Comment by ajross
10 hours ago
> Did I say this was a legal argument? I don't see that anywhere.
Ahem, I said that, in the comment to which you responded. Forgive me for making assumptions about the context of discussion.
But that said, I still don't see where you're going with this. No fix for what you want exists that wouldn't also outlaw stuff like fashion consultants, custom PC builders and thrift shops.
Of course it wouldn't, if those businesses weren't also monopolies.
It really is frustrating sometimes dealing with people on HN who assume that there can only ever be one set of rules for how businesses can deal with each other: that no matter how dominant a given company gets, you can never make them abide by a preset more-restrictive ruleset, or design specific rules for them that prevent them from abusing that dominance to hurt other people or businesses.
Antitrust law is specifically designed to do exactly that. It has been essentially abandoned over the past 3-4 decades in the US, in favor of Gordon Gekko's motto of "greed is good", with the Chicago School's "principles" essentially being "if it's more efficient™ for the economy, that's better; monopolies are more efficient™, so we should just let them do whatever they want," but what I describe is (more or less) what it is supposed to do.