
Regulating Big Tech makes them stronger, so they need competition instead - js2
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2019/06/06/regulating-big-tech-makes-them-stronger-so-they-need-competition-instead
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js2
The essence of the essay is at the end:

 _Over the past 12 months there has been a radical shift in the balance of
power on the internet. In the name of taming the platforms, regulators have
inadvertently issued them a “Perpetual Internet Domination Licence”, albeit
one that requires that they take advice from an aristocracy of elite
regulators. With only the biggest tech companies able to perform the
regulatory roles they have been assigned because of complexity and cost, they
officially become too big to fail, and can only be nudged a little in one
direction or another by regulators drawn from their own ranks.

As has been the case so often in the internet's brief life, humanity has
entered uncharted territory. People (sort of) know how to break up a railway
or an oil company and America once barely managed to break up a phone company.
No one is sure how to break up a tech monopolist. Depending on how this moment
plays out, that option may be lost altogether.

But competition is too important to give up on.

One exciting possibility is to create an absolute legal defence for companies
that make "interoperable" products that plug into the dominant companies'
offerings, from third-party printer ink to unauthorised Facebook readers that
slurp up all the messages waiting for you there and filter them to your
specifications, not Mark Zuckerberg's. This interoperability defence would
have to shield digital toolsmiths from all manner of claims: tortious
interference, bypassing copyright locks, patent infringement and, of course,
violating terms of service.

Interoperability is a competitive lever that is crying to be used, hard. After
all, the problem with YouTube isn't that it makes a lot of interesting videos
available—it is that it uses search and suggestion filters that lead viewers
into hateful, extreme bubbles. The problem with Facebook isn't that they have
made a place where all your friends can be found—it is that it tries to
"maximise engagement" by poisoning your interactions with inflammatory or hoax
material.

In a monopolised market, sellers get to bargain by fiat. But
interoperability—from ad-blocking to switching app stores—is a means by which
customers can assay real counteroffers._

