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Comment by ellisv | Hacker News Reader

> So the way we can solve this problem is to outlaw shares ownership of competing companies? Seems like a fair solution.

This just isn't practical. What if I'm invested in Big Bank and Big Tech Co. but then Big Tech Co. creates a wallet app and credit card -- do I have to sell my ownership in one of these companies?

As an investor I definitely want to own companies that compete because I don't know which one is going to prevail. Owning just one of the companies doesn't really fix the problem either -- if I own only Pepsi does that mean I would want them to get into a price war with Coke?

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> do I have to sell my ownership in one of these companies?

No, company would have to split itself (create separated business entity) so you would have to sell your competing part of the company.

Such a change can also solve problem of companies using their dominant/monopolistic position in one business area to get unfair advantage in another.

> As an investor I definitely want to own companies that compete because I don't know which one is going to prevail.

That's the problem article describes! Such behavior reduces competition and hurts customers:

>> This line of research began with a 2014 paper about competition among U.S. airlines that quietly shook the fund industry and the antitrust world. José Azar, an economist at the University of Navarra in Barcelona, along with Martin Schmalz and Isabel Tecu, showed that airline ticket prices were 3% to 7% higher because big funds owned stakes in so many airlines.

> No, company would have to split itself (create separated business entity) so you would have to sell your competing part of the company.

This just isn't practical though. Apple/Google/Amazon/etc would have to be broken up for example.

> That's the problem article describes! Such behavior reduces competition and hurts customers.

Hedging shouldn't be illegal though. Let me buy both cows and chickens -- even though I don't know which people will want to eat later.

> This just isn't practical though. Apple/Google/Amazon/etc would have to be broken up for example.

So happened with Standard Oil and others after antitrust laws were introduced. Was their split bad? Or impractical?

Don't you as a customer want Google and other companies to be splitted to AdWords, GoogleSearch, YouTube, Android, Waymo companies?

No, it's actually pretty much the selling point that Apple the phone manufacturer is also Apple the security chip manufacturer, Apple the OS development company, Apple the financial services company, and Apple the company that supplies the wallet app. This means that I only have to trust one entity to use Apple Pay to buy things with my phone. This largely collapses if Apple can't at the same time be a manufacturer of chips, a seller of phones, a developer of operating systems, a provider of applications, and a handler of financial transactions.

Every company today is basically a tech company or transitioning into one. Does that mean you can now own only one stock?

This is sort of meaningless use of the term, like saying every company is an electricity company or a paper company. Every company's _inputs_ are growing to include tech, but their outputs aren't: a company making tractor wheels or cans of soda is by no measure a tech company in the context of this conversation.

> No, company would have to split itself (create separated business entity) so you would have to sell your competing part of the company.

How about categories that aren't cut and dry? Lets say the tech company develops an AI tool that banks could apply to track delinquent accounts. And a bank develops a regular tool to do the same? Is this something that warrants splitting your business? Do both split or just one of them? which one?

How do you police this? What about small companies? What about international companies? What about public funds that hold a bunch of companies?

I'm sorry but while there is clearly a problem to be solved, what you proposed is definitely not the solution.

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