see surveillance legislation move forward with support from both parties - often under the guise of protecting children or stopping terrorists. It's not a stretch to connect the dots between our 3 letter agencies working with legislators in the background to advance the surveillance state, and those legislators simultaneously working with MAANG on multiple fronts, to assume there is some level of crossover with the surveillance agenda. It would be more unreasonable to assume they keep their surveillance objectives isolated from their interactions with industry after the Snowden revelations - which showed us that they absolutely worked with industry to collect PII of U.S. citizens in mass.
  - concinds 4y ago
    There's no conspiracy. Mostly think tanks, policy circles, and White House wonks over every successive Internet-age administration. All segments of the U.S. government pay close attention to, among many people, geopolitical analysis of all stripes, who can help them understand how to remain the world hegemon. The U.S. frequently commissions studies by outfits like Booz Allen Hamilton on geopolitical matters (you can browse the "DoD Reading Room" to read plenty of the these thanks to FOIA requests[0]). "Breaking them up would hurt the U.S." isn't just a lobbyist argument, it's deeply understood at all levels of the government. The White House absolutely understands that Silicon Valley is part of the U.S.'s soft power, draws plenty of international students to the U.S., and helps the U.S.'s cultural hegemony. It's not just about the most popular social networks and search engine "belonging to them" (though that's obviously important, and an advantage no rational nation would give up); Google and Meta's R&D spending are also huge elements of the U.S.'s "artificial intelligence dominance" over China, and the U.S. will never break them up simply because it sees AI-dominance as one of the most important elements of its geopolitical strategy. It's easy to get the impression that the government mostly deals with domestic politics; but at its root, it is deeply and overwhelmingly concerned with fundamental strategic questions. The government cares deeply about U.S. universities remaining the world's best; about immigration remaining high (Republican administrations too) so that it can attract as much skilled labor as possible, grow the economy, compete with China's 1.4B population, and avoid an aging population that would decimate the economy for decades. Policy debates "inside the government" bear very little resemblence to the TV version the American citizenry is obsessed with. [0]: see, for example, "The Future of Europe", a 177 page evaluation of Europe's future economic, industrial, demographic, and political trends. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Litigation_Release/Litigation%20Release%20-%20The%20Future%20of%20Europe-Final%20Report%20%20201304.pdf https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20... After you read it, you'll understand that the "policy debates" the masses are exposed to have very little resemblence with what preoccupies decisionmakers! The government, no matter the administration, is far more rigorous and strategic than people give it credit for.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      The most maddening thing is how little other governments seem to care about it it. Forcing windows, android, and ios on your citizens and gifting silicon valley a constant worldwide surveillance feed is incredibly harmful to long term interests. Forcing every business to use office365 to interact with any government office is a 1% income tax gifted to the american economy.
- pempem 4y ago
  Who is under whose thumb here? Like most things, its a bit of a two way street. From an intelligence perspective, I agree w huntergatherer that everyone's not under active surveillance. IMO the problem is: - once you are its far cheaper and more complete to surveil than it used to be, and... - the bar to be a "party of interest" is far lower than it used to be. We can see this especially as some tech filters downwards into local police stations. Its also tremendously useful for FAANG/MAANG to ensure their interests are adopted by elected officials and US officials are pretty cheaply bought. Honestly two senior SWE salaries for a year would do it for most congressmen. Just like Altria, or energy companies, tech companies donate to both sides of the fence, solicit tax breaks from both sides of the fence and look to keep labor cheap and competition low so that their owners/shareholders/investors are enriched. From a federal government perspective, we need these companies to be 'American'. It doesn't matter where they pay their taxes, how much they off-shore work, etc. these companies trade on the US stock exchange, make up one of the strongest economies in the world, driving capital and human talent from every corner of the world to the US. Why slow all that down in the name of 'fairness', user protection, competition and a lack of predictability
mistrial9 4y ago
no - there are consent decrees and internal legal agreements that you and I will never see, in effect now. Combine that with soft-pressure in thousands of (real) ways..
themadturk 4y ago
Yes, the US Government pretty much gave up on meaningful anti-trust regulation along about the Reagan era, as they pretty much gave up on a lot of stuff. The Biden administration via FTC Chair Lina Khan have declared they're trying to turn things around, but it's a big ship with a small rudder. We'll see.
inetknght 4y ago
> Google and fails to makes its own websites fully compatible with competitors More than that: Google actively prevents competitors from working when competitors would work fine without any extra "help"
izacus 4y ago
> Was there some kind of official policy shift, or did the government just give up? It's not just government - every single day I'm seeing Americans being directly hostile against free markets and choice. A lot of people (and media) expect and demand that a single corporation builds all of their things and owns all of their data. Plenty of people get outright hostile and dismissive of anything and everything that might create competition with the brand they're religiously following. Politics is just following the people.
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "Plenty of people get outright hostile and dismissive of anything and everything that might create competition with the brand they're religiously following." Do they? I am not aware of many FB, Android or google fanboys. People just use it. But surely would use something better, if avaiable. Religious passion is more happening with apple, but it seems to me, they lost faith quite a bit. People use it and are entrenched in the apple universe, but fanatic worship and praise I am hearing way less nowdays, than back in the day, when Jobs was alive.
kmeisthax 4y ago
In the 80s a bunch of federal judges adopted the "consumer welfare" standard, which argued that we should only consider antitrust violations that harm, well... consumer welfare. Since this was the 80s and Reagan-style free market rhetoric was in fashion, this became the new law of the land. Problem is, very few antitrust violations actually meet this standard, because most companies aren't buying other companies purely to jack up prices. The harm is a lot more subtle. If you remember the days of "disruptive innovation", that could be looked at as monopolists getting punished for being too large and ignoring new technologies. Now, because antitrust is basically not enforced anymore, incumbents just buy their disruptors and integrate them into the whole. Startups no longer exist to create new products, but to eat up chunks of a big company's M&A budget for that year. I'm hopeful that Lina Khan turns the ship around on this but it will take a decade, at least.
- scarface74 4y ago
  What happens to VC money once they can’t see a big exit via acquisitions? Look at how few YC companies have gone public.
pwinnski 4y ago
Both! The history is covered extensively and well in Matt Stoller's book Goliath, and ongoing on his substack[0]. The TL;DR version is that the MS case affected things, but so do a shifting emphasis in Congress. 0. https://mattstoller.substack.com https://mattstoller.substack.com

