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Richard Epstein explains the parameters of antitrust law — and why the efforts to apply it to Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon are misguided.
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There are actual problems with silicon valley tech that aren’t about how hard it is for legacy media to compete or whether users of their platforms don’t like their TOS. We all are in favor of competition. So, let’s say three (supposedly independent, non-colluding) companies decide to deplatform a person. The person goes on a new, smaller platform. That new, smaller platform then gets deplatformed by (again, supposedly independent, non-colluding) payment processors and intermediaries, and so its growth is stunted (try getting your app off the ground while banned by both Apple & Google and without using paypal or credit card processing). Fine, says the deplatformed person, I will provide my content on my own website (without advertising on FB or Google or linking on social media), and let my audience fund me using funding apps. Then the major funding apps deplatform the person. Deplatformed person moves to a small funding app, taking his audience with him. The (independent, non-colluding) payment processors & intermediaries then stop working with that small funding app, & the webhosting & domain registrar have both deplatformed the person too. We’ve reached the levels of banks & domain registrars & credit card companies & web hosting services hampering new business. Does the deplatformed person and the new apps and platforms now need to build a new internet infrastructure and new financial system to be able to compete with the existing order, or can something reasonable be done to address this actual real-world happening-now problem?