One more of the "regulations" that even though they hurt big companies, they can shoulder the cost but small companies/startups can't do the big companies will support it in order to reduce competition.
The regulations might be partly in place to protect the big players from pesky small competition? I have no way to judge that, though. But if that's the case, perhaps the regulations can be changed.
That argument is often used in bad faith/FUD by the big players themselves to halt any regulation attempts.
Regulations can be adapted to affect only the companies that reach X percentage in sales or in market share. The EU's Digital Markets Act does precisely this, for instance.
The regulators can let smaller players grow and thrive, and regulate them once they've exceeded a certain threshold.
You’re happy with only large tech giants existing then. Because lots of regulations are just barriers to entry and allow the existing players to keep playing
How is this going to diminish monopolies? Big tech is (a) going to have a voice in these regulations and (b) will easily afford the cost of compliance. Small competitors will have no voice and will struggle to comply. This is almost certainly going to entrench the big players and widen their moats.
As I wrote already in another comment: all these regulations will end up doing is strengthen the market position of the established players and cripple any competition from new incumbents :(
It’s the end of an era...not too long ago anyone could compete with the big players...soon nobody will
Isn't it much worse to have big companies in a heavily-regulated industry where those big companies largely control the regulations? Surely they will influence the regulations to increase barriers of entry into their industry.
I like the article's push for regulation, as if that isn't just an excuse for the existing big players to erect a moat around their technology to protect it from competition.
That's lip service so the big players can have their regulatory burden reduced. High startup costs and anticompetitive practices are the most significant mechanisms preventing new market entrants.
This is the standard scream of incumbent players when they want to discourage regulation. It both ignores the fact that what's "reasonable" for an incumbent monopoly and a small startup are different, and that the law generally accounts for scale.
This seems like a good reason to strongly regulate big companies in general. If that discourages there from being big companies then that seems like it might be a good thing.
Regulations that create exceptions for key big players entrench them further and their poor business practices against competitors that wish to usurp their market dominance. New entrants have to play by the rules, but established ones get preferential treatment.
The claim regulating the big players will actually hurt the little guys is the common cry of the big player hoping they don't actually end up getting regulated. As your comment points out, it really doesn't hold up to a cursory examination of what's being claimed and how they stand to gain. ;)
A certain amount of regulation runs the risk of leaving us in a situation where a competitive moat is established between companies large enough to handle the regulatory burden and everyone else for whom it represents an unsurpassable barrier between them and the EU market. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that large tech companies are encouraging “just so” regulation of this sort.
Regulation will only hurt new startups and will probably assure the position of big techs since only big tech can handle the overhead of regulation (lobbyists, lawyers, CPA, audits reports, etc).
So I would expect to see big tech actually push for regulation.
However, startups and the tech industry, in general, should push AGAINST regulation, as it would freeze the natural progression of tech, where the new replace the old.
Companies tend to only want regulation when they need to block out competitors by raising the bar to compete. Maybe they're worried about stealth startups that may already be ahead of them?
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