It's time. A solid 100% of the gains in wealth we've seen over the past decade have gone straight to this new aristocracy 10% of the population that has been fortunate enough to latch on to these gigantic companies that have concentrated wealth in a way never possible before in history.
And this will be a good thing for everyone. Look at what happened to Standard Oil. Rockefeller was forced by the DOJ to break things up at the height of our first gilded age, and the subsequent companies went on to be hundreds of times more valuable than Standard Oil alone, while creating thousands of jobs and spreading the wealth to more Americans.
To be fair, even if a solid 100% of wealth gains went to tech companies, it's doubtful that this solid 100% of wealth gains went to Google and Facebook alone.
And in any case, that's not the argument being made for breaking them up. The argument is that Google and Facebook are controlling the online ad market. That the ad market on the internet is effectively a duopoly. I would say, from a layman's perspective, that the ad market duopoly argument has some merit. But not being an expert, I don't know A - how deeply Google and Facebook concert to control the market? (if at all?) Nor do I know B - Is a duopoly as dangerous as a monopoly in the eyes of the Supreme Court? (ie - What is the magic number of majority market participants necessary for the courts to say a market is "competitive"? Is it 3? or 5? Or 2?) For instance, when this talk surfaced about Microsoft, it never went anywhere in part because 2 participants in the consumer desktop OS market were thought to be more than enough. Even though the second participant was relatively weak. (Apple).
I'm sure I read a paper recently that said you need four suppliers in a market before it becomes competitive. They were using mobile phone operators as an example and it seems three or less delivers lots of profit but a poor offering for the customer.
That's fine if that's what the experts think, but as I pointed out, that would be a departure from the stance taken in the Microsoft case. I don't think such a departure is likely to happen. But again, I'm no expert on this stuff.
I’m afraid this is being done for the wrong reasons though, more to protect the interests of newspapers:
> Teachout said tech companies are to blame for dominating the online advertising market — drawing revenue from newspapers and publishers.
If so then this is more like our new EPA favoring coal industries over solar, or hypothetically breaking Netflix up so blockbuster can still exist in 2018.
> A solid 100% of the gains in wealth we've seen over the past decade have gone straight to this new aristocracy
No, much of it went to the old financial aristocracy, the tech firms have just been a vehicle.bits not like the investors profiting from tech have all had their capital stakes come from tech.
Also, breaking up the firms that have already had their big zero-to-giant growth phase probably doesn't reduce the flow of money into he hands of the already super-rich aristocrats; those aren't the places the aristocrats are making the most new gains, and, as you point out below, breakup actually accelerates gains by the elites owning the firm (because they are also the owners of the successor firms.)
> Rockefeller was forced by the DOJ to break things up at the height of our first gilded age, and the subsequent companies went on to be hundreds of times more valuable than Standard Oil alone
So the aristocrats get far richer due to the breakup (which doesn't redistribute ownership). How does this help the problem of narrow wealth gains?
… and the subsequent companies went on to be hundreds of times more valuable than Standard Oil alone …
Freeze one company and let another group run ahead for decades, and it is not surprising at all that after that much time, the companies that benefited from compound growth for that many years will be more valuable.
An important question is whether the subsequent companies went on to be more valuable than Standard Oil would have been. An even more important question is whether consumers were more satisfied with the Baby Oils than they would have been with Ma Oil.
Amazon is a completely different breed of horizontal/vertical integration. Makes facebook and google look antiquated.
>Amazon is the titan of twenty-first century commerce. In addition to being a retailer, it is now a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction house, a major book publisher, a producer of television and films, a fashion designer, a hardware manufacturer, and a leading host of cloud server space.
I actually think you could handle facebook without breaking it up (as simple on paper as it may sound to split fb/ig/wa.) Regulations requiring social graph portability and interoperability with other services would go a long way to opening up facebooks garden.
Your diatribe is a complete distortion of economic history and facts, best crystallized by your use of "concentrated wealth" when what we have witnessed is an enormous creation of wealth.
Search engines, social networks, mobile phones, high-speed Internet, same- and next-day e-commerce, interactive maps, video streaming, 24/7 access to world-wide news and commentary, electric cars, cloud services, solar panels, wind farms, fracking, online banking, fitness monitors, 4K tvs, retina displays, tablets, e-book readers, voice-activated assistants, cleaning robots, advanced medical devices, tailored drugs, reusable rockets, etc. etc. are all created and those who create and finance the creation of these products and services deserve a) our accolades and admiration and b) reaping the rewards of their actions.
>Your diatribe is a complete distortion of economic history and facts, best crystallized by your use of "concentrated wealth" when what we have witnessed is an enormous creation of wealth
Yes, created and concentrated. It used to be that economic activity led to the improvement of everyone's lives. Think the model that worked great for us from post WWII, until the financial deregulation and tax cuts of the 70s/80s. Now it leads to record corporate profits which enrich a select class of wealthy shareholders.
The average American has been absolutely forgotten and left behind, as evidenced by our current political climate.
Please get a grip on reality. The average American has access to vastly better products, services, and health care than past kings couldn't even have dreamt of. Even the amazingly wealthy Rockefeller did not have access to the modern bounty that the average American can easily buy and use today, the bounty that is being created by entrepreneurs and people in the corporations you apparently envy so much.
Sounds like you have turned engineering into a religion, where no result--under any circumstance whatsoever--should be subjected to the critical faculty.
I don't want to "smash capitalism." I just want to run a Dawkins on your religion.
What a sad spectacle: the delirious lashing out at modern machines, the sarcastic capitals, the unhinged cries of "religion". Next time I chat with Richard we'll have a laugh as I mention how his name is invoked as a shibboleth by rabid Luddites.
Your substantive comments to this site are fine, but your political/ideological battle comments and personal attacks are absolutely not. We've given you a ton of warnings and you've ignored them, so I've banned this account until you indicate that you will use HN as intended in the future. Feel free to email hn@ycombinator.com if you want to provide that.
And this will be a good thing for everyone. Look at what happened to Standard Oil. Rockefeller was forced by the DOJ to break things up at the height of our first gilded age, and the subsequent companies went on to be hundreds of times more valuable than Standard Oil alone, while creating thousands of jobs and spreading the wealth to more Americans.