New Klobuchar, Cotton bill could block Big Tech mergers | Hacker News Reader

New Klobuchar, Cotton bill could block Big Tech mergers

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15 pointssamizdis6 comments

While I do think that some companies (ie. FAANG) might be too big and we should do something to combat that, I'm not sure that government regulation is the correct way. I think I would like to see the government help smaller companies compete with the super-large entities instead. Maybe that means startups get reduced costs for network bandwidth allotments, or less costly loans/grants to work on big projects.

There are several projects that I would like to see advances in, but they are just too resource intensive for most smaller players. EV charging is one of them. Tesla really knocked it out of the park with their Supercharger network. However, it's limited to Tesla vehicles (for now). Someone needs to build out a network of stupid simple chargers that work for everyone and don't require you to pull out your cell phone and/or CC. Internet search is another big option; we should be helping DuckDuckGo out instead of kneecapping Google.

When was the last big tech merger? Can anyone name it? AOL and Time Warner? HP and Compaq? IBM and RedHat?

Big tech as we think of them (FAANG) are remarkably self created. Facebook didn't get big through M&A. Neither did Google or Apple. Of all big tech, Microsoft has the most acquisitions, but still, most their revenue today is from services developed in-house. No one would argue that Microsoft is what it is today because they bought LinkedIn and GitHub.

why is being self-created relevant? The thesis of the bill is that m&a helped big tech accumulate market power, which was later misused anticompetitively, so the government should limit tech companies of a certain market cap from inorganically growing market power to mitigate further abuse.

IMO that logic is very flawed, but it’s still pretty trivial to find examples of how m&a has fueled market power expansion e.g. fb and instagram or google and doubleclick. Anticompetitive behavior is perhaps harder to pin down legally, but we’ve clearly not yet achieved some tech utopia.

Think of every company that got bought out by a bigger fish in the last 10 years, and the ones that after getting bought out were gutted or otherwise destroyed. The fact is, it isn't just Big Tech that is the problem. It's Big * that is. M&A's have been rubber stamped regardless of outcomes or promises to actually do better for consumers/stakeholder's, yet we see the opposite out one of what regulators are told will happen if $M&A is approved. Kudos on them for doing something bout Trusts, but it needs to be across the board.

Why stop at "tech" mergers?

What an unlikely coalition.

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