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> Look at the hundreds of millions wasted on the Windows / IE monopoly trial The fact that we actually were enforcing antitrust at the time absolutely prevente
by CPLX 1y ago
> Look at the hundreds of millions wasted on the Windows / IE monopoly trial
The fact that we actually were enforcing antitrust at the time absolutely prevented MS from getting a strangehold on the consumer internet as it was taking off. It's the reason you're posting on this forum in the first place, as it was essential to the success of tech startups in the first dot-com era.
Then we stopped enforcing antitrust laws, and after about 10 years or so the new market leaders had developed the stifling set of monopolies we're all dealing with today.
Breaking up Google (which seems inevitable, this is the third distinct recent case where they've been proven to be a monopoly) is likely to be good for literally everyone, including even Google shareholders.
- kaashif 1y agoIf breaking Google up would be good for Google shareholders, surely the shareholders would have made it happen already, right? Unless the argument is that shareholders don't know what's good for them.
- CPLX 1y agoThe divergence between the interests of shareholders and the actions of a corporation in cases like this is a textbook example of a well established concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
- kaashif 1y agoNaively I would've thought that by making management huge shareholders, (most of) the agents then become principals. So when we talk about "the shareholders" we also include the CEO. I guess the argument here is that that actually doesn't work and the CEO would prefer being in charge of a larger company even if it personally costs him tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. That's what I'm skeptical of.
- CPLX 1y agoBeing CEO of the larger company would make him more money. His money comes from constant grants of new stock and options and incentives not the simple appreciation of stock granted the day he was hired. And just in general the incentive of management is to preserve monopoly because it’s a lot less work to sit and collect monopoly profits than to actually compete and win. The principal agent issue here is that management can sit on their ass all day and make a lot of money instead of working like hell to compete and possibly getting replaced but ultimately creating more shareholder value.