How big is too big? The past and future of tech monopolies – The Verge The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts. 2018-09-07T13:30:03+00:00 https://www.theverge.com/rss/stream/17565523 https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1 Adi Robertson <![CDATA[Looking back at Antitrust, the movie where Bill Gates murders coders]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/7/17827992/antitrust-tim-robbins-bill-gates-microsoft-retrospective 2018-09-07T09:30:03-04:00 2018-09-07T09:30:03-04:00

Two decades ago, witnesses at Microsoft's landmark antitrust trial claimed the company had threatened to violently murder software. One said Microsoft had ordered Apple to abandon QuickTime by "knifing the baby." Another recalled a threat to "cut off Netscape's air supply" and metaphorically asphyxiate the browser company into submission. Microsoft denied both quotes. But as the trial progressed, a team of filmmakers took the next logical step: what if Microsoft was literally murdering software programmers?

Thus Antitrust was born - a convoluted thriller that, looking back, is both cynically conspiratorial and surprisingly optimistic about …

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]]> Adi Robertson <![CDATA[How the antitrust battles of the ‘90s set the stage for today’s tech giants]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/6/17827042/antitrust-1990s-microsoft-google-aol-monopoly-lawsuits-history 2018-09-06T11:57:06-04:00 2018-09-06T11:57:06-04:00

In early August, the creators of the incredibly popular game Fortnite announced that they would be leaving the Android Play Store. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, decried the "monopoly app store" model that Google had established. A few months before that, the Supreme Court accepted a lawsuit against Apple's App Store from users who alleged Apple was abusing an iOS monopoly. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has struggled to name a company that competes with Facebook's services, and there's a credible argument for breaking it up. The internet today feels increasingly dominated by a few huge platforms, and users are locked in by these companies' s …

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]]> Colin Lecher <![CDATA[A mega-merger in the prison phone industry is in the FCC’s hands]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/5/17818496/fcc-prison-phone-industry-securus-merger 2018-09-05T09:00:00-04:00 2018-09-05T09:00:00-04:00

Securus has had more than its share of negative headlines. In the past few years, the company, which provides technology services to prisons and jails, has been slammed by inmates' families who say they're charged outrageous prices to phone loved ones. The controversy has extended into video call and email services, two other places the company has staked a claim. In October, the company was hit with a $1.7 million fine for allegedly misleading the FCC during a regulatory maneuver. By May, attention shifted to another scandal, as the company took heat for enabling warrantless cellphone tracking around the country.

It's against that backdrop …

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]]> Russell Brandom <![CDATA[The monopoly-busting case against Google, Amazon, Uber, and Facebook]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/5/17805162/monopoly-antitrust-regulation-google-amazon-uber-facebook 2018-09-05T08:14:46-04:00 2018-09-05T08:14:46-04:00

Antitrust crusaders have built up serious momentum in Washington, but so far, it's all been theory and talk. Groups like Open Markets have made a strong case that big companies (especially big tech companies) are distorting the market to drive out competitors. We need a new standard for monopolies, they argue, one that focuses less on consumer harm and more on the skewed incentives produced by a company the size of Facebook or Google.

Someday soon, those ideas will be put to the test, probably against one of a handful of companies. For anti-monopolists, it's a chance to reshape tech into something more democratic and less destructive. It's …

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]]> Nilay Patel <![CDATA[It’s time to break up Facebook]]> https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/4/17816572/tim-wu-facebook-regulation-interview-curse-of-bigness-antitrust 2018-09-04T13:00:56-04:00 2018-09-04T13:00:56-04:00

Tim Wu thinks it's time to break up Facebook.

Best known for coining the phrase "net neutrality" and his book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, Wu has a new book coming out in November called The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. In it, he argues compellingly for a return to aggressive antitrust enforcement in the style of Teddy Roosevelt, saying that Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other huge tech companies are a threat to democracy as they get bigger and bigger.

"We live in America, which has a strong and proud tradition of breaking up companies that are too big for inefficient reasons," Wu told …

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