cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/54365645
This year has seen the resolution of major suits against tech giants Alphabet and Meta, both of which were found liable for serious lawbreaking. Yet the penalties imposed on the corporations are laughably inadequate to restrain their power.
When the government first filed major antitrust lawsuits targeting Big Tech back in 2020, many people were optimistic that the long-standing practice of public legal action against monopolistic companies could rein in these economy-dominating corporations.
But as these pages have covered, this “techlash” has come to little. Antitrust law has conformed to its castrated character of recent decades, with the state unable to bring itself to seriously restrain, let alone break up, the giant companies even after they were ruled to be full monopolies just months before.
Recently, when it comes to enforcing the law against the tech giants, new lows have been reached.
Big Tech is another symptom of American democracy failing one of its primary roles, reigning in the economic system. About every capitalism complaint boils down to these fucking monopolies. We went WAY too far in defining a monopoly as a single company dominating a sector. If you only have two real choices for a phone, that’s a monopoly. When Sinclair Broadcasting reaches 40% of American television broadcasts, that needs broken.
Look at banking, entertainment, health and news just to hit some high points. I’ve post this chart chart dozens of times, never seen a graphic that so perfectly encapsulates my rage. (Anyone got a good entertainment or news merger chart?)
If you’re too young to remember saner times, I can’t blame you for thinking capitalism has always been like this. Believe it or not, mergers like this latest Paramount obscenity would not have made it past boardroom discussion because they knew damned well the FTC would torpedo it.
Lina Kahn was our last, best hope. Morning after the election, I was more upset about losing her to the new admin than the fact of him winning again. 😭
I’ll counter my own post in saying that competition is still working, here and there, sometimes.
Trash company was fucking us over and the new one sent dudes door-to-door. I signed on immediately. 2 months free service and half the price after. Same deal with AT&T (who I really dislike). They were canvassing the hood after burying new fiber. 1/3rd the cost of my unreliable cable at fiber latency!? Done. I even took some of the salesmen around and introduced them to neighbors once my service was up!
Competition does work but it’s a transitional state for markets. You know damn well that the when the old garbage company goes out of that market the new garbage company is gonna - jack up prices and reduce costs (service).
Competition vs. a monopoly, just what I was talking about.
people on Lemmy like to hate on capitalism for it’s flaws, but never seem to credit it for what it does right
If someone kills 100 people in cold blood, but in the process they save 1 from a house fire, do we call them a hero?
You could flip those numbers around and people would still say “that firefighter is a murderer!”