Case Against Splitting FAANG
In my opinion, the major technology companies in the US, i.e., Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix, have a super dominance in one area of technology. They are using the money from that dominant business to the following.
Subsidize less profitable products. E.g., Google maps, Google translate Visual Studio Code, Whatsapp, YouTube, and Android, etc. The companies pay their employees well above the median salary in the US and provide very generous perks.
I hypothesize that split will undermine future investments in products like Android and Google maps which required billions of dollars in focused investment without any guarantee of success. Can smaller companies that result from the split afford to invest in the products?
Consumers will be forced to pay for each small service, e.g., People are paying 99 $ and year for Grammarly, which needs much less investment than Google Maps. Why is Grammarly paid while Google Maps with navigation is free? Remember, AT&T's other carriers were was charging 9.99 per month before Google made Maps free. I would argue Grammarly is not free since no FAANG is offering it. Similarly, you are paying nothing today to host unlimited videos(a very expensive service to run). Why? Google is subsidizing YouTube with its monopolistic search revenue. No one is hosting free unlimited photos, but there is unlimited hosting for videos. Why? Because Google decided to make it free.
Also, the split will have a highly negative impact on software salaries as the smaller companies will not pay the employees the same. Overall, this will depress the US talent going into STEM in general and will be bad for the US.
Companies outside of the US will have to split, and that will give them a competitive advantage. In short, I think the FAANG split will be a bad idea; I am curious to know your thoughts.