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Comment by Nasrudith | Hacker News Reader

How? Sorry to snap but I am sick of seeing "they are monopolies break them up" from a tortured definition of monopoly mindlessly chanted towards Google and Amazon while massive black hole olf media conglomerates like Comcast, Disney, and Sinclair Media and their ilk walk by whistling.

There is no explanation of the harm, no plan for division, how subentities could be viable in competition, just gaped mouthed sloganeering. All of the virtual and real ink spilled and not even a bad plan. It is like Brexit all over again but with even less of a plan all over again - "just do it and trust us to come up with a plan latter and ignore our transparently terrible motivations!".

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I see Facebook as a net negative to society. If a clumsy breakup plan instead destroyed them entirely... good.

It absolutely does make it easy for me to propose plans to break them up as a result, yes, because no, I'm not worried about how the parts may be viable afterwards.

I will admit this is not necessarily an appropriate attitude for a bureaucrat in charge of the breakup to take, but it's a valid attitude for Congress to take.

That's not really the question. You kinda missed the whole point.

These companies exists because they serve a need. There's proven demand; killing Facebook will create a Facebook-shaped hole, which will immediately be filled by the most capable alternative.

In today's climate this almost certainly means that any American tech firm you destroy or break up will be replaced by the Chinese state-controlled equivalent, because at the moment they're the most capable existing competitor in most cases.

There are a few alternate potential outcomes, but all of the likely ones are just as bad or worse. The "break up tech giants" concept is very much like the "war on drugs" from years ago; it sounds like you're doing something good, but the end result can only be unmitigated disaster.

Spite is a terrible way to run systems. It sets an even worse precedent that recalls the "Devil and Daniel Webster" speech about how you want laws protecting the devil himself for your own safety.

A bad break up would just be "Facebook split into Facebook, Bookface, and CountenanceLibre each with their own forks of related products" - the division which retains the domain names or the most memorable ones win.

I want Facebook to die off but not through giving politicians power to threaten companies into being enforcers of their whims.

Why wouldn't someone who wants Google and Amazon broken up also want Disney and Comcast broken up? That's a massive strawman.

Very few actually talk about them though and they seem like almost after-thoughts judging by the sheer volume of emphasis and timing. Those who want them as well would actually be honest.

It is basically one statement in the primary from Warren and Sanders, and one article vs the deluge of hearings, articles, and sloganeering comment spam.

Whatever the reason - be it propaganda campaigning, vested interests reflecting their bias, or emergent some memetic reason like fear of change, or finding them transgressive of social hierarchy - there is a vastly different emphasis.

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