Anti-Antitrust
As Robert Bork explained the defining Antitrust Paradox:
What matters is not whether a company is too big, but whether the consumer would benefit, better known as Consumer Welfare.
Basically big companies are not inherently evil as long as consumers are OK.
While determining a monopoly, we have to ask, whether a company has durable market power:
They have above 90% of Search Engine market share but can charge more than their competitors. Well, because the service is free. If they charge anything, people will start using any free Search Engine. Thus, their Market Power is not durable.
But Google has been charged with using unfair trade practices to stifle competition but this does not warrant its breaking because Consumer Welfare is unaffected.
Amazon
They have the largest market share in e-commerce, but their e-commerce market share is dependent on them continuing to serve the customers well, hence not durable.
Well, the case is different for suppliers who have complained about their aggressive negotiating practices. But since antitrust focuses primarily only on consumers, they get a free pass here.
Similar to Google, although they are being probed for abusing market power to hurt competition, Consumer Welfare not being harmed guaranteed their not breaking up.
Microsoft
It has a dominant OS market share but it has learned from its past mistakes and is generally seen as the most friendly of the big tech.
Windows 10 had a desktop/laptop market share of 39.22%. This established it as the most popular operating system on the market.
(Source: The Inquirer)Windows 7 was used by 33.38%.
(Source: StatCounter)
It is surely not the dominant cloud player, with just a 15% market share.
So, it seems Microsoft is actually the most secure out of the big tech.
Apple
Apple never had a significant smartphone market share. But, their small market share is durable due to their ecosystem.
The problem arises when Apple leverages its ecosystem on its App Store. By forcing apps to be only downloaded via the App Store, in which it charges a 30% commission, the additional cost is passed on to the consumer.
Well, that warrants fines and reduction of commission, you can’t really break up the Apple ecosystem.
Since the social media market is so difficult to value, Facebook has been allowed to acquire its biggest competitors. But since Social media users are so non-deterministic, you can’t really call its market power durable.
But even if it exploits the privacy of the users, is under the most scrutiny out of the five, and is the easiest to break up, the fundamental thing remains that consumers are no worse off under the status quo with respect to the current Anti-Trust laws.
The question to ask is whether the anti-trust framework is adequate to analyze the trillion-dollar tech giants.
