So hear me out. If there’s a company that’s willing to invest in controlling everything, and is willing and able to handle it at a reasonable cost for the consumer, then it should be allowed. It’s not like it’s any different today anyway. You have these super corporations that own the smaller corporations that handle various industries. Take Johnson & Johnson for example. They 275 subsidiaries. Meaning that J&J get money for every new product that occurs in the subsidiaries. You don’t even know some of the things they’re involved with.
And stunning number for a company is Nestlé which has around 2000 subsidiaries. So what’s the point of anti monopoly laws anymore? They found a way, so why should they be allowed to hide who they own? The everyday Joe and Jane have already figured out that things aren’t the way they appear, so I think we’re on the cusp of a full truth era where subsidiaries are going to start being involved in monopolization. These companies skirted the truth for too long, and we as individual citizens should put focus on and shut down subsidiaries
Natural monopolies (water, gas, electricity, rail) either state owned or tightly state controlled - yes.
Otherwise - fuck, no.
And when they do (Microsoft anyone) they should be very tightly controlled to the extent of having the same responsibilities and transparency requirements as public authorities.
I’m not talking about natural resources
Natural monopolies have nothing to do with natural resources. They exist when the barrier to entering a specific market is fundamentally high enough that it’s unreasonable to expect anyone to be able to enter the market and compete against an established player.
A couple of good examples would be utilities and ISPs.