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Comment by jprd | Hacker News Reader

Startups would try and build a profitable business instead of aiming for an acquisition.

Or do you mean preventing the acquisitions in a legal manner?

There is nothing wrong with acquisitions. It's one way big companies rejuvenate, and startups get a liquidity event. And if it's not an acquihire, the product can get broader distribution. Some companies are started to be acquired; their product of value mostly to big companies.

That's some euphemistic way of saying that monopolies can get even bigger without even any pretense of competition. We all know where this ends. The monopolists win big and consumers will have to suck it up.

No, it means the company can succeed and the service they built has a chance to continue. The choice isn't "be acquired or enter a Nirvana" it's often "be acquired or die".

It's the same thing. What you're describing is called embrace, extend, and extinguish. Or the more modern variant of embrace, extend, and enshittify.

Well no, if you don't have money to continue, that's not someone killing you.

Why not let big companies die and be replaced by startups if the only way they can succeed is by [ab]using their incumbent position to “rejuvenate” (a euphemism if ever I saw one!)?

It would stop worse products winning as a result of resources gained through prior successes (and monopolistic practices).

In fact, I’d be happy to see a situation where sufficiently unrelated businesses have to be sold off after some grace period even if they were developed in house.

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