neogodless 4y ago

I certainly don't know for sure, but one theory would be the 2010 Citizens United ruling. https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/citizens-united https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/ci...

smoldesu 4y ago

My guess is that the government realized that FAANG makes for better bedfellows than sworn enemies. They can wave economic incentives in front of their face in exchange for international power beyond what other countries can offer. Having Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft under your thumb gives you control over ~80% of the internet and <95% of all PII. There is obviously a domestic interest in controlling that, so it would make sense that our intelligence agencies trade surveillance capabilities for SEC mulligans. That also explains our bipartisan indifference towards real data regulation and privacy legislation.

KerrAvon 4y ago
define "the government" -- who and what exactly is controlling this supposed policy?
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Well, I guess the NSA makes the most sense. They've been integrated into the corporate structure of FAANG for over a decade now, and they're the primary government entity making demands over this stuff. The who is a lot harder to track down - maybe there is a Wizard of Oz hiding behind one of our administrative curtains, but I think it's more of a bureaucratic process. Judging by what we know about America's surveillance infrastructure (eg. XKeyscore, Tempora, Boundless Informant), it would make sense if most of this software is developed in-house and then passed off to FAANG to implement and obfuscate. Again, all of this is conjecture. There's a lot of strangeness that surrounds the US intelligence agencies though, so I'm inclined to make some sense of it.
  - hunter-gatherer 4y ago
    I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this and not believed by hardly anyone on this crowd so I'll keep it short and without evidence, only testimony: I was a US intelligence officer for some time. Not woth NSA, but did a lot of work with NSA, CIA, and the Bureau. The involvement between the US intelligence agencies and FAANG (in terms of the rough narrative involved) is a lot less impressive and threatening than people here suppose. The reality is that the US government hires some smart people to solve hard problems. When the problems get harder, they higher more smart people. The costs arent completely opaque, either. So at the end of the FY the costs get seen by elected officials and actions get justified and legally scrutinized. As it turns out, the US government is a lot less interested in spying on people who aren't threats to the state, and the intelligence agencies have to be judicial in who they target, because there are limited resources for such activities. The US intelligence service is also a bureaucracy, and people seem to forget that. Just because something is "secret" doesn't mean it is romantic or Bornesque. Context: I have not held a TS clearance or been employed with the US government nor contractor for a little over 3 years.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      I won't downvote you, but I have a really hard time believing you (and prefer to entertain the possibility you didn't have complete insight into the intelligence agencies). Thank you for replying though, it's interesting to hear alternate perspectives on the topic!
      - Wiring8490 4y ago
        Bleh. I'll use up a spare account. hunter-gatherer sounds about right on the money. I've previously held a TS SCI clearance within an organization. I wasn't an S-2 guy, but worked with them and troubleshot stuff in the SCIF from time-to-time. I did some auditing in well-known buildings, blah blah blah. Basically, the more secretive things get, the more bureaucratic and tedious they get. The more impossibly hard it is to do literally anything without at least 5 or 6 meetings to discuss the poteintal outcomes and risks therein. I suppose when you get to the kinds of things POTUS wants done right now, it could get weird? I don't know, never been in that position. But the amount of oversight and auditing that gets done by people that refuse to do anything that could risk their retirement? It is excessive. At more than a few points I found myself "preparing for the pre-inspection, inspection." That inspection, which would happen however often, was essentially always happening. You were either "learning from the last one" or you were "cleaning up for the next one". Just absolutely soul