More active antitrust may need to occur via regulation.
I'm just very skeptical of the sort of thinking that treats some abstract, not-very-realistic thing called "regulation" as a magic tool to solve all our problems.
> I'm just very skeptical of the sort of thinking that treats some abstract, not-very-realistic thing called "regulation" as a magic tool to solve all our problems.
I'm just very skeptical of the sort of thinking that treats some abstract, not-very-realistic thing called "competition" as a magic tool to solve all our problems.
See how that works? Competition can also mean races to the bottom, price dumping, plus it works best with commodities. In every non commodity market competition is diminished and sometimes disappears naturally.
Good regulation can be a great answer to problems (and not just anti-trust). Bad regulation is... well, not a good solution of course.
For example, in another comment on this topic I wrote how I do a monthly backup of all my data in Google, Facebook and other online services that I don't want to lose. I wouldn't be able that without GDPR. (The export services (e.g. Google Takeout, "export my data" features on other sites) did not exist before GDPR... coincidence?)
You also call "regulation" abstract, but let's be honest; "competition" is also pretty abstract at this point, and to get a company to compete (with a reasonable market share) with Google across the Google suite of consumer products is arguably a much huger undertaking than good regulation.
