I find her ideas (that Amazon is anti-competitive by being big) interesting, but I find her reasoning unconvincing. Her point is that breaking up large companies, merely because they are big, into smaller companies would improve the economy. She says:
"the economics of platform markets create incentives for a company to pursue growth over profits, a strategy that investors have rewarded. "
She is upset because companies pursue growth over profits. I'm not sure I see this as a bad thing. Even if it were a bad thing, it's not something that only large companies pursue, it is probably more common among small companies.
The argument is not strictly that prioritizing growth is a bad thing, but that the current antitrust laws can't account for it as potentially anti-competitive. The framework for evaluating competitive practices simply needs to change to include these tactics that frankly haven't been seen before, but which are becoming more common. If they don't then those laws aren't going to be effective. We can also argue about the need for antitrust laws, but so long as they exist and there is some rational behind them they should be made as effective as possible.
Her paper (Score:3, Insightful)
I find her ideas (that Amazon is anti-competitive by being big) interesting, but I find her reasoning unconvincing. Her point is that breaking up large companies, merely because they are big, into smaller companies would improve the economy. She says:
"the economics of platform markets create incentives for a company to pursue growth over profits, a strategy that investors have rewarded. "
She is upset because companies pursue growth over profits. I'm not sure I see this as a bad thing. Even if it were a bad thing, it's not something that only large companies pursue, it is probably more common among small companies.
Her second argument addresses A
Re:Her paper (Score:2)
The argument is not strictly that prioritizing growth is a bad thing, but that the current antitrust laws can't account for it as potentially anti-competitive. The framework for evaluating competitive practices simply needs to change to include these tactics that frankly haven't been seen before, but which are becoming more common. If they don't then those laws aren't going to be effective. We can also argue about the need for antitrust laws, but so long as they exist and there is some rational behind them they should be made as effective as possible.