Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the same thing which happened to John D. Rockefeller's oil monopoly will happen to tech.

Amazon and Google are becoming more like a technology holding/investment company (like Berkshire).

I don't think the guys on Washington really understand the severity. Tech is still new and machine learning is doing wonders but not merging universes (as of yet).

What is the severity?

I think something very different needs to happen. Commodity monopolies are different than platform monopolies. Additionally, I can't think of an example where any retail monopoly has been broken up.

I am still unsure if breaking these companies up in a vertical way would actually result in any benefit to the public.

The old AT&T I think would count as retail.

IIRC, AT&T asked to be broken up so that it could get into the computer business.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com