It costs money to install a cable system because you have to dig up streets, access buildings, etc., and once one company does that, there’s not a ton of incentive to do it all over again. To a certain extent, telecommunications companies and internet service providers are a sort of natural monopoly, meaning high infrastructure costs and other barriers to entry give early entrants a significant advantage. How did this happen? In his view, a lot of it comes down to competition - or, rather, lack thereof. In 2017, the average monthly cost of broadband in America was $66.17 in France, it was $38.10, in Germany, $35.71, and in South Korea, $29.90. Looking at the data, he found that the United States has fallen behind other developed economies in broadband penetration and that prices are significantly higher. And one of his touchpoints for the book is the internet. In 2019, New York University economist Thomas Philippon did a deep dive into market concentration and monopolies in The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets. Seriously, be mad about your internet bill Instead, we just keep handing over our money. We should be asking the government and corporate America how we got here. If two pharmaceutical companies make a patent-protected drug and then raise their prices in tandem, what does that mean for patients? When two cellphone companies talk about efficiencies in their merger, what does that mean for their workers, and how long does their subsequent promise not to raise prices for consumers actually last? And honestly, wouldn’t it be a lot easier to delete Facebook if there was another, equally attractive social media platform out there besides Facebook-owned Instagram? Growth and success at the top often doesn’t translate to success for everyone, and there’s an argument to be made that strong antitrust policies and other measures that curb concentration, combined with government investments that target job-creating technology, could spur redistribution and potentially boost the economy for more people overall. A growing group of vocal critics of various political stripes, however, are increasingly warning that we’ve gone too far. Proponents of the laissez-faire, free market thinking of recent decades will say that the markets have basically worked themselves out - if an entity grows big enough to be a mega-corporation, it deserves its status, and just a handful of players in a given space is enough to keep prices down and everyone happy. That has affected consumers, communities, competitors, and workers in a variety of ways. Incumbents - companies that already exist - are growing their market shares and becoming more stable, and they’re getting harder and harder to compete with. There’s little denying that since the 1970s, the way antitrust has been approached in the United States has led to a landscape where a smaller number of big players dominate the economy. They’re a systemic feature of the economy. When you look, monopolies and oligopolies are everywhere. When you look, monopolies and oligopolies (meaning instead of one dominant company, there are a few) are everywhere. But competition is lacking across countless industries, including airlines, telecommunications, lightbulbs, funeral caskets, hospitals, mattresses, baby formula, agriculture, candy, chocolate, beer, porn, and even cheerleading, just to name some examples. Lately, you’ve probably heard a lot of complaints about the size and scope of big tech companies: Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple. Across industry after industry, sector after sector, power and market share have been consolidated into the hands of a handful of players. But that monthly annoyance speaks to a broader trend that all Americans should be aware of - and angry about. More than two years later, I’m still mad about it. When I called the company’s customer service line, the woman on the phone knew something I did not: I didn’t really have other service options available in my area. It had been gradually ticking up over the past several months without explanation - let alone better service - and I wanted to know what was up. In the summer of 2017, I decided it was time to put on my big-girl pants and try to talk to my internet provider about my bill.
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