crushing. I should also mention, even though some of the words I used above might sound interesting, it really comes down to carpeting. Carpeting sucks everywhere in the government. They can spend tons of cash on stupid meeting room tables for conference calls or whatever, but the thing you walk and stand on is just absolutely awful. Except in an executive officers office. The office that goes completely unused because they're out doing...whatever it is they do. Golf? Lunch? Who knows. Once you notice the little things like that, or light fixtures just looking like trash, you realize that all of the magical ideas people have about the big scary government is just kind of...quaint. Like things can be important or sensitive or whatever, but it's just not the way people imagine it being. It's too bogged down in the mud to be what people think it is. Getting basic things like light fixtures changed out becomes a major hassle because, if it requires a dude on a ladder, now that dude on a ladder also has to have a clearance, and the room has to be sanitized. Don't forget to turn on the red light, so no one forgets that there is a guy up on that ladder! Getting one bulb changed can interrupt your work for at least an hour or two. It's insane. Like, we had one cleaning lady. For a building of...a lot of people. Everyone loved her and treated her great. Do you know why that was? (Well, she was totally awesome and nice. But besides that.) It was because if she quit, there would be no one to replace her. That would mean every desk jockey in the building would be lugging their trash to the locked dumpster halfway across the parking lot in the hot sun. Then have to go through all of the fun stuff that goes with getting through the front door. They treated her like royalty! Right before I left, they did actually get some young guy in there. If I had to guess, they went with him because they were hoping he would stick around for at least two to three decades.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  I mean... It's pervasive? Many elected officials across both parties in the United States have advanced the surveillance state and have passed legislation at the behest of 3 letter agencies. Of the last 4 presidents, 3 were pretty involved with advancing it: Bush, Obama, and Biden. I don't know if Trump did anything to advance the surveillance state. Bush+Cheney did the PSP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Surveillance_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Surveillance_Pro... The courts found that unconstitutional: https://www.aaup.org/brief/aclu-v-nsa-493-f3d-644-6th-cir-2007 https://www.aaup.org/brief/aclu-v-nsa-493-f3d-644-6th-cir-20... Obama publicly condemned the Patriot Act, but extended it in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Freedom_Act Meanwhile Obama's VP (Joseph Biden) claims to have written the Patriot Act: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-biden-wrote-patriot-act https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4876107/user-clip-joe-biden-w... In '91, the FBI got Joseph Biden to introduce a bill banning encrypted cellphone calls in the United States (Subtitle B: Electronic Communications): https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/266 https://www.congress.gov/bill/102nd-congress/senate-bill/266 This move by Joseph Biden was condemned by the founder of the EFF: https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-palace https://www.eff.org/pages/decrypting-puzzle-palace You can watch a gaggle of senators from both parties go to bat defending the PSP in 2013 here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... After the PSP was found to be unconstitutional, you can watch another gaggle of senators from both parties go to bat defending the PSP in 2017 here: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fisa-legislation-0 https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-fi... A notable quote from the above video from Senator Wyden suggests the 3 letter agencies are harvesting location data in mass from cellphone towers. You see surveillance legislation move forward with support from both parties - often under the guise of protecting children or stopping terrorists. It's not a stretch to connect the dots between our 3 letter agencies working with legislators in the background to advance the surveillance state, and those legislators simultaneously working with MAANG on multiple fronts, to assume there is some level of crossover with the surveillance agenda. It would be more unreasonable to assume they keep their surveillance objectives isolated from their interactions with industry after the Snowden revelations - which showed us that they absolutely worked with industry to collect PII of U.S. citizens in mass.
