We’ve been here before though, in the era of Standard Oil. They can be broken up, but it won’t just happen on its own. The government needs to take action.
If interested, Standard Oil was drawn as an octopus in Puck magazine (1904). The Library of Congress notes: "Illustration shows a "Standard Oil" storage tank as an octopus with many tentacles wrapped around the steel, copper, and shipping industries, as well as a state house, the U.S. Capitol, and one tentacle reaching for the White House." [0]
The government is taking action. The government is in on this consolidation via investments, contracts, preferential legal & tax treatment, etc. Think about this from the government's perspective. The government would rather govern a small number of large entities instead of a large number of small entities, thus the government is incentivized to favor monopolies/oliogopolies. The government itself is a monopoly of power in many domains.
Sure, the government may intervene with a company getting too big, but the intervention is so the government can gain a foothold with that company. e.g. any telecommunications platform will need to have back doors for the law enforcement agencies or said telecommunications platform will not be allowed to operate.
According to what incentives? The government’s responsibility is to the country at large.
Congress sure is, as it was with Standard Oil. It was the Supreme Court that saved us that time, I'm not sure what our hope is now.
As a UK resident, i'm astonished how the almost prophetic wisdom of the Founding Fathers can go ignored for so long by their spiritual heirs.
> Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common
> & continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it.
> It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with
> ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot & insurrection.
> It opens the door to foreign influence & corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.
[0] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-...