This whole article is such a mess, I don't know where to start... First, all companies try to capture consumer surplus. Second, how are ads "great value for e

This whole article is such a mess, I don't know where to start... First, all companies try to capture consumer surplus. Second, how are ads "great value for everyone" but ads added later are "rent seeking"!? Third, Anti Trust will change none of this. In fact a company without a reliably monopoly has no option but to capture more surplus and do it sooner. Fourth, OP doesn't know what a zombie company is (one who's debt interest totally consumes it profit, so it exists only because of cheap credit and is not actually economically productive). Op is just throwing more "shit at the wall to see what sticks". Fifth, he seems very confused about corporate "profit" figures. Revenue and costs are fixed, real numbers. Profit is just made up. And since you pay taxes on profit, it's usually much lower than one would expect. Hence why Amazon is insanely large and successful but never actually makes any money. I dislike this, but I also know that as soon as anyone starts talking about a corporations profits they're making things up. Also, if GCP does close (because it's apparently so unprofitable) then that just makes Amazon (AWS) all the more dominant in the industry (so much for anti-trust). Plus how is any "start up" meant to get a few billion USD together to enter that market? And isn't a market with the largest player at 35% and no one making a profit (lol) exactly how competition is meant to look? Not to mention the 1000s of start ups that reply on these services to save them tonnes of cash!? I am no expert on corporate structures, market structures, anti trust, accounting or economics (or anything else OP apparently is AND is the only one who sees this). But I know enough to know it's complex and there are no easy answers and anyone saying there are is either ignorant or lying.