Too Much Trust? Apply Antitrust

We know, accept and often welcome the fact that big technology companies exist. The likes of Microsoft, Apple, Meta (the company behind Facebook) and of course Amazon, all while sprawling in their reach, offer us the convenience of being one-stop sources to shop, work or learn. Often, we’ll pick favorites from these giants to capitalize upon that convenience. Amazon’s great pricing or Walmart’s reliable shipping - whatever the reason, we tend to put at least the majority of our eggs into one basket here. This becomes an issue though when one of these vendors recognizes and begins to abuse the trust you’ve placed, using the knowledge you’ll be a repeat shopper, to deploy unscrupulous sales techniques. Thankfully, there’s legislation to combat this, but where does the fulcrum lie when we try and balance monopolization with convenience?

Antitrust laws exist in order to regulate businesses, ensuring that fair competition continues as part of our open market economy. This is beneficial to us as consumers, as it means no one organization can “bully” out the competition and exist as the only choice in any given market. Competition is a good thing, as it helps drive costs, pushes development forward and very simply, affords us the choice of alternatives for products and services. Don’t like Dyson vacuum cleaners? Antitrust laws help ensure that if that’s the case, you can always buy a Shark instead. Without them, any company sufficiently large enough could feasibly buy out all competitors and leave us without alternative.

As it happens, we recently saw some more of this type of legislation pass. It’s mostly symbolic, as these bills will simply make it easier for those reviewing antitrust claims to get a better view of the entities involved in any given merger or buyout. It does though represent a step in the right direction and the changing attitudes of lawmakers toward conglomerates. It’s inarguably bad for the consumer to suffer lack of choices, and I for one don’t want to be forced to buy my car, cereal, internet and vegetables all from Google or Elon Musk. Think of it like visiting a traditional store like Target; they’re no more allowed to prioritize or “push” their own brand of toothpaste over Colgate. Online marketplaces should, really, be no different to that.

Now, anyone who regularly reads my column will know that I like things which simply work as they’re supposed to. That’s when technology is our biggest ally, for me. The danger with antitrust laws and things of this nature is that we end up with disjointed, patchwork solutions for things we’d rather just enjoy. Imagine if laws changed and Amazon Music was no longer allowed to work seamlessly with Echo devices? Imagine if Netflix had to ask you, “Have you considered Hulu?” every time you settled down to watch Stranger Things. That’s not progress, to me. There has to be a middle ground.

As it stands today, that middle ground does appear to be the goal for lawmakers. Legislation with slightly greater reach is coming down the pipe as we look to the future, which will also be more relevant to consumers in general. As an example, The American Innovation and Choice Online Act will further prevent companies from unfairly employing an uneven playing field when it comes to selling online, by barring restrictions and special treatment for “favored” vendors and products. Speaking personally once again, so long as, “Hey Alexa, re-order trash bags.” doesn’t become a legally-mandated argument about where she should order them from, I’ll continue to be behind such measures.