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863 points IdealeZahlen | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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Frieren ◴[] No.43720645[source]
This is necessary now, but it should have been done years back.

Nowadays, many companies backed up by investors with very deep pockets are doing this in all markets: start to buy middle-man companies in a space, it does not matter which one, dominate the market thanks to monopolistic power. Screw the clients making them pay too much, screw the providers paying them too little. Go for the next market.

Google does this for ads. But, with Apple, does the same for app vendors. Amazon does it for all kinds of brands with physical products. Uber does it for taxi drivers and their clients. All of them take a big chunk of the profit while making things more expensive, but they are the only real option to reach clients as they have used tactics to monopolize entire markets.

This should be impossible, because there are laws against it. If it is allowed the future of the economy is one big corporation with all workers working for it, and everybody buying from it. It looks like a scifi dystopia.

replies(4): >>43720826 #>>43721652 #>>43724611 #>>43728179 #
1. BirAdam ◴[] No.43728179[source]
Monopolies die after a bit unless governments save them. Monopolies tend to stagnate, become too bureaucratic, and lose the pressure to perform. They then lose to more dynamic competitors. Sears is an example of loss, the banking cartel is example of government interference.

Laws, otoh, are not magic. Making a law doesn’t solve the problem. Laws require people with guns to go enforce them. The government has no incentive to use force against the people lining their pockets, and so laws tend to be enforced primarily on the poor and the working class. Only when the majority of the votes of the public could be swayed will government attack the donor class.