
Google, Facebook, and Amazon benefit from an outdated definition of “monopoly” - arctux
https://qz.com/work/1460402/google-facebook-and-amazon-benefit-from-an-outdated-definition-of-monopoly/
======
ucaetano
It isn't outdated, it is an economics definition of a monopoly, and isn't even
that: a monopoly is perfectly fine, AS LONG AS the economic power isn't abused
to prevent competition which harms consumers.

What the author is proposing is that regulation is no longer based on
economics and economic power, but on a vague definition of monopoly, and
people are absurdly trigger-happy when calling something a monopoly.

The reason why anti-trust is based on precise economic definitions is that it
leaves as little room as possible for the government to favor friendly
players. When you need to prove harm to consumers, the bar is high, as it
should be.

Otherwise, any government in power will simply abuse their own monopoly on
regulation to favor and transfer wealth from society to friends.

The classic example is: Coca-Cola has a 95% market share of the cola market in
some countries. Does it mean it has a monopoly? No.

If it had 100% of the cola market, would it have a monopoly? No.

Because the cola market doesn't exist in isolation. Colas compete with all
other sodas, with water, juices, etc. for a share of wallet and a share of
stomach.

~~~
Nullabillity
> The classic example is: Coca-Cola has a 95% market share of the cola market
> in some countries. Does it mean it has a monopoly? No.

Effectively, yes. Why is the market so disfunctional that a single company has
effectively swallowed all competition?

> If it had 100% of the cola market, would it have a monopoly? No.

Err, yes.

> Because the cola market doesn't exist in isolation. Colas compete with all
> other sodas, with water, juices, etc. for a share of wallet and a share of
> stomach.

And AT&T wasn't a monopoly, since you could just walk to the person you want
to talk to. Oh, wait..

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Why is the market so disfunctional that a single company has effectively
> swallowed all competition?

This is actually pretty common in hypercompetitive commodity markets. The
largest player has a slight cost advantage due to economies of scale, so they
have the best price and everyone buys from them. But they still have no market
power because their market share doesn't come from barriers to entry.

> Err, yes.

It's not necessarily a monopoly even at 100% when there are competitors who
_could_ immediately enter the market if the incumbent were to be so audacious
as to raise prices by 4%, or do anything else the customer even mildly
dislikes -- because that fact keeps them from ever doing it.

Notice that this is _not_ how it works for Comcast, because it's not cheap or
quick to wire a city with fiber, so they can get away with a great deal of
abuse before anyone else would show up to compete -- even if they only had 50%
market share, as long as the other 50% is another company doing all the same
abusive stuff.

> And AT&T wasn't a monopoly, since you could just walk to the person you want
> to talk to. Oh, wait..

To be a substitute it has to be a practical alternative that can be used for
the same purpose at approximately the same cost. Having to spend an hour
walking is not the same cost as picking up the phone.

~~~
timoth3y
> This is actually pretty common in hypercompetitive commodity markets. The
> largest player has a slight cost advantage due to economies of scale, so
> they have the best price and everyone buys from them.

This is not true at all. Looking at actual competitive commodity markets for
things like lumber, oil, copper, etc, we see a lot of players in the market. I
can't think of a single commodity market where there is a monopoly.

Those times in history where a monopoly has occurred in commodities markets it
has been grossly abused. IAR, from the trusts of the early 1900s to the
cornering of the silver market one player controlling a commodity market has
not turned out well.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Looking at actual competitive commodity markets for things like lumber, oil,
> copper, etc, we see a lot of players in the market.

Those are all things that come from the earth (so inherently have diffuse
supply), sell into the global market (so the market is large and diverse,
leaving space for upstarts to find a niche) and are of strategic interest to
national governments many of which then act to ensure that an independent
local industry exists.

Examples of markets where this actually happens: Coca Cola (as discussed),
Walmart (in local areas), YKK in zippers, AB inBev in Brazil, Luxottica in
eyewear.

