Yes - because "additional regulatory burdens" aren't the answer... breakups are.
Somehow we've settled into a spot where it's acceptable to have incredibly powerful monopoly/duopoly structures in American culture, sometimes with a "third wheel" of a small scattering of options to make it appear as though there's competition. Usually, the terms these companies operate under are substantially "the same" from a consumer point of view (whole related can of worms there - see: "tyranny of contract - starting with Engels and leading to Kreitner")
Want a computer? Choose: Microsoft or Apple.
Want a phone? Choose: Apple or Google.
Want to advertise? Choose: Google.
Want a credit card? Choose: Visa or Mastercard (third wheel: Discover/Amex)
Want a browser? Choose: Google (third wheel: Firefox/Safari/Edge)
Want a grocery store? Choose: Walmart or Kroger.
Want internet? Choose: ATT or Comcast.
Want to watch TV? Choose: Comcast or Disney (third wheel: Fox/Paramount/WB)
Want to stream a show? Choose: Disney or Paramount (third wheel: Amazon/Netflix)
Want to bank? Choose: JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America (lots of third wheels still, but they hold more than the next 6 combined in assets)
Want a political party? Choose: Republican or Democrat.
Want to sell a good online? Choose: Walmart or Amazon.
Want to do home improvements? Choose: Home Depot or Lowes.
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It's not about regulatory burden, its about a clear failure to provide competition by allowing a small number of dominate players to functionally own a market.
They're just competitive enough to shut down any real competition (by undercutting them via scale, cash-on-hand, and monopoly effects) but the impact is short-lived.
And I partly blame our response in 2008 - we appear to have decided that it entirely ok to be "too big to fail" and that's an acceptable state of the country.
And it's definitely "efficient" (in some respects - much like cancer is incredibly efficient at replicating and capturing resources) but I don't think it's particularly healthy for society. A very small number of folks are sucking up more and more wealth via a set of largely entrenched conglomerates. Meanwhile - any feedback mechanism or regulation that might stop that siphoning has been knocked away.
It feels like we had a nice breeze for a bit, but we're headed directly back to the "Robber Baron" age.
We’re too far apart on this. I reject “historical determinism” and “late-stage capitalism,” but in response you throw out Engels, Kreitner, and “tyranny of contract” as though they might be in any sense persuasive.
A contract formalizes the terms of an agreement: “I will provide X in exchange for you providing Y.” In the event of a dispute, the contract provides an objective record of what both sides committed to performing. This is how free people transact business. The people who want to sign their name to one agreement but then have a strong-arming outsider change the terms — allegedly in the name of “fairness,” “social welfare,” or some other aggressively undefined abstraction that may be manipulated “to mean anything or nothing at pleasure” — are expropriating parasites. They demand to replace clarity and order with “progress,” itself an undefined term with no end state and an infinite playground for radical revolutionaries. Throughout history, this has been a recipe for tyranny. Every accusation is a confession.
The state does not and cannot “provide competition.” The regulatory frameworks put up are inevitably captured because the witless regulators are intellectually undermatched. The allegedly independent but captured philosopher-kings now do the bidding of their corporate masters under color of law. Instead of realizing the gigantic systematic error, radical revolutionaries want to be even more destructive and bring out their sledge hammers to forcibly break up companies, even if doing so harms consumers.
This is not how free people deal with one another. Let peace and freedom cause a thousand flowers to bloom. Stop making it difficult for new competitors to enter the market. Get out of the way.
But we have to have common ground from which to start. If merely committing terms of an agreement to writing is alleged to be tyranny, so absurd that it’s hard to believe that anyone holds such a position in earnest — if the two camps cannot agree enough on the rules of the game to write them down, then they have no hope of uniting in a peaceful society.
Go actually read Kreitner - then consider the standard EULA you're required to accept for all services.
Consider whether his argument is at least a valid description of the issue of "free people transact[ing] business" when one side is literally the ONLY service provider, and the other is a utterly disposable customer.
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Your comment implies you don't actually understand the discussion.
Somehow we've settled into a spot where it's acceptable to have incredibly powerful monopoly/duopoly structures in American culture, sometimes with a "third wheel" of a small scattering of options to make it appear as though there's competition. Usually, the terms these companies operate under are substantially "the same" from a consumer point of view (whole related can of worms there - see: "tyranny of contract - starting with Engels and leading to Kreitner")
Want a computer? Choose: Microsoft or Apple.
Want a phone? Choose: Apple or Google.
Want to advertise? Choose: Google.
Want a credit card? Choose: Visa or Mastercard (third wheel: Discover/Amex)
Want a browser? Choose: Google (third wheel: Firefox/Safari/Edge)
Want a grocery store? Choose: Walmart or Kroger.
Want internet? Choose: ATT or Comcast.
Want to watch TV? Choose: Comcast or Disney (third wheel: Fox/Paramount/WB)
Want to stream a show? Choose: Disney or Paramount (third wheel: Amazon/Netflix)
Want to bank? Choose: JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America (lots of third wheels still, but they hold more than the next 6 combined in assets)
Want a political party? Choose: Republican or Democrat.
Want to sell a good online? Choose: Walmart or Amazon.
Want to do home improvements? Choose: Home Depot or Lowes.
---
It's not about regulatory burden, its about a clear failure to provide competition by allowing a small number of dominate players to functionally own a market.
They're just competitive enough to shut down any real competition (by undercutting them via scale, cash-on-hand, and monopoly effects) but the impact is short-lived.
And I partly blame our response in 2008 - we appear to have decided that it entirely ok to be "too big to fail" and that's an acceptable state of the country.
And it's definitely "efficient" (in some respects - much like cancer is incredibly efficient at replicating and capturing resources) but I don't think it's particularly healthy for society. A very small number of folks are sucking up more and more wealth via a set of largely entrenched conglomerates. Meanwhile - any feedback mechanism or regulation that might stop that siphoning has been knocked away.
It feels like we had a nice breeze for a bit, but we're headed directly back to the "Robber Baron" age.