Just a reminder that Google is an illegal monopolist, having lost three distinct antitrust cases.
It looks likely that Google will be treated the way Microsoft was in their famous antitrust loss in the late 1990s, and not be broken up in any significant way. Google absolutely should be broken up, just like AT&T and Standard Oil (and countless other large US monopolists) were before it. Google's wealth and power derives from illegal behavior; this is not in question anymore. Why should they be permitted to keep what courts have decided they stole? 100 years of antitrust law and precedent says that it should not be permitted to keep the spoils of its illegal behavior.
It sounds to me like the hesitation to break up Google is largely ideological on the part of the judges and lawyers involved. The failure to break up Microsoft after its antitrust loss is arguably one of the main reasons the US economy is such a monopolized, consolidated mess today, and why so many things are "enshittifying". Breaking up Google and changing that pattern would obviously not cure all ills, but it'd almost surely make a number of things in the economy better for a whole lot of people.
In any case, one thing we can all do is look at Google as a bad actor, a law-breaking entity whose power is illegitimate.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-is-google-still-in-one-piece#Google #Microsoft #antitrust #monopoly #USEconomy #neoliberalism
