Thread by @doctorow

This week on my podcast, I read my @Medium column "Jam To-Day," a look at how slow antitrust enforcement can be, and what regulators can do to offer relief to the hostages in Big Tech's walled gardens right from day one: through #interoperability.

doctorow.medium.com/jam-to-day-46b… 1/

If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2021/11/22/amr… 2/

Antitrust is a very slow-moving process. The AT&T breakup in 1982 was the culmination of *69 years'* worth of enforcement action.

1982 was also the year that IBM's 12-year antitrust sojourn ended, without the breakup the DoJ had been seeking. 3/

The IBM case (which wonks call "Antitrust's Vietnam") is an instructive lesson in why antitrust is so slow. IBM was a powerful, wildly profitable monopolist. It had a lot at stake in preventing a breakup - and it had a lot of money to spend to defend that stake. 4/

Every year, for 12 consecutive years, IBM outspent the entire DoJ Antitrust Division on high-power lawyers who held the DoJ at bay. They held out long enough for Ronald Reagan to be elected and kill the enforcement action, and emerged intact. 5/

It's a *lot* easier to prevent monopolies than it is to fight them. By the time a company has a successful monopoly, it has the ammo it needs to defend that monopoly.

Of course, there's value in antitrust enforcement even if it doesn't achieve its nominal goal. 6/

12 years in antitrust hell sapped IBM of its killer instinct and made it cautious about attracting enforcers' wrath anew. 7/

That's why the operating system for the IBM PC came from an obscure startup called "Micro-Soft": IBM knew the DoJ hated the practice of tying hardware to software. 8/

Likewise, IBM just sat back and watched as the market for "IBM PC clones" proliferated: they knew that the DoJ hated their earlier war on "plug compatible" mainframes and peripherals and didn't want to wake the dragon. 9/

Micro-Soft became Microsoft, a vicious monopolist that spent 7 years in antitrust hell, but it, too, emerged intact from a breakup effort. 10/

Nevertheless, the trauma of antitrust investigation (including a humiliating deposition of @BillGates that went viral on VHS) tamed Microsoft.

11/

When Google came around, Microsoft didn't subject it to the same abusive treatment it had visited upon Netscape, allowing Google to grow into a competitor, and then a monopolist in its own right. 12/

Google today is a master of predatory conduct: catch-and-kill acquisitions, walled gardens, price-fixing, collusion, and out-and-out fraud:

law360.com/articles/14316… 13/

An antitrust action against the company might make it more pliable and less flagrantly abusive - the same goes for our other tech monopolists, including Microsoft (again!), Apple, Salesforce, Amazon, etc. 14/

But we can't afford to wait 69 years (AT&T) or 12 years (IBM) or 7 years (Microsoft) for relief from the tech giants' oppressive dominance of our digital lives. We need relief now, and regulators can deliver it, by fostering interoperability. 15/

Here's why: the tech giants grew through #NetworkEffects: new users join Facebook because the people they want to talk to are there already. Once they join, they become a reason for more people to join.

But tech companies have *always* had network effects on their side. 16/

How was it that we once had a dynamic tech world where yesterday's giant was tomorrow's punchline (Askjeeves, Commodore, Cray), and today, the internet is just five giant websites, filled with screenshots of text from the other four?

https://twitter.com/tveastman/status/1457782722567442433

17/

The answer is #SwitchingCosts - the economists' term for the things you have to give up when you leave a product or service. Tech companies have gone to extraordinary - and illegal lengths - to make the costs of quitting prohibitive:

eff.org/deeplinks/2021… 18/

The go-to tactic for increasing switching costs is blocking interoperability. 19/

If Facebook had to federate with smaller services - including ones that you could run yourself for you and your family or friends - then you could quit Facebook and still stay connected to the people you love. 20/

Which means that if governments moved to increase interop, they'd offer immediate relief to the hostages in Big Tech's walled gardens - by letting you move your media, conversations, address books, apps and other valuable digital assets to new services. 21/

One way to do this is through legislation. The #ACCESSAct is an excellent bill and it deserves your support:

eff.org/deeplinks/2021… 22/

But we don't have to wait for Congress to pass a bill. Federal, state and local governments could act today, by changing their procurement rules to require interop from vendors. 23/

It's just prudent: every vehicle in every public motor-pool should be serviceable by independent mechanics with third-party spare-parts. Same for every phone, tablet, server and client. 24/

This is a very old tradition in US government. The Union Army had a rule requiring rifle-makers to use interchangeable tooling, ammo and parts (it would have been unforgivably idiotic to do otherwise). 25/

Buying high-tech stuff that isn't designed for interoperability is dereliction of duty. 26/

No agency would commission a hospital from contractors who refused to say where the ducts and pipes were, or what math was used to calculate load stresses, or insisted on the exclusive right to provide sheets and IV bags for the hospital once it was running. 27/

The US government's procurement rules are a lever that regulators can yank on at any time, and they *should*. 28/

Not just because it's irresponsible to spend public money otherwise - but also because doing so would ensure that we in the private sector would always have the option of an interoperable system, by buying the same stuff as Uncle Sam. 29/

Here's the podcast episode:

craphound.com/news/2021/11/2…

And here's a direct link to the MP3 (hosting courtesy of the @internetarchive; they'll host your stuff for free, forever):

archive.org/download/Cory_…

And here's the RSS feed for my podcast:

feeds.feedburner.com/doctorow_podca… 30/

Image:
Oleg Sidorenko (modified)
flickr.com/photos/oksidor…

CC BY:
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.…