It's also common for this to happen with open source software, e.g. Linux on
embedded devices, OpenSSH as an ssh client/server, for many years gcc as a
compiler for Unix-like systems (until Apple poured money into clang to make it
competitive after FSF moved gcc to GPLv3), Android on phones, etc.

~~~
timoth3y
> Examples of markets where this actually happens: Coca Cola (as discussed),
> Walmart (in local areas), YKK in zippers, AB inBev in Brazil, Luxottica in
> eyewear.

None of these is the result of the "slight price advantage" and increased
efficiencies you claimed. Luxottica is expensive and uses their vertically
integrated monopoly power to keep competitors like Oakley out. Warby Parker
gained success so quickly largely because of this dysfunctional system. Coke,
where it controls the market it does so by controlling distribution, menus,
and retail space, not by offering cheaper products.

> It's also common for this to happen with open source software, e.g. Linux on
> embedded devices, OpenSSH as an ssh client/server,

These are not monopiles. They are more akin to standards. It's like saying the
kilogram has a monopoly. It's kind of true if you play with the meaning of the
word a bit, but in terms of markets, there is no monopoly power.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Luxottica is expensive and uses their vertically integrated monopoly power
> to keep competitors like Oakley out.

The eyewear market is weird because opticians use free eye exams as a loss
leader to sell expensive frames, and if you have insurance then the insurance
is paying and customers aren't sensitive to price, so the market selects for
expensive high margin frames even though they're an inexpensive commodity with
low barriers to entry. (This is a primary reason why healthcare is so
expensive in general.)

The scale advantage then isn't low "price" (because the market selects for a
specific _high_ price, namely the limit on what insurance will pay), rather
the advantage is lower _cost_ which leaves the seller with more to spend on
marketing etc.

And this leaves a niche for the likes of Warby Parker to capture the segment
of the market which is paying out of pocket and is actually sensitive to
price.

> Coke, where it controls the market it does so by controlling distribution,
> menus, and retail space, not by offering cheaper products.

But it still sells at competitive prices. Having retail space gives them
volume, not pricing power.

> These are not monopiles. They are more akin to standards. It's like saying
> the kilogram has a monopoly. It's kind of true if you play with the meaning
> of the word a bit, but in terms of markets, there is no monopoly power.

That's the point. They have overwhelming market share but minimal market
power. If suddenly Linux cost a lot of money, people would switch to BSD.

------
AndrewKemendo
Look no further than the dozens of examples of major tech companies
essentially "dumping" product to kill up and coming startups.

Diapers.com was the ultimate example of this [1]

 _Soon after, Quidsi noticed Amazon dropping prices up to 30 percent on
diapers and other baby products. As an experiment, Quidsi executives
manipulated their prices and then watched as Amazon’s website changed its
prices accordingly. Amazon’s pricing bots—software that carefully monitors
other companies’ prices and adjusts Amazon’s to match—were tracking
Diapers.com._

This is unambiguously Amazon using their Market power to stifle competition.

Now, you might say something like - yea that's just competition, or to the
victor go the spoils. However that's the whole point of this kind of advocacy
- to prevent companies from taking significant market power and spreading out
the competitive landscape. The language may not perfectly fit between
"monopoly" or otherwise, but the end result is the same: Small players can't
compete. Best thing you can hope for is an acquisition.

This is especially bad in technology, where information advantages grow with
the scope of the company.

[1] [https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-
be...](https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-
thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html)

~~~
knlinux
Please change my mind on that, but I don't understand the problem with the
diapers store example (or any other product for that matter).

Amazon lowers the price, so the consumers will get to buy cheaper diapers
(sounds good). Apparently Amazon can sell them at a very low margin, it's just
choosing one that's just below what competition can offer. Then of course you
have an issue with dumping (selling diapers with profit < $0), but I guess
Amazon can afford to sell them at $0+eps profit, so its end game is to sell
diapers at a lowest price to outcompete diaper stores on a crazy low margin.
Well, maybe there won't be online diapers stores anymore. Most likely Amazon
will then bump up the price back.. Well, so the diaper stores will appear
again (if the new bumped-up price is above a margin at which an individual
store can again operate). What will Amazon do then? Go back to step 1? Great,
more cheap diapers at "eps" margin. This, of course, requires the third party
stores to have low "startup" costs.

