Then it's for good reason Business laws are not drafted and implemented by people like you. Arbitrary and narrow rule of thumb does not make a legislative bill in any functioning modern society.
100% agreed!! But, if someone was a politician and looking for my vote, saying words like "break up big companies" would be a pretty appealing prospect to me.
> Vertical integration can be a win for consumers.
I'm not convinced.
> Also, a law like that (and any law infringing a free market)
You don't have a market without competition, which is what acquisitions accomplish. There is no such thing as a free market, by the way, that's a fantasy. There have always been laws governing markets.
> disincentivizes growth
Yes, that's exactly what I want to accomplish. These companies are too big & powerful.
> and innovation.
Huge companies use acquisitions to squash innovation.
Example of good vertical integration: Apple M1/AirPods/iPhone/Apple Music. That's a very convenient ecosystem for users, and it allows Apple to reduce manufacturing cost. We both agree there should be strong competitors to Apple, for the lower manufacturing costs to propagate to consumers as well.
>Yes, that's exactly what I want to accomplish. These companies are too big & powerful.
Economic growth is a consequence of gains in productivity. Therefore, we should champion economic growth because it allows us to do more during a day.
>Huge companies use acquisitions to squash innovation.
Another idea: people set up really innovate companies because they hope to be acquired by a bigger company. In other words – big companies enable an incentive structure favouring innovation. In general, VC:s (which drive most innovation today) hope to exit via an IPO – but selling to a big tech-company is a safety cushion. If we remove the safety cushion – the VC market will be more risk averse and less willing to spend on innovative, but unproven, ideas.
> Example of good vertical integration: Apple M1/AirPods/iPhone/Apple Music. That's a very convenient ecosystem for users, and it allows Apple to reduce manufacturing cost. We both agree there should be strong competitors to Apple, for the lower manufacturing costs to propagate to consumers as well.
I agree this is a very good thing but I think we'd both agree that Apple buying Arm would probably be a very bad thing in the medium-long run. I don't know what the solution is but as a consumer, I'd like companies to collaborate and thrive in a single big ecosystem vs having one big company. For example, Activision games can still be on Game Pass without Microsoft completely owning them and as an end user, I think that is more balanced.
So you think that cars built by 1 company providing engines and then another company sells you the cabin to put on top?
Should rocket companies not be able to build and launch rockets, or their own sats? Should we prevent Tesla from making batteries? Should Apple or Oxide (if you want a startup) be prevented from developing software and hardware together? What is that other then vertical integration.
Vertical integration is everything, being against vertical integration means that basically every company should only ever be allowed to control a single step in a production process. And its hard even define 'a step' even means, as even things like making steel requires many steps.
If you want things, at least actually figure out what you want because I don't think that is it.
I think if one of the tech giants of the world could create an AGI-ish, they should have no problem becoming a single worldwide monopoly in a couple of years...
