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Comment by Ancalagon | Hacker News Reader

They aren't free. Noticed all the oligopolies around lately?

Do you think Bezos has it in mind to take on those oligoplies when he changes the editorial focus to promoting free markets?

It's not the worst reach

To Bezos, "free markets" is a world where Amazon is free to monopolize however it wants without interference. It is one where people like Lina Khan are imprisoned or shot rather than placed in positions of power.

What consumers want is a competitive market with many choices that pushes down prices and forces companies to innovate. What Bezos wants is to crush everybody else.

Lately? When was it not like that?

From 1932 to 1980 or so the government tried to break up big monopolies to encourage competition, both parties pretty much agreed not to do that (there are some real benefits to consolidation) until the last 8 year or so because monopoly power is getting extreme. See https://www.thebignewsletter.com/

partly because of astroturfing about "benevolent" monopolies that was pushed on to judges and politicians

From 1932 to 1980 or so the government tried to break up big monopolies to encourage competition

Starting with FDR and ending with Reagan? I think that the history of US antitrust is more complicated. The first round of trust busting (Sherman Act, Standard Oil) was a generation before FDR, and the period you've highlighted had two great monopolies, AT&T and IBM. I agree that the policy had been pretty much hands off between Microsoft and big tech.

You're right about the chronology, it did start around 1900 or so.

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