And maybe the bottom-line here is, that there is not going to be diapers.com
and alike anymore. Well, maybe online diapers store is not a branch of
industry one can enter in 2018 and expect to win big just by having a nicer
website, without proposing something truly innovative that a giant like Amazon
cannot offer (see how dollar shave club competed with Gilette/Wilkinson etc.)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I feel like you outlined the problem pretty well.

Amazon, because they have information and economic advantage, can effectively
manipulate the price of any good they want to make it uneconomical for any
other company to play.

That's a single company having outsized power to determine the state of the
market.

Using your example let's say that no other company can sell diapers online.
That means for consumers that either don't want to or can't buy from Amazon,
they are materially hurt from the lack of competition. Not only that, if they
tried to start their own, they would be crushed just like the others. So in
the end it's anti competition and increases friction for new business
creation. A fundamental tenet of markets is that diverse competition is the
primary forcing mechanism to ensure accessibility and quality.

The only possible argument here is that it's possible to have a singular
organization that provides everything better than a diverse competitive market
could. Neither history nor theory supports this thesis and the secondary
effect on economies and political power compounds the downsides.

~~~
knlinux
> Using your example let's say that no other company can sell diapers online.
> That means for consumers that either don't want to or can't buy from Amazon,
> they are materially hurt from the lack of competition.

If a group of consumers can't or don't want to shop at Amazon, then they've
just created a niche in the market (be it due to geography or anti-Amazon
sentiment), that would create a demand for a diaper store that would serve
those customers, because, by definition, they have just outcompeted Amazon by
being more available or appealing to the consumers.

> The only possible argument here is that it's possible to have a singular
> organization that provides everything better than a diverse competitive
> market could. Neither history nor theory supports this thesis and the
> secondary effect on economies and political power compounds the downsides.

I believe history shows that as long as said singular organization it keeps
providing everything, it will prevail (in everything). The moment it stops, it
collapses and new players come in its place. This is, of course, as long as
state doesn't decide to bail it out like it historically did in several
heavily regulated industries, which are hard to enter partially because of
said regulations. Consumers are rarely hurt in the process, as long as you let
the big company take the fall, and let the new better companies grow its place
once it stops delivering. If you regulate something like Search, to Google
it's just extra operational costs, but as a side effect, Google becomes too
big to fall, because no one else can really step in its boots anymore and
enter the market.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I already addressed your point, that they could just star their own:

 _Not only that, if they tried to start their own, they would be crushed just
like the others._

As did you in the original reply. So we're going in circles on that point.

You're missing the broader point though. Even if a firm did everything, it
would be bad for the economy because of lack of diversity. That's effectively
what the Soviet Union did. It's not because it's the government that things
don't work that way, it's because the government doesn't have competition that
things fail when centrally managed.

------
roymurdock
this is a rehashing/summary of the much more in-depth research note by law
school student Lina Khan that gained some attention earlier this year:
[https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-
parado...](https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox)

changes to the economic definition and legal enforcement of anti-monopoly are
one issue, but a general slowdown in the pace of technological innovation
combined with globalization/spread of technology is the primary force driving
consolidation/horizontal/vertical integration in many industries

~~~
devindotcom
Khan's piece was incredibly interesting. I learned a ton. It's long (100pp or
so) but full of great info, not at all difficult to read. I highly recommend
checking it out.

It's my understanding that the Chicago School types were not impressed, but
that was probably to be expected.

