Should the federal government break up Big Tech companies?

The most effective monopoly strategy of the last fifteen years was not crushing competitors, it was buying them as toddlers. Meta paid about $1 billion for Instagram in 2012 and $19 billion for WhatsApp in 2014, snuffing out two potential rivals before either could threaten the core business. The FTC's 2020 antitrust suit argued exactly that and sought to unwind the deals, because everyone understood what had happened except, apparently, the regulators who approved the mergers at the time. This is why breakups have to be on the table: once a giant has absorbed its future competition, no amount of conduct rules recreates the rival that was never allowed to grow up. You cannot regulate your way back to a competitor that was purchased in its crib. Structural separation is the only remedy that matches the structural crime. FTC