I think a big part of this case is actually going to be the PR challenge of breaking up monopolies when there are so many moneyed individuals currently profiting from that monopoly's expansion. People don't dream of building their own livelihood anymore, most employees of tech companies these days just want their company to be consumed by another, bigger company so they can GTFO.
This kind of short term thinking is actually bad for the economy and bad for customers because it leads to the proliferation of pump-and-dump businesses which exist solely for the purpose of being bought and sold rather than actually providing some kind of utility to the customer. This can have real consequences, such as how Arlo purports to be a "security company" to which people should entrust their safety despite the fact that their interface is so dysfunctional it would be a small miracle if any of their customers could actually figure out how to use their arlo footage in court. I know this because I spent the last summer running a small surveillance operation, and doing so required an off-site file server with high speed internet and a few python scripts to glue all the pieces together.
And to anyone thinking "well if it doesnt provide utility it wouldn't get bought" you can hold your tongue because I don't believe that. That's an irrational argument. Useless, low quality goods and services make a killing on the market and we all know it. Anyone who has taken a real close look at any "smart" device certainly knows it.
on the flip side, I believe I read on a different thread how Amazon.com acquiring ring (the webcam doorbell company) was scary because Amazon.com had all the cards not the least of all was market information about ring and it's competitors. A lot of searches just begin and end on Amazon.com simply because we have prime and we don't understand how sunk cost works.
I'm sure Google isn't 100% clean but I'd have hoped for attention to be on Amazon.com
What's funny is that ring or nest or anyone else clearly has all the security issues above not to mention all these devices are just garbage if they can't connect to the Internet or if the server dies.
This kind of short term thinking is actually bad for the economy and bad for customers because it leads to the proliferation of pump-and-dump businesses which exist solely for the purpose of being bought and sold rather than actually providing some kind of utility to the customer. This can have real consequences, such as how Arlo purports to be a "security company" to which people should entrust their safety despite the fact that their interface is so dysfunctional it would be a small miracle if any of their customers could actually figure out how to use their arlo footage in court. I know this because I spent the last summer running a small surveillance operation, and doing so required an off-site file server with high speed internet and a few python scripts to glue all the pieces together.
And to anyone thinking "well if it doesnt provide utility it wouldn't get bought" you can hold your tongue because I don't believe that. That's an irrational argument. Useless, low quality goods and services make a killing on the market and we all know it. Anyone who has taken a real close look at any "smart" device certainly knows it.