
A Simple Plan to Dissolve Facebook, Google, and Amazon - atlasunshrugged
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/8/18076440/facebook-monopoly-curse-of-bigness-tim-wu-interview
======
nabla9
Instead of breaking companies when they become too large, there should be
automatic mechanism that works as disincentive for firms to grow into gigants.
For example acquisition tax that starts to grow exponentially as the function
of company revenue. After some point big companies would have to really
innovate instead of buying innovation from outside.

At these sizes network externalities and market power of these companies
dominate their growth and profits, not the internal innovation. Their internal
'moonshots' are not so good and companies are in constant startup acquisition
spree. Microsoft had the same issue when it had monopoly power. Microsoft
Research provided very little of value compared to various acquisitions.

~~~
srean
A problem with publicly traded companies is that now they are an investment.
Owners want them to grow faster than the competition or else they switch -- so
there is an inherent, let me call it 'artificial', pressure to grow. Lets take
the example of Twitter once they have everyone on the world on Twitter and
lets say they are turning in a stable profit. For stock owners thats no good.
So Twitter would have to figure out to expand and grow some other way and in
my mind, at that point it is no longer Twitter, its something else and I would
rather that be a different company. You can see this effect in Microsoft.
Under 'normal' circumstances Microsoft's parts would be all different
companies because they are so different from each other. They have no reason
being a single company other than the pressure to grow.

~~~
nabla9
Sometimes companies voluntarily split when there is not enough synergy. Stock
owners get shares in both companies.