------
ImprovedSilence
here's what gets me. per the article: >>"Google owns 92% market share of
internet searches, Facebook an almost 70% share of social networks. "

but us the searchers and friends are not the customer. FB and google are
selling ads, and they are in direct competition with each other. If I want to
buy advertising space online, I have plenty of options and the innovation for
me to reach my target customers is astounding. The system is working exactly
as it should. Or so it goes from a monetary point of view.

------
drwl
I'm reminded of Peter Thiel's take on this
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iG3YKf1...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iG3YKf1yLKIJ:blakemasters.com/post/21169325300/peter-
thiels-cs183-startup-class-4-notes-essay+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

cached because current link is unavailable

~~~
dredmorbius
More durable:

[http://archive.is/ye5RY](http://archive.is/ye5RY)

~~~
jchw
Somewhat ironically, visiting this "more durable" link displayed a Cloudflare
Origin DNS error page.

------
j45
In a way the new monopoly is owning the demand but not the fulfillment..

Apple - own device demand, not the apps (or the default search).

Google - own search demand, not the content.

Facebook - own social demand, but not the content.

Airbnb - own lodging demand, but not the real estate.

Uber - own transportation demand, but not any vehicles.

Uber eats - own hunger, but not any food or restaurants

------
paulpauper
BUT the vast majority of buyouts are small and are for the purpose of finding
talent, and also the odds of a buyout producing a long-term impact are small.
Look at all the acquisitions yahoo has done over the past 2 decades and they,
I think, all failed. They bought Mark Cuban's company Broadcast.com for $5.7
billion in 1999, which is now a redirect to the yahoo homepage. Which I think
makes it the most expensive domain name ever purchased.

~~~
pavlov
HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) owns autonomy.com which redirects to their
website. They paid $11.7 billion USD for a company named Autonomy in 2011. HP
was forced to make a $8.8B writedown on the purchase already the following
year, and today nothing but the domain name remains at HPE.

------
throw2016
Choice and harm are two different concepts, the first is an economic context
that is supposed to punish bad actors, the second is a societal concept of
social harm which is an ethical concept like child labour.

In many cases the economic concept of choice is idealized and doesn't work in
the real world. For instance what choice does a consumer concerned about
privacy have beyond Android and IOS, or in telecom, oil and other polluting
industries and other dysfunctional markets? The network effects of social
media cannot be ignored and one may often be forced to participate in a
damaging environment that does not respect consumers privacy and basic rights.

Consumers may want a privacy respecting Internet and products but there is no
way for them to affect that outcome only through choice, so choice on its own
is not empowering. You can only choose what is available. And this is where in
democratic societies democratic institutions are expected to step in to limit
harm.

------
username90
My theory is that apple is intentionally targeting the profitable 10% and
ignoring the rest just so they don't have to deal with monopoly laws. They
still essentially have a monopoly on profit since they have the most
profitable users, but nobody can say that 10% market share is a real monopoly.

~~~
knlinux
Tim is first of all targeting the issue of privacy in that linked article
(which has nothing to do with monopolies), and it does it because Apple
handles that issue the best among the other big players by not being really
interested in your personal data (selling $1000 iPhones is good enough). Using
Tim's quote as a support for author's further claims seems manipulative. Also,
note that more regulation hurts small business more (future Amazons and
Googles). Large corporations are usually already profitable and can handle
hiring "Privacy Engineers" or whatever the next big issue is going to be, a
startup that struggles to be profitable, very often can't.

------
amelius
In my view, unfair competition practices begin when investors make a huge pile
of money to "out-money" any competition.

For example, how is it fair that a bunch of investors make a pile of money so
big that it puts small bookstores out of business?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Nobody owed small bookstores a living. If Amazon can give people more choice
at the same or better prices, why should the small bookstores survive? They're
less efficient and therefore wasting resources.

(Yes, I know, small bookstores provide a whole different experience than
shopping on Amazon. The thing is, _nobody cares_. Or at least too few people
care to make the small bookstores into viable businesses.)

