Yes, they would spend it even if they were on the right side of the law.
This is an interesting example of a prisoners dilemma. If N companies are competing without lobbying, their lobbying costs are zero.
But if one company 'defects' and start lobbying to tilt the regulatory landscape, then every other company must also start lobbying to prevent it.
The end result is that every company lobbies against each other for no net benefit[1], despite large amounts of money spent on lobbying. Good for lobbyists, bad for the companies.
So a company spending money on lobbying doesn't really tell us anything. They may be a bad actor, a good actor, or anything in between. There are valid reason for every position in the spectrum to spent money on lobbying.
[1]. Obv the real world is far more complex than this. The lobbying may provide industry wide benefits, or may prevent the entry of new competitors, or there may be semi-random fluctuations in the regularly landscape, etc, etc, etc.
I agree that silicon valley companies are anti-competitive, but I think you are dead wrong about lobbying.
Lobbying can be a lot of things, but one of the most common is basically marketing & PR for lawmakers. If you're going to be in the news, you pay some clever marketers to make hyper-focused versions of what happened for every single individual law maker. The company wants their view to be easily understood by the 535 voting humans who are seated in congress right now. It's the second oldest trick in the book (after bribery which also ofc happens to a degree).
Lobbying can also include skullduggery and dirty tricks and also other mundane things, but it is not (and never will be) a clear sign that a company is doing something wrong.
Do you think they would spend it if they were on the right side of the law ?