Well, they did specifically say it's not a cartel. Yet. I interpreted the article as an early warning to prevent them from becoming a cartel, as the author believes they have the capability to become one if they decide to.
> First, what is the function of a cartel? It's to coordinate supply to keep prices high.
No, it's to coordinate to keep profits high. Prices could fall, but less quickly than they would otherwise, and it could still be due to coordinated action. One example is if costs are falling quicker than prices, and prices drops are delayed or reduced. If consumers are hurt because they've altered the economics of the market to prevent competition, that would qualify for me.
> Do we really think that anything the content players have done so far would indicate any of them are trying to set pricing higher? Hardly.
Theoretically, they could make the market economics of new cables harder to justify, while keeping enhanced capability for themselves. Does affecting the world market to the degree that it would take a nation state to have enough money to change the status quo enough to allow competition in the data transit space count as anti-competitive? It may be that the term encompasses a lot more behavior when applied at that scale.
Do the companies in question have enough resources and power to affect the global market in that way? I have no idea. It sounds crazy, but it feels like there's more consolidation of power in these companies (with regard to online content) than other industries have had in the past, and with an industry that's as large and lucrative as this, that seems to make them somewhat unique. The dark horse here might end up being China. If there was a cartel, China would have the capability and motive to bust it eventually. Of course, if the markets China wanted to reach were politically denied from specialized lobbying, that could counter them...