@jjoelson @matthewstoller It is absolutely true that people stick around because the integration make the sum greater than the parts. It's also true that people stick around Meta products because the extensive social network makes it better than competitors, and that Google can (at least used to be able to) do search better than competitors because the volume of queries gave it an informational edge. Network effects, like integration synergies, confer real value. 1/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller But when they are permitted (by regulatory lapses) to confer that value in a ways that allow a single firm to capture and control it, that is an antitrust problem. 2/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller Meta's social products have a real-user-value, advantage over anything competitors can provide. So they can get away with being shitty in lots of ways and still keep their users. Their market power comes from the real value of networks. 3/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller The policy error is, if markets are to remain competitive, the real value of network effects has to be placed in a location in some sense public. And that's technically possible. There's nothing "natural" about firms owning and controlling network effects. 4/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller Similarly, Apple's integration does confer real value! I'm angry at Apple, but I'm still on the platform (as is my whole family and most of my friends) for a reason. Just like lots of people are still on Instagram for a good reason, even though it's not hard to come up with what might be better products technically than Instagram. Network effects, integration, all provide real value, but also, if poorly arranged, provide incumbents with anticompetitive market power. 5/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller The issue isn't that Apple has done something "wrong" in building out useful integration. From a mile-high perpsective, it's policymakers who have done something wrong by structuring mkts in ways that allow network and integration effects to belong to single corporate incumbents. Google, Apple, Meta have insane margins. They could have faced lots more competition and still been incentivized to do the good part of their work, and had better mkt signals to guide them. 6/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller Antitrust is the tool we have to remedy that. Neither Apple nor Google nor Meta are entitled to the post-1980s market structure that did not take seriously balancing the relative market power of producers, as well as narrow consumer welfare, in deciding what kinds of corporate behavior are tolerable. We are in the midst of undoing that policy error, which means all of these companies will have to change how they do business. 7/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller The way that happens is antitrust. We tell these firms, you know what, ways of doing business that seemed tolerable a decade ago has led to outcomes we don't like, and we're not going to allow it ay more. We're going to put you under pressure to find ways of making available the real value of integration and networks and everything in ways that encourage more balanced market power among producers. 8/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller Apple — and Meta and Google and Microsoft — will of course consider this unfair. You are changing the rules of the game on us midstream! But this game isn't set up for their benefit. We structure markets for the benefit of the public. The public is not well served by a world dominated by behemoths of arbitrary decisions are poorly disciplined by competition, and by the innovation disincentive of entrenched incumbency. 9/

@jjoelson @matthewstoller We are working to undo that. Apple won't like it (and despite what you might think, overall I like Apple, they are by far my favorite of the behemoths). It's still absolutely the right thing to do. /fin