If ever there were a reason to get politicians on the side of breaking up Google (or any other tech company), I imagine this would be it.
By the way, I highly anticipate that the above argument will be made by said multinationals to prevent said breakup/anti-monopoly moves.
Zuckerberg made that argument months ago, surprise, surprise:
https://www.recode.net/2018/7/18/17584482/mark-zuckerberg-ch...
> Mark Zuckerberg says breaking up Facebook would pave the way for China’s tech companies to dominate
Fundamentally, this is all about negotiating power, and the whole point of breaking up a monopoly/oligopoly is to reduce its negotiating power. But that's clearly a problem when interacting with foreign companies not subject to the same anti-trust action, and will have much greater negotiating power.
This is complicated, and the argument is not a fallacy.
> we should just create and feed oligopolies to avoid, god help us, becoming "victims" of oligopolies from other countries...
This basically is exactly the strategy of China, at least with respect to international trade, and it's working absolutely wonderfully for them. In part, precisely because most of their competition is fragmented and paralyzed by infighting.
if that is the case, then the US has no grounds on requesting the Chinese to open their markets for US firms! If the US is itself committed to empower their oligarchic companies, we should not be surprised if the Chinese create their own mega companies and close their market to the American ones.
Essentially what I'm trying to say is that if we go the path of supporting mega companies, then we should just throw away the illusion of free market and understand that other countries will do the same, because they're not stupid.
I think this is a silly strawman and you probably know it. This argument exists on a wide spectrum, at one end is "not acting to break up large companies", and at the other is "outright state owned enterprises with unlimited funding to compete abroad". The fact that the argument applies to both does not make them the same.
The same may or may not be true of search engine or other technologies, but to look at it from a black and white perspective is not helpful.
I would think a government response to control this kind of activity would involve some form of deglobalization -- such as export controls or other regulations.
The US military is a total centrally planned monopoly itself. Maybe the US military should not be spending so much money on bases overseas, and trillions of dollars unaccounted for. We have 800 bases and the rest of the world has 30. The taxpayer funds all of it, but has very little say or oversight.
And Switzerland isn't what it used to be for banking security.
Now ask yourself, which one seems more attractive to a cynical US politician who wants to bring in more jobs for his state? Does a senator from Texas or New York advocate for splitting up Google because it will open the market for other tech businesses that could choose to headquarter in Texas or New York, but will probably also choose California? Or will they decide to increase the size of the surface fleet, knowing they can get parts of those ships manufactured in their states? I fear the later is more appealing to this sort of person.