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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Monopolization in big tech is far more economically significant. The Big 3 cell carriers make $250 billion in annual wireless revenues combined. Their profit margin is about 15%. Google alone makes $300 billion in revenue, and has a net profit margin of 25-30%. Meta’s revenue is $130 billion and its profit margins are even higher, over 30%.

The tech industry is extracting vastly more monopoly profits from consumers than any other industry.

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Most of Google revenue is not made from US consumer. Telecom revenue on the other hand is mostly attributable to the US consumer, whom FTC is responsible to protect.

Half of Google’s revenue is from the U.S.

Used to be more like 40% US. I suspect it is closer to but still less than half now with stronger USD and US GDP growth relative to RoW.

Monopoly is about choice, not revenue. I don't care how little Comcast or Spectrum makes compared to Google or Facebook when I'm forced to use their terrible service because there are no other options available.

In antitrust law, the key focus is on the excess profits companies can obtain from consumers through their monopolistic conduct. Profits is more important to that analysis than choice. Tech companies are in a state of monopolistic competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopolistic_competition. There’s theoretical choices, but because tech companies have big moats, those choices are largely imaginary and the companies enjoy significant monopolistic pricing power. Telecommunications service, by contrast, is largely fungible. Even a small amount of competition is sufficient to curb the ability of providers to exert significant monopoly power to achieve excess profits.

No one is forced to use G or M but they make better products. It is not monopoly. There are excellent alternatives available very easily.

Comcast, ATT are different. You simply dont have much of a choice even in cities meant for internet. San Jose has like 1Gbps ATT and 100Mbps Comcast as the only options.

Better at extracting monopoly profits from consumers or from the advertisers?

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