Comment by andrekandre

6 hours ago

  > Meanwhile China is operating on government initiatives

china fosters intense internal competition though; they don't just create and then subsidize some monopoly... avoiding breaking up mono/oligopolies feels the opposite (and a loosing strategy long-term imo)

It is a good and important point. But again this is paired with vast amounts of public investment. So to focus on the government's prevention of single sources of power (that which could eventually threaten the primacy of the Chinese central government itself) obscures the issue.

In the United States we don't have the same reliability of public initiative. That's the point I'm making. Therefore, in such a context breaking up and weakening the companies that do makes us competitive doesn't strike me as a good strategy. And I wish more people would acknowledge that tradeoff in their anti "big tech" rhetoric.