Comment by mentalgear
15 hours ago
Well, I certainly prefer if big tech fight each other instead of the user as sometimes there might even come something good out of it - like elevated privacy in Apple's ATT case.
Overall, that's the reason anti-trust laws must be applied rigorously, otherwise the normal population has no chance.
Sometimes something good (ATT). Sometimes something bad (this terrible age-verification thing that is a huge barrier to entry for small entrants and comes with massive state surveillance risk).
In the end, all the little people are just collateral damage or occasionally they get some collateral benefits from wherever the munitions land.
Personally I've lived in the world of "small entrants" and can see that but I think the average voter doesn't really understand that "just anybody" could have created an online service. That is, they think you have to have VC money, be based in Silicon Valley, have to have connections at tha pp store, that it's a right for "them" and not for "us".
This isn't about the average voter-- this is about an entrenched industry creating structural barriers to entry to protect growing monopoly power.