Unless there is a monopoly (or agreements between telcos to raise prices without competing) then why? How will breaking up Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon do anything to help US consumers? It might help their competitors, many of whom are very large (Alibaba).
America is largely a nation of producers, and our current state of malaise (or whatever you want to call it) seems to be strongly correlated to being re-branded as consumers, and being forced into a system that treats us as such. There is a higher good than low prices for consumers.
Consolidation destroys small business and the ability of the average American to support themselves through independent, private enterprise. All 5 of the FAANG companies have caused consolidation in tech, retail and other verticals, and they are acting as private regulators to manipulate the markets. I don't want 5 companies controlling my destiny, and I can't figure why any rational person would, even if you genuinely see yourself as a consumer.
Over the 16 years from 1998 to 2014 where FAANG is even relevant, small business share of GDP declined from 48% to 43.5%. (Their dollar amount has grown 1.4% annually vs. 2.5% for large businesses.)
Is 43.5% too little? Or perhaps it's too high? Across the EU, the figure I found has 99% of all enterprises employing fewer than 250 people, whereas in the US it's 98%. For enterprises with 1-9 people employed, in the US it's 67%, vs 88% in France, 93% in Czech Republic, 78% in UK, 61% in Germany...
I don't think this paints a dire picture for small(er) independent businesses. Why stop consolidation now? What numbers would we need to see to loosen up on consolidation restrictions again in the future? In other words, what is your model here? What values should trigger action? Given a value, what should we be able to predict? Then we can go look at random other countries and see if the model is any use.
On a more general side of discussion, before breaking up big tech companies, I'd sooner break up big government. In a few months regardless of who wins the election, there will still be someone roughly 50% of the country despises who is going to claim to rule me and try to control my destiny from the other side of the continent. Why any rational person would want such a situation is beyond me, even if you genuinely see yourself as a Federalist.
1998 is well past the frame of reference I would use for what a healthy distribution looks like. I tried to find data from the 50s and 60s, but only found the same report you did.
> In other words, what is your model here?
American history clearly shows that economic concentration leads to market crashes, recessions/depressions, political unrest. For 40 years we put clear rules into place to prevent concentration and keep power broadly distributed - small business owners and farmers has power that could match the financiers and industrialists - and we had no major crashes, no depressions, far fewer lives ruined due to jobs and homes lost. You don't need to look at random other countries, just look at what worked in this one.
> Why any rational person would want such a situation is beyond me, even if you genuinely see yourself as a Federalist.
That 50% is more like 60M adults who vote Republican, and probably some of their children, so more like 20-25%. Most of those people are angry for good reasons, but there is always a chance one of the candidates can really help people like FDR and LBJ did. The whole notion of breaking up big government is an ambiguous, ideological statement that doesn't mean anything. You have a choice between private interests (mostly in finance and tech) deciding the rules you get to live by, or you can choose an elected public body. I'd rather have one hand on the wheel than none.
They've already been broken up once - it's shocking that some of the recent mergers have been allowed to go forward. So, unironically, yes we should do the telcos next.
