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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Same thing since the previous owner is the counterparty for the land sale.

Sure, but it’s a thing that you agreed to when buying the parcel, as part of the overall deal. If you didn’t want that restriction, you may have bid more to get the seller to give that up or you could choose not to buy under those terms.

My point is that such contractual terms should not be enforceable given their anticompetitive impetus.

not all such terms are anticompetitive. In this case, the AG stepped in and took action because they were anticompetitive.

There is an inordinate amount of our present economy that is, broadly speaking, anticompetitive.

The government has been mostly disinterested in pursuing antitrust actions for about half a century now, requiring very explicit evidence of very specific forms of price fixing by very unpopular companies to take any action other than blocking the largest of mergers.

Recent political changes over the course of the 2020's have started to change that, and these changes represent significant news relative to the situation for the past couple generations.

We need to be careful here. Because we still want people to sell off potentially productive land. Lets say I buy two lots along a highway with growing traffic because I believe in the next 5-10 years it will be a good spot for a gas station/convenience store.

So now 5 years later the highway is developing and I build out my location. I decide I want to sell the other lot since I'm not going to build on it.

Now, I don't need to sell it. I could hold on to it, it's not that expensive to own. It would be a great spot for a fast food joint or what not. But I don't want to sell it to someone who immediately develops it as a gas station.

The public would benefit from developing the land - new services and more tax revenue. So it's in the public's interest for the owner to sell.

So you want to allow some amount of anti-competitive restrictions. I get not wanting permanent non-removable restriction.

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