Today President Biden will issue an executive order on”Promoting Competition in the American Economy”, I’ll save the conversation about doing this action by EO for reg experts like my @aaf colleagues @DtheGman and @Dan_Bosch but some early thoughts on what’s known to be in it
And here’s the link to what I’m basing these thoughts/discussion on whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…
First, the EO is overly concerned about concentration and seems to indicate Big will always mean bad for consumers. This is not true as @ITIFdc’s work has discussed itif.org/publications/2…
I’d also point you to their (@ITIFdc) recent piece about how alarm over increasing concentration is not the reality when more closely examined itif.org/publications/2…
Secondly, it should be pointed out that this EO impacts a wide range of industries from agriculture to technology.
Notably it will allow after the fact challenge of mergers that were not previously reviewed.
The problem with this is that it’s
The problem with this is that it’s
hard to prove what a counter factual would have looked like (ie would the success happened separately) and it can punish companies that take risky bets that benefit consumers
Okay continuing let’s get to the parts about tech and telecom
Beginning with the EO’s requirement to restore #netneutrality. Because more regulations and requirements will make it easier on smaller players to enter the market somehow? 🤷♀️ (and yes there are small ISPs)
I really don’t want to rehash the whole #netneutrality debate in this thread but in short the doomsday definitely did not occur and you can read my most recent thoughts on it here: americanactionforum.org/insight/the-pr…
Okay now on to the #bigtech section
It opens with greater scrutiny of mergers an idea that is largely related to the myth of the kill zone. My go to piece on that is this one from @WillRinehart medium.com/cgo-benchmark/…
Then it moves on to calls for data regulation to protect small businesses. When what it is effectively calling for is to do away with those pesky consumer harming generics like AmazonBasics and the Kirkland brand.
.@AlecStapp probably has the best piece on that progressivepolicyinstitute.medium.com/amazon-antitru…
Oh and it throws in right to repair. I haven’t dealt with that topic in a while but you can read and old piece I wrote on it here: readplaintext.com/should-you-be-…
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