How did Amazon "out-money" small bookstores in a way that wasn't simply "more
efficiently providing a competing service"?

~~~
amelius
> Nobody owed small bookstores a living.

By saying that you're basically throwing the whole concept of "fairness" out
of the window, so that's no argument.

In my view, Amazon does provide a more complete service than smaller
bookstores, but they achieved this with external money; money obtained from
outside the book-selling business.

A similar thing is happening to restaurant owners. Companies like Uber Eats
(started through enormous investments) build a portal where people can order
food. Suddenly, restaurant owners have to pay a sum of money to these
companies to stay in business. This is totally unfair, in my view.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> > Nobody owed small bookstores a living.

> By saying that you're basically throwing the whole concept of "fairness" out
> of the window, so that's no argument.

Not at all. I'm saying that, if the small bookstores are less efficient at
providing books to people, then there is room for a more efficient competitor
to drive them out of business without any unfair competition taking place.

> In my view, Amazon does provide a more complete service than smaller
> bookstores, but they achieved this with external money; money obtained from
> outside the book-selling business.

So what if the money was from outside the book-selling business? You seem to
be declaring all outside capital investment to be unfair, which strikes me as
a bizarre stance. Were railroads unfair competition to wagons because the
railroads had to raise capital on Wall Street?

~~~
fzeroracer
The large failure of your argument is that those competitors are not more
actually more efficient. This is why large companies are harmful even before
they reach the distinction of monopoly; although as an aside I see people here
making arguments that monopolies cannot exist.

Uber for example is not more efficient than RideAustin, the local non-profit
ridesharing alternative. What they do have however, is a large amount of
funding behind them which allows them to artificially lower the true cost and
choke out competitors. Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise
the prices again and benefit from full control over various parts of a market.

This is the same tactic that Walmart has used in order to destroy many local
towns by severely undercutting local businesses into oblivion. We should
consider this to be an objectively bad thing, considering if said sole company
ends up leaving the area due to profitability reasons they leave the residents
with nothing [1].

This is how the 'free market' works in practice. The largest companies with
the most money don't actually compete on the same level as local companies and
it would be naive to think that small bookstores vanishing is solely due to
inefficiency.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-
happene...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/09/what-happened-
when-walmart-left)

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
> Once they've bled the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and
> benefit from full control over various parts of a market.

A thing that HNers have been speculating will happen for years, but which has
so far failed to materialize.

~~~
fzeroracer
Failed to materialize would be objectively wrong. I even gave you a direct
example in the tactics that Walmart pulled in order to destroy local stores.

You can also look at how dreadful the situation is for ISPs in America.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
You did not provide any evidence that Walmart raised its prices after local
competition diminished. Please do not say that you did when you did not.

ISPs are often a monopoly, and often a government sanctioned one. I'd not
argue against an investigation into their practices.

~~~
fzeroracer
Walmart's tactics are extremely well-known and well-cited but if you're unable
to even glance at the Wikipedia page: [1] [2] [3] [4].

You would have to be not arguing in good faith to somehow not be aware of all
of the monopolistic and anti-consumer tactics Walmart has pulled, been accused
of and has had to legally dealt with over the long period of time they've been
active. So if you want to make any arguments about how the free market works,
I think you should start by looking deeply at how Walmart is ran.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20051027020550/http://www.newrul...](https://web.archive.org/web/20051027020550/http://www.newrules.org/retail/news_archive.php?browseby=slug&slugid=165)

[2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060820080242/http://www.harper...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060820080242/http://www.harpers.org/BreakingTheChain.html)

[3]
[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/business/30pharmacy.html?...](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/30/business/30pharmacy.html?_r=1&ref=health&oref=slogin)

