Google is probably the primary counterweight against Microsoft, Apple, Meta and Amazon. Taking out or diminishing Google will strengthen the monopolies of the other 4.
Maybe because the regulatory offices aren't built well enough to handle all monopolies at once? These companies have a huge amount of lobbying activity and the best legal teams out there. I don't think taking down one monopoly would strengthen others, it'd set Google as an example and other monopolies that don't shrink themselves will get taken down next.
"Maybe because the regulatory offices aren't built well enough to handle all monopolies at once? "
Based on what data is this asserted?
As I pointed out elsewhere, the FTC has 780 attorneys, which is about 20x the largest antitrust lawfirms you will find.
The DOJ antitrust division has 380 attorneys, which is about 10x.
Both have hundreds of support folks as well (the DOJ ATR has 900 employees total).
It's not just them either, they have states with them as well that each carry their own resourcing.
They are also happy to hire outside resources.
There seems to be a weird view here of how any of this works, which amounts to what you said in your next sentence - "These companies have a huge amount of lobbying activity and the best legal teams out there."
Even if this is true, which it's often simply not (for example, the DOJ hired Boies to deal with Microsoft, at a time when Boies was unknown, and they overall had a much better legal team than MS, at a time when antitrust regulation of companies was neither new nor surprising), it doesn't change how many resources you need to deal with multiple companies at once.
I met plenty of DOJ antitrust attorneys in my time in DC. They are the best out there. What basis do you have for asserting they are not?
I ask because I've yet to see a single person in this conversation who has a view based on things other than "gut feelings". Hopefully you do!
Because if it's just more of the same dataless trope spouted elsewhere, then it's not just a silly stereotype, it's also horribly denigrating to those folks, who really are, as i said, the best you will find.
It may change political wherewithal, but it has no bearing on the ability of regulatory offices to charge and prosecute multiple cases at once. Contrary to your claim, they are in fact, built to handle this.
Like anything else, trying a case like this has a relatively fixed, and well known cost.
The ATR and friends are well funded to be capable of trying multiple big tech cases at once, and in fact, are.
" I don't think taking down one monopoly would strengthen others, it'd set Google as an example and other monopolies that don't shrink themselves will get taken down next."
Given the exact opposite has happened in every single case historically (AT&T, MS, et al), this seems very wrong.
Overall, HN seems to focus on tropes about antitrust law, with very little data or knowledge of how any of it works for real.
People seem very happy to offer strong opinions despite that lack of data, however!
