Comment by jasonjayr
7 months ago
If this is to be true, then there needs to be stronger protections against collusion and monopolies, otherwise things will end up in a very bad place.
How do you escape a private business that is (a) big enough to buy up all the competitors, (b) uses IP law to prevent competition, (c) gives it's customers worse service and high prices?
theres antitrust for that .
unfortunately, founders never envisioned a congress of career politicians, who would shy away from their duty to actually draft complete laws and enforce them , because politicians want to be friends with everyone.
Lack of term limits, lack of randomness, lack of income caps in government (and post government!), have eroded a sense of duty in our congressional leaders , and have gotten us a congress that is solely in it for its enrichment at the expense of the voters
Antitrust is a bandaid fix and a last resort. By far the majority of monopolies are created by government regulation in the first place.
I dont disagree at all.
BUT parent was asking for a government solution to the problem of monopolies. I was merely pointing out that government solution already exists.
And as you rightly point out, persistent monopolies are a government-created problem.
No there isn't. The first even slightly aggressive antitrust action in 25 years convinced silicon valley elites to sell out their friends, neighbors, and coworkers.
The vast majority of successful monopolies are because of government regulation and tax breaks that favor big incumbent businesses. If we massively simplified tax laws and regulations we'd simultaneously kill this specific Intuit problem and several other problems at the same time.
I can imagine the tax laws and regulations being 90% simpler but my mostly-simple taxes being mostly the same amount of work.
We need the IRS to pre-fill tax forms.
They do... with IRS direct file. I used it this year, it was great.