Regulation

It's a economic pitfall to argue for more or less regulation, but not more good regulation and less bad regulation. Good or bad depends on human judgement. However, human judgement is clouded by prejudice, error, and hubris. In this context, regulation is a extremely serious issue that a enterprise may rise or fall at the whim of the government.

In the pursuit of antitrust against big tech, politicians threaten to break up giant tech corporations if their business practices are anti-competitive. What constitutes anti-competitiveness is open for debate, but as a first impression, it seems that Boeing and Airbus, or the financial sector, together with their anti-competitive behavior are perfectly fine for politicians. Perhaps the target for antitrust is political, so what?

Even if we ignore the politics, it's hard to argue that breaking up giant tech corporations is necessary to restore competition in the industry. Few tech sectors are actual monopolies. Most of them are oligopolies facing fierce competition from each other. Anti-competitive behavior against small firms arises because oligopolies want to position themselves better against each other. If big fine is enough to keep tech corporations in line, there is little use for antitrust. There are evidences that fines do work.

The main argument for antitrust against monopolies that they stifle innovation, undermine welfare, and restricting competition often doesn't resemble the case for oligopolies. Treating oligopolies as monopolies is bad economics, especially taught by radical left-wing activists. The distinction between oligopoly and monopoly is deep. The economics of radical left-wing activists is not.

What about the political power of oligopolies? Perhaps they deserve to be break up because they are politically influential. Then show the world the evidence that catastrophic political decisions are made because of big tech. Or, the argument sounds like PRC government's treatment of Jack Ma. Don't politicians bear the most responsibility for bad political decisions?

The world is watching, China is watching, whether USA antitrust against big tech is a wise act or a child's play.