The Institute for New Economic Thinking published my latest essay, Antitrust Spring.
It first outlines the emerging consensus among policymakers and enforcers on several attributes of the digital platform economy.
To understand why these data-opolies’ power is so durable, and how they successfully leveraged their power into other markets, the Essay next outlines three anticompetitive tactics these data-opolies employ: the now-casting radar, the acquire-copy-kill (“ACK”) strategy, and the Venus flytrap strategy for opening and then closing their platforms.
As neither market forces nor current laws deter this anticompetitive behavior, Part III summarizes ten promising reforms that are being proposed to rein in these data-opolies.
The Essay concludes with signs of hope.