- concinds 4y ago
  There's no conspiracy. Mostly think tanks, policy circles, and White House wonks over every successive Internet-age administration. All segments of the U.S. government pay close attention to, among many people, geopolitical analysis of all stripes, who can help them understand how to remain the world hegemon. The U.S. frequently commissions studies by outfits like Booz Allen Hamilton on geopolitical matters (you can browse the "DoD Reading Room" to read plenty of the these thanks to FOIA requests[0]). "Breaking them up would hurt the U.S." isn't just a lobbyist argument, it's deeply understood at all levels of the government. The White House absolutely understands that Silicon Valley is part of the U.S.'s soft power, draws plenty of international students to the U.S., and helps the U.S.'s cultural hegemony. It's not just about the most popular social networks and search engine "belonging to them" (though that's obviously important, and an advantage no rational nation would give up); Google and Meta's R&D spending are also huge elements of the U.S.'s "artificial intelligence dominance" over China, and the U.S. will never break them up simply because it sees AI-dominance as one of the most important elements of its geopolitical strategy. It's easy to get the impression that the government mostly deals with domestic politics; but at its root, it is deeply and overwhelmingly concerned with fundamental strategic questions. The government cares deeply about U.S. universities remaining the world's best; about immigration remaining high (Republican administrations too) so that it can attract as much skilled labor as possible, grow the economy, compete with China's 1.4B population, and avoid an aging population that would decimate the economy for decades. Policy debates "inside the government" bear very little resemblence to the TV version the American citizenry is obsessed with. [0]: see, for example, "The Future of Europe", a 177 page evaluation of Europe's future economic, industrial, demographic, and political trends. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/Litigation_Release/Litigation%20Release%20-%20The%20Future%20of%20Europe-Final%20Report%20%20201304.pdf https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20... After you read it, you'll understand that the "policy debates" the masses are exposed to have very little resemblence with what preoccupies decisionmakers! The government, no matter the administration, is far more rigorous and strategic than people give it credit for.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    The most maddening thing is how little other governments seem to care about it it. Forcing windows, android, and ios on your citizens and gifting silicon valley a constant worldwide surveillance feed is incredibly harmful to long term interests. Forcing every business to use office365 to interact with any government office is a 1% income tax gifted to the american economy.
pempem 4y ago
Who is under whose thumb here? Like most things, its a bit of a two way street. From an intelligence perspective, I agree w huntergatherer that everyone's not under active surveillance. IMO the problem is: - once you are its far cheaper and more complete to surveil than it used to be, and... - the bar to be a "party of interest" is far lower than it used to be. We can see this especially as some tech filters downwards into local police stations. Its also tremendously useful for FAANG/MAANG to ensure their interests are adopted by elected officials and US officials are pretty cheaply bought. Honestly two senior SWE salaries for a year would do it for most congressmen. Just like Altria, or energy companies, tech companies donate to both sides of the fence, solicit tax breaks from both sides of the fence and look to keep labor cheap and competition low so that their owners/shareholders/investors are enriched. From a federal government perspective, we need these companies to be 'American'. It doesn't matter where they pay their taxes, how much they off-shore work, etc. these companies trade on the US stock exchange, make up one of the strongest economies in the world, driving capital and human talent from every corner of the world to the US. Why slow all that down in the name of 'fairness', user protection, competition and a lack of predictability

