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Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

As a developer, I've also never been afraid of the gatekeepers.

But not because they're fully aligned with me or my employer's interests — I've collected examples and anecdotes since before smartphones existed where the big players have killed off smaller businesses in their ecosystems — no, my lack of fear is because this whole sector is dynamic chaos with new opportunities appearing almost as soon as the old ones disappear, and generally in greater quantity.

> A market with healthy competition always provides alternatives.

Isn't the whole argument here that there isn't enough healthy competition?

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> Isn't the whole argument here that there isn't enough healthy competition?

And I don't know of a single example where regulation created more competition. The more barrier of entry you add to a market (of course for good intentions, to protect customers etc) the less competition you'll have and the fewer startups.

Only incumbents love regulation. Paradoxically, Apple will gain more from DMA on the long term, even if everybody is cheering they got slapped.

> And I don't know of a single example where regulation created more competition.

Does antitrust fall under regulation? If yes, Standard Oil is a perfect example. If they had their way there would only oil company. Microsoft is another example. You still want to use Internet Explorer?

The regulation game is always a careful balance and govs should err on the less regulation side but regulation is a powerful instrument that protects customers and competition. It’s there to prevent a single company snowballing everyone else.

> Standard Oil is a perfect example

Common example (dug from over 100 years ago), quite flawed one too. By the time of the anti-trust regulation the free market was already pushing Standard Oil out - healthy competition evolved. Read up on it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

I can easily believe this being repeated for most of the Big Tech firms.

Bell was a government-granted monopoly. It was literally illegal to connect a 3rd party telephone to their network. Of course you need government intervention to fix a government-created mess.

All copyrights, patents, and trademarks are government-granted monopolies.

And patents do quite the damage to the free market. The theory is that they incentivize innovation - in reality innovation is incentivized quite enough by the perspective profits. Patents incentivize rent-seeking and playing the court system.

Copyrights and trademarks are important though to prevent fraud and deception. The government has the role of upholding the rule of law and gentlemanly competition - I am not advocating for anarchy.

The EU internet market (forced allowance of competitors using the lines) is a pretty good example of regulations increasing competition.

Before my country joined the EU, people were hanging ethernet between apartment buildings to make "neighborhood nets". There were dozens of providers everywhere. Now we have one huge one in the whole country. And it's illegal to hang cables between buildings.

I haven't heard of an ISP startup in ages. Only multinational Telecom providers, well protected by regulation.

I know you're talking in general, but the DMA handily avoids being a barrier to entry by only ever applying if your regular userbase is 10% of the people in the EU.

It seems that way, but startups are creating with the dream (unrealistic and quite misguided, I know), of conquering 100% of the market. You mess with that dream, you get fewer startups.

It's how the founder's mind works, sorry. This is (one of the reasons) why Europe gets fewer startups than freer places like the US.

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