[4] [https://ilsr.org/walmart-settles-predatory-pricing-
charge/](https://ilsr.org/walmart-settles-predatory-pricing-charge/)

~~~
ChrisLomont
None of your links support your claim that "Once they've bled the competition
dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full control over
various parts of a market." Every one of them support that Walmart is selling
goods cheaper than competitors who then file suit.

For example, your last link specifically states Walmart was selling things
cheaper than their competitors, the competitors sued, and in the agreement
with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection,
Walmart admitted no wrong doing and was not fined whatsoever.

If you're going to post links supporting your claim that "Once they've bled
the competition dry, they can raise the prices again and benefit from full
control over various parts of a market." don't post links with zero support
for that. It's a waste of our time.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Anyone think overaggressive monopoly laws can sometimes harm innovation? For
example when Intel was way ahead of AMD by natural instinct it should've
wanted to push ahead and "finish off" the company. But perhaps because it
feared being labeled a monopoly it took the foot off the pedal and expanded
elsewhere instead, harming x86 innovation. However, that's not to say
monopolies are ok. I think regulators should do more to stymie their powers
but it's difficult for sure.

~~~
markdown
I don't think you've thought that through.

How would Intel destroying AMD be good for innovation?

Once AMD was gone, they'd have no more incentive to innovate _at all_.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
AMD being destroyed would be bad for innovation in the long term but in the
medium term it could create a pattern where Intel only stays barely ahead
because going *too far ahead is actually detrimental. Regulations should
perhaps be changed so that monopolies are incentivized to innovate and create
good value instead of holding back. For a good while there browsers (IE6) were
complete crap because MS feared regulations. You can think of the same thing
happening to all MS windows software, from paint to windows movie maker. If MS
were allowed to make good software for low cost the benefits to society could
be pretty large.

However, because MS was close to a monopoly everything they do was suspect. On
the other hand modern day apple seems to profit immensely from being NOT a
monopoly. By not having a monopoly in a single area they're allowed to
vertically expand as much as they want. Imagine if apple weren't allowed to
offer siri, or icloud, or facetime, or imessages? The vertical expansion turns
out to be more profitable than horizontal domination while at the same time
being as abusive as MS ever was.

------
pge
for further reading on the history of monopolies and the change in approach to
limiting them, in addition to the article’s author’s book, I recommend
Cornered by Barry Lynn.

------
capsicum80
It is weird that microsoft is never mentioned in these articles, despite their
monopoly on software in public administration, education and healthcare.

~~~
bepotts
Microsoft isn't mentioned because the world shifted in such a manner where
Microsoft's monopoly is no longer as important. Nobody could have predicted
this in the 80s and 90s, and this situation should be a learning lesson as to
why antitrust measures should be extremely rare.

------
knlinux
> "Many new tech startups never get the chance to compete with the established
> companies, because as soon as they prove their technologies, they are
> acquired. But startups aren’t the only ones suffering."

Some companies are willingly selling to some other companies, so let's
forcibly break some companies apart. How is former a problem, and latter, a
solution?

------
ryanwaggoner
I find people's short term memory and myopia in this area to be amusing. Not
to say that oversight and regulation aren't sometimes needed (probably more
often than we get them in the US), but still, we should take a step back every
now and then.

I see a lot of people fretting that companies like Google, Facebook, and
Amazon are becoming so powerful that they're crushing their competition and
taking over entire industries, and they just can't be stopped unless the
government steps in.

Most of the companies people are wringing their hands about today effectively
didn't exist 20 years ago. Back then it was another set of companies that were
unassailable monopolies who were going to take over the world and rule with an
iron fist for 1000 years, ruthlessly crushing all their upstart competitors.

And in another 10-20 years, no one will be concerned about Google, Facebook,
and Amazon, and they'll instead be screaming bloody murder for the government
to break up the otherwise-unstoppable companies X, Y, and Z before they
destroy all that is good in the world.

Yes, yes, I know..."this time it's different!"

So it goes.

------
iamgopal
in a hypothetical scenario where all consumer goods sold via amazon, will
amazon be able to get whatever price they want ? the answer is no, because
consumer do not have infinite money to pay for it, monopoly or not. ( i.e.
will all consumer goods produce via amazon, sold via amazon, and all people
living doing job at amazon, works ? )

so on the side note, is there economic simulator, that can simulate such
scenario ?

------
robertAngst
Life is good today, people are panicking about tomorrow.

Tech moves too fast, I dont think we will need to worry about a monopoly when
FAANG stock starts falling.

