The ‘priors’ in question being, “Google and Facebook have between them managed to ruthlessly stamp down on this site’s ability to make money. And let’s not even get started on book advertising.” I am so keenly aware of this, I instinctively mistrust anything that might cheer me up. Like a federal judge declaring Google to be a monopoly:
Via @TychoBrahe.
Seeing Google get smashed into its component services would fill me with an unholy joy. Facebook, likewise. Amazon? …Well, that’s where things start getting awkward. I still make money off of Amazon. And that, too, is part of the problem. I’m not as disinterested in this topic as I could be, honestly.
Moe Lane
I’d probably feel better about that if antitrust wasn’t basically Calvinball.
lol. Yeah, Google must not have been censoring hard enough.
I was a lot more sympathetic to that argument before Alphabet and Meta started buying up any potential rival and strangling them in the crib.
Also, when Google was actually good for finding what you were looking for, and FB was actually good for showing what old friends were up to.
Right now, they’re a cancer. If we ever want the old internet back, and a free flow of information, they have to die.
I will revel among the corpses.
Google/Meta/et al can be bad *and* antitrust can be made up. These things are not exclusive. “Embrace the power of ‘and'”, etc.
Using an imperfect tool is better than not using any. What would be your method to address market imbalance and harm using existing law precedent, since you clearly want to replace antitrust law?
I tend to think that antitrust is negatively useful tool, mostly being used either to punish businesses people have decided they don’t like, or to compensate for regulatory issues that are entirely within the power of Congress to address.
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But I mainly meant that it’s likely to go to SCotUS, and I don’t know if I’d take bets on where SCotUS will come down.