4th book of 2020. The Curse of Bigness: Read Master Switch Instead.
I’ve read and immensely enjoyed Tim Wu’s previous books ‘The Master Switch’ and ‘Attention Merchants’. His historical perspective is perhaps one of the best ways demonstrating that the current changes the internet and smartphones bring have clear precedent from other modern times. The thesis is that America should have more powerful anti-trust laws, that the Chicago school essentially hijacked the intent of the Sherman act and defanged antitrust legislation which has had deleterious effects on the US economy.
I was most convinced by the arguments that were a retread of Master Switch specifically applied to anti-trust law, especially with regards to AT&T: even though monopolies might not cause consumer harm, they still stifle innovation over the long term. At first blush, the idea of using competition as the yardstick also seems good, but as I thought about it more I’m not convinced it would provide much of a bright-line even though I agree with the direction.
Finally, the book would have benefited from a discussion of upstarts or failed upstarts under FAANG, but the short length of the book didn’t allow it. Working at Facebook, it’s easy to look at competitors like TikTok or Snap that have taken sizable chunks of the market quickly and feel like competition is still alive and well.