~~~
Apocryphon
Will AOL Own Everything? By Lawrence Lessig (Monday, June 19, 2000)

[http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997265,...](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,997265,00.html)

(sadly paywalled)

~~~
abkumar
Pages 9-11 of this pdf [1] have the full text of the article

[1] [https://transition.fcc.gov/transaction/aol-
tw/exparte/disney...](https://transition.fcc.gov/transaction/aol-
tw/exparte/disney_exparte071100.pdf)

------
sytelus
TLDR; Anti-trust laws gets only triggered if consumer welfare might be harmed.
The way to measure consumer welfare is by prices. So if price of
goods/services remain low then anti-trust lawsuits cannot be brought on. In
Internet economy, price of many services provided by BigCos is zero.

Personally I think this is only half of the story because consumer welfare is
not just prices but also quality which depends on competition. The suppression
of competition was primary clause used for free IE on Windows anti-trust
lawsuit.

So I think article is not well researched and is spreading half-truths.

------
huffmsa
The Marxist ideal won't come through violent revolution, but through
corporations becoming so influential in daily life and robotics so much more
efficient than humans that we no longer work.

For reference, please see Pixar's WALL-E.

------
dredmorbius
The change can be traced back further, to judge Richard Posner and "Natural
Monopoly and its Regulation" (1968)
([http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2861&context=journal_articles)
(PDF)), subsequently published by the anti-regulation, pro-monopoly Cato
Institute, and earlier, judge Robert Bork, dating to earlier. In the 1960s,
see:

"‘Antitrust was defined by Robert Bork. I cannot overstate his influence.’'

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/20/antit...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/20/antitrust-
was-defined-by-robert-bork-i-cannot-overstate-his-influence/)

[https://www.cato.org/policy-report/julyaugust-1999/cato-
book...](https://www.cato.org/policy-report/julyaugust-1999/cato-books-posner-
monopolies)

Bork's "landmark" treatise on monopoly remains curiously unavailable at many
libraries:

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/antitrust-paradox-a-policy-
at...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/antitrust-paradox-a-policy-at-war-with-
itself/oclc/884476671?referer=di&ht=edition)

This reflects earlier treatment of monopoly within Libertarian economics texts
for popular consumption, notably Harry Hazlitt's _Economics in One Lesson_ ,
which addresses monopoly by ... dispensing with it virtually entirely:

[https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-
lesson/](https://fee.org/resources/economics-in-one-lesson/)

Contrast Alfred Marshall, _Principles_ , 8th ed, leading collegiate text at
the time, with a 15 page chapter and a multitude of mentions.

[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.149776/page/n4...](https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.149776/page/n485)

Barak Y. Orbach, "THE ANTITRUST CONSUMER WELFARE PARADOX":

 _“Consumer welfare” is the only articulated goal of antitrust law in the
United States. It became the governing standard following the 1978 publication
of Robert Bork 's The Antitrust Paradox. The consumer welfare standard has
been instrumental to the implementation and enforcement of antitrust laws.
Courts believe they understand this standard, although they do not bother to
analyze it. Scholars hold various views about the desirable interpretations of
the standard and they selectively use random judicial statements to
substantiate opposite views. This article introduces the antitrust consumer
welfare paradox: it shows that, under all present interpretations of the term
“consumer welfare,” there are several sets of circumstances in which the
application of antitrust laws may hurt consumers and reduce total social
welfare. This article shows that, when Bork used the term “consumer welfare,”
he obscured basic concepts in economics...._

[https://academic.oup.com/jcle/article-
abstract/7/1/133/75097...](https://academic.oup.com/jcle/article-
abstract/7/1/133/750979)

