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>Just stop letting them buy their competitors.

And how would you stop them from simply replacing their competitors? From the article "Budding companies that resist being acquired are pruned through flagrant copying." Would you pass a law that said Facebook can't expand their business to do anything a competitor is doing? I can't see how that would fly.

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Copying doesn't really work. WhatsApp was big before Facebook bought them. Just because you copy some feature they had doesn't mean anybody is going to move back. Having the feature first makes you better. Having the feature second only makes you the same.

And the challenger has an advantage against a conglomerated incumbent because they can add features that reduce profits in ancillary markets the challenger isn't in. The incumbent won't want to copy that and cannibalize their other market, but the users want that feature so the challenger gains market share.

> And how would you stop them from simply replacing their competitors?

Competent competitors will do that naturally. See TikTok vs Reels.

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