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> Breaking up of Standard Oil, just made the owners more money. That's one of the biggest arguments for a breakup and factually correct. Historically antitrust

> Breaking up of Standard Oil, just made the owners more money. That's one of the biggest arguments for a breakup and factually correct. Historically antitrust action has unlocked value. The point of any good antitrust policy isn't to destroy value, but to increase competition. If the broken up companies in the aggregate are worth more your policy has succeeded. Some companies like Alibaba or JD have actually started to spinoff segments themselves due to investor pressure. the open source free software utopia is a pipe dream in the foreseeable future, but more importantly, if it wasn't that's not an argument against improving market conditions. Open source developers benefit from competition like everyone else. It arguably increases the need for interoperable, open software.

vishnugupta 3y ago
What if the value thus unlocked doesn’t get passed on to the end customers and instead goes to a few share holders/owners? My impression of anti trust laws was that they are meant to benefit the end customers, isn’t it the case?
- criley2 3y ago
  Yes, businesses will return value to shareholders by default. But here's the thing about competition: If there is one monopoly, it can simply return all profit to shareholders and ignore the customer If that is split into 5 businesses, then consumers must choose. Whichever company consumers don't choose will do poorly and their investors will suffer. Whichever company does will will do well and their shareholders will be rewarded. So how does the game play out? They compete. They make a case to you why you should choose them. They introduce new products with differentiated features that will win the market. They undercut the competition and accept a smaller profit (or even a loss) in exchange for marketshare. They compete for your business. At the end of the day, the increased profit might go to shareholders, but the rest of competition (reduced prices, new and better products, etc) go to the customer.
  - oblio 3y ago
    I'd argue that it probably also helps employees, since now there are multiple companies competing for their labor. A single employer for sure depresses wages.
    - _ea1k 3y ago
      As long as they aren't colluding, I agree.
gruez 3y ago
>Some companies like Alibaba or JD have actually started to spinoff segments themselves due to investor pressure. For alibaba I thought it was because the ccp thought they were getting too big/powerful? edit: Seems like the "official" reason is that it'll make the company better overall, but everyone thinks it's really because of pressure from the ccp. >Now a split is happening, though not at the behest of Beijing—at least not directly. On March 28th Alibaba announced that it would be creating six independent business units. Executives say this will yield a more agile overall business, by speeding up decision-making across smaller and more focused operations. The main unspoken goal may be to decentralise decision-making, not least by disassociating Alibaba further from its founder, who stepped away from day-to-day management in 2015 but has remained involved in strategic decisions. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/03/30/alibaba-breaks-itself-up-in-six https://www.economist.com/business/2023/03/30/alibaba-breaks...

vishnugupta 3y ago

What if the value thus unlocked doesn’t get passed on to the end customers and instead goes to a few share holders/owners? My impression of anti trust laws was that they are meant to benefit the end customers, isn’t it the case?

criley2 3y ago
Yes, businesses will return value to shareholders by default. But here's the thing about competition: If there is one monopoly, it can simply return all profit to shareholders and ignore the customer If that is split into 5 businesses, then consumers must choose. Whichever company consumers don't choose will do poorly and their investors will suffer. Whichever company does will will do well and their shareholders will be rewarded. So how does the game play out? They compete. They make a case to you why you should choose them. They introduce new products with differentiated features that will win the market. They undercut the competition and accept a smaller profit (or even a loss) in exchange for marketshare. They compete for your business. At the end of the day, the increased profit might go to shareholders, but the rest of competition (reduced prices, new and better products, etc) go to the customer.
- oblio 3y ago
  I'd argue that it probably also helps employees, since now there are multiple companies competing for their labor. A single employer for sure depresses wages.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    As long as they aren't colluding, I agree.

gruez 3y ago

>Some companies like Alibaba or JD have actually started to spinoff segments themselves due to investor pressure. For alibaba I thought it was because the ccp thought they were getting too big/powerful? edit: Seems like the "official" reason is that it'll make the company better overall, but everyone thinks it's really because of pressure from the ccp. >Now a split is happening, though not at the behest of Beijing—at least not directly. On March 28th Alibaba announced that it would be creating six independent business units. Executives say this will yield a more agile overall business, by speeding up decision-making across smaller and more focused operations. The main unspoken goal may be to decentralise decision-making, not least by disassociating Alibaba further from its founder, who stepped away from day-to-day management in 2015 but has remained involved in strategic decisions. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/03/30/alibaba-breaks-itself-up-in-six https://www.economist.com/business/2023/03/30/alibaba-breaks...