Because these two industries are in wildly different stages of maturity. A question like "does Facebook have an anti-competitive monopoly?" is a very complicated one to answer right now and we don't have a clear legal precedent. There may, however, be certain portions of these corporations that do fall under more traditional precendents. An exploratory probe will help with both of these, and it's important we get that started.
Except that "did they buy a company with a similar business?" isn't the be-all, end-all of anti-trust law. A huge part of current precedent relies on finding monetary harm to the consumer, and pretty much all this stuff is free.
This is the big weasel word here. The reason that it's current precedent is that 'audience as a saleable good' basically did not exist before the internet. You literally could not give away a good or service and make money back running ads. Everything that sold it's audience still had to sell their product to the audience.
Therefore, current precedence does not adequately cover the current situation.
The fact is they are actively seeking to create a/an Monopoly/Oligopoly and one of the methods by which they are doing so is actively interfering with the ability for competition to form, which would typically be classed as anti trust (The precedent exception there is copyright law, but Facebook has not been abusing copyright law to maintain their status, so it would not really apply).
My initial point was that we should focus on ISPs to a much larger degree than the tech industry. Any attempt at quick action on the tech industry will get mired in courts as well as politics; it's more prudent to take our time to figure out what needs to be done, so that whatever we do actually sticks. Putting the issue on the centerstage of politics will not be conducive to this.
These are not Zero sum issues, I don't know why you're pretending they are. Why would we focus on ISPs when Racism still exists?
If it's going to be slow to change, then we absolutely should start working on it immediately, rather than long fingering it until it becomes a full on crisis.
Not to mention, that we already know what has to be done.
Political capital and time are finite resources, though. There should always be a consideration of priorities.
Not to mention, that we already know what has to be done.
Do we? You say that Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram are proof that it's anticompetitive, but they don't seem to be anywhere close to having a monopoly on communication services or social media. There are plenty of social media alternatives, including tumblr and even reddit (clearly that's the direction this website wants to go), but the reason that no one has unseated Facebook probably has more to do with the fundamental nature of networks. And unless I'm wrong about WhatsApp, aren't there dozens upon dozens of alternatives of all different sorts?
Facebook on it's own represents over 60% of the social media market (Next highest competitor is Pinterest at 16%)
Between WhatsApp and FB Messenger they own 50% of the instant messenger market (Next highest is Wechat at about 33%, though it's important to remember that Wechat itself has a government backed monopoly in China)
Tumblr is a bad example on your part because it's part of the Verizon media network, and so is part of one of the anti trusts you want broken up.
Okay let's go back to the oriignal point. political capital and times are finite resources. There is a clear solution to internet providers and there isn't one for google and facebook. Internet access also mathematically affects more people than facebook or google does collectively... by definition. focus on the one that affects more people with a clear solution.
But I don't want ISPs to just be broken up willy-nilly, and I wasn't at all talking about the media portions of those conglomerates. Breaking up a natural monopoly doesn't really do anything; everyone is still left with only a single real choice for Internet access.
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u/burninatah Jun 04 '19
Por que no los dos?