Comment by jrflowers
6 days ago
> DOJ is trying to completely change Google's business model and dictate how they are supposed to make money
This is good reasoning. It is overreach for a regulatory body to do something that could impact the business model of a monopoly. Monopolies are bad, unless being a monopoly is part of that monopoly’s business model and an important part of how the monopoly makes money, in which case nothing should be done.
I do mostly agree with grandparent, but not with your take.
What is the problem with government regulating, say, the ingredients that can be used in foods, forbidding addictive drugs from being added to them? Or selling drugs that are completely fake or outright dangerous?
This obsession with small governments (and basically, libertarianism) doesn't really stand on proper grounds.
Why can't the government work for you? Maybe it's an inherent bias given that I'm from Europe, but I think the stereotypical utopia about "big government" is much more true for huge corporations (which have absolutely no safety mechanisms built in to prevent a paper clip factory going overboard in the name of profit) compared to the slow-moving, democratic, slightly corrupt governments. Only one of these have accountability in a humane form, while the only metric for corporate is a single number.
This is a good point. “Why should anyone think about monopolies when we could imagine what it would be like if they put nicotine in beefaroni?” is exactly the sort of salient and nuanced discourse that is sorely lacking these day’s
> unless being a monopoly is part of that monopoly’s business model and an important part of how the monopoly makes money, in which case nothing should be done.
Can you expand on this?
My read of this is based on an assumption that monopolies will always structure their business around being monopolies. This post is implying that there cases where there are not, and those are the only cases where antitrust law should be enforced. Based on this contradiction, as well as the odd phrasing, emphasizing how important making money is over resolving the badness of monopolies, I'm pretty sure this is a joke.
It's a distillation of the top level comment done in a sarcastic manner meant to indicate the dubious natute of the original claim.
I would assume they're being facetious.