Companies already do that with dividend payouts or share buyouts. Also, the shareholders control these companies. If they wanted the profits returned to then, they would vote for it.
> Maybe something along the lines of "any company whose average market cap over the course of a fiscal year exceeds 1% of GDP is automatically broken up".
I prefer over 33% market share. I think every market/industry should have at least 3 players. Any company that goes over 33% market share for X period of time gets broken apart.
> Companies that don't want to be split into pieces would need to find ways to reduce their market cap, one of the quickest being sending dividends to shareholders
Not necessarily. There are companies that don't have a profit or cash on hand with huge market caps. Amazon notoriously made no profit for decades. I think enterprise value is what you are looking for.
Edit: just a passing thought, I don't advocate for any of these ideas. Just complaining, I have no answers
I'm not even anti-corporation, but to pretend everything is fine seems silly
If you don't like Amazon having your data, or whatever your issue is, don't use Amazon.
I know things are more complicated
You, however, need a mirror. Everything you just said is a wonderful display of willful ignorance. Your head in the sand does not protect you from the world
Big Tech, in 2023, is effectively a governmental body. I mean all 7 (or whatever) of the largest companies. They operate in a wildly anti-competitive and anti-free-market way, rivaling even the Railroad tycoons of a bygone era.
I'm not anti-corporation, but there needs to be some effort put into correcting this. It's not going to fix itself.
Our country would be a lot better off with a lot of small businesses rather than a few gigantic businesses.
Is that true? Plenty (in fact, arguably most) countries have a much smaller ratio of "big" to "small" companies and many of those are not "a lot better off" than our country and quite to the contrary. So I don't buy this assumption.