@naval Ok, I see your point, which is different than I'd understood. The problem with the 'obsolete' framing is it ignores policy agency. Monopsony power was part of the law prior to the 1980s. Amazon isn't our first aggregator, we had buying aggregators in the 1880s (Standard Oil!).
@naval Amazon exists because we stopped enforcing our laws against buying monopolies, the main one being the Robinson-Patman Act. And the changes were deliberate. Antitrust scholars who made the pro-monopoly changes in the 1980s are quite happy with what they did.
@naval A lot of people say that antitrust laws were written to deal with old industries like steel and railroads and meatpackers. Well guess what? We now have monopolies in steel and railroads and meatpackers! It's not an issue of modernization, it's a timeless struggle over power.
@naval Also, sorry for being rude to you earlier.
