Tech is an area where the contradictions inherent in the liberal approach to regulating companies are most clear. Liberal theories of nice capitalism require multiple competing companies on "fair" grounds. But it is obviously annoying and inefficient to have market competition in software most of the time - once a tool is developed, it's nearly free for 100% of people to use it rather than 50%, and it's crucial that all such tools interoperate nicely. Hence why various walled-off social media platforms are annoying and people are squeezed into at most only a couple for a given purpose. When right wingers point out that anti-trust stuff is inefficient, to an extent they're right.
The rational thing is to have a "monopoly" that isn't evil. But that means that democratic control shouldn't be after-the-fact, external regulation (shown time and time again to be insufficient and generally bought off) but fundamental to the operating of these companies. In essence, Google makes the case for democratic management of production - socialism - very clear.
But the other important part of this theory is it's not just about "what would be nice to have" in some utopian sense. Larger companies have competitive advantages that cause them to grow even faster - some real economies of scale, more political heft, greater bargaining power. This leads to the system being inherently unstable and tending towards concentration, which is apparent in pretty much every sector of tech. Trying to permanently reverse this trend through anti-trust is as nonsensical as suggesting people go back to living in the woods; it is in opposition to the fundamental trends inherent in market economies. The only way we can move is forward, to the resolution of these contradictions by working class ownership of all by all.
To try to preempt one counterargument: such a system doesn't mean we can no longer have "competing" software projects that do similar things if it is beneficial to compare different approaches. We can easily do that if it's better overall. But in such a case, each approach to a given software problem would be fully open, and developed in coordination with the others and with an understanding of their successes and pitfalls, to maximize productivity. This wouldn't be siloed-off, hostile competition but a scientific, coordinated approach.
The rational thing is to have a "monopoly" that isn't evil. But that means that democratic control shouldn't be after-the-fact, external regulation (shown time and time again to be insufficient and generally bought off) but fundamental to the operating of these companies. In essence, Google makes the case for democratic management of production - socialism - very clear.
But the other important part of this theory is it's not just about "what would be nice to have" in some utopian sense. Larger companies have competitive advantages that cause them to grow even faster - some real economies of scale, more political heft, greater bargaining power. This leads to the system being inherently unstable and tending towards concentration, which is apparent in pretty much every sector of tech. Trying to permanently reverse this trend through anti-trust is as nonsensical as suggesting people go back to living in the woods; it is in opposition to the fundamental trends inherent in market economies. The only way we can move is forward, to the resolution of these contradictions by working class ownership of all by all.