Antitrust and competition law certainly play an important role, but the examples you cite have not impacted the ability of what we have since the 1970s called "startups" to enter the market in competition with monopolies. The more recent attempts to block "predatory acquisitions" might be an example of antitrust/competition policy that is aimed at achieving the balance between small and large that Terry has in mind here, but I believe it's worth asking: Was the ability for groups to form startups to compete with the incumbents ever really harmed by these so-called "predatory acquisitions"?

Personally, I see the economic efficiency argument for having a relatively small number (say 2 or 3) large organizations that maintain key "distribution platforms". We don't need twenty different social media websites. Antitrust/competition law can play an important role in ensuring that everybody gets access to these platforms on the same basic terms — no favoritism. But I don't know that we need to prevent acquisitions of new apps that can then be bundled into services offered by one or more of those platforms -- at least not to achieve the balance between "small" and "large" that Terry seems to have in mind here.

Rather, I think what we need to aggressively protect is the incentive that small groups have to form and fund startups. In general, I think we're doing fine on the economic side right now. An exception might be the recent acquisitions of founders independent of their coworkers — this presents a profound threat to the startup ecosystem. But by and large the system seems to be working fine.

But is that true of political "startups" — i.e., new interest groups that form to pursue specific policy agendas, which might then be able to syndicate eventually even into new political parties? Of that I'm less certain. It sure seems like the last year or two have been trending toward less political freedom.