mistrial9 4y ago

no - there are consent decrees and internal legal agreements that you and I will never see, in effect now. Combine that with soft-pressure in thousands of (real) ways..

themadturk 4y ago

Yes, the US Government pretty much gave up on meaningful anti-trust regulation along about the Reagan era, as they pretty much gave up on a lot of stuff. The Biden administration via FTC Chair Lina Khan have declared they're trying to turn things around, but it's a big ship with a small rudder. We'll see.

inetknght 4y ago

> Google and fails to makes its own websites fully compatible with competitors More than that: Google actively prevents competitors from working when competitors would work fine without any extra "help"

izacus 4y ago

> Was there some kind of official policy shift, or did the government just give up? It's not just government - every single day I'm seeing Americans being directly hostile against free markets and choice. A lot of people (and media) expect and demand that a single corporation builds all of their things and owns all of their data. Plenty of people get outright hostile and dismissive of anything and everything that might create competition with the brand they're religiously following. Politics is just following the people.

hutzlibu 4y ago
"Plenty of people get outright hostile and dismissive of anything and everything that might create competition with the brand they're religiously following." Do they? I am not aware of many FB, Android or google fanboys. People just use it. But surely would use something better, if avaiable. Religious passion is more happening with apple, but it seems to me, they lost faith quite a bit. People use it and are entrenched in the apple universe, but fanatic worship and praise I am hearing way less nowdays, than back in the day, when Jobs was alive.

kmeisthax 4y ago

In the 80s a bunch of federal judges adopted the "consumer welfare" standard, which argued that we should only consider antitrust violations that harm, well... consumer welfare. Since this was the 80s and Reagan-style free market rhetoric was in fashion, this became the new law of the land. Problem is, very few antitrust violations actually meet this standard, because most companies aren't buying other companies purely to jack up prices. The harm is a lot more subtle. If you remember the days of "disruptive innovation", that could be looked at as monopolists getting punished for being too large and ignoring new technologies. Now, because antitrust is basically not enforced anymore, incumbents just buy their disruptors and integrate them into the whole. Startups no longer exist to create new products, but to eat up chunks of a big company's M&A budget for that year. I'm hopeful that Lina Khan turns the ship around on this but it will take a decade, at least.

scarface74 4y ago
What happens to VC money once they can’t see a big exit via acquisitions? Look at how few YC companies have gone public.

pwinnski 4y ago

Both! The history is covered extensively and well in Matt Stoller's book Goliath, and ongoing on his substack[0]. The TL;DR version is that the MS case affected things, but so do a shifting emphasis in Congress. 0. https://mattstoller.substack.com https://mattstoller.substack.com