Most countries with a capitalist form of economy have rules and laws to stop private corporations from abusing their customers and their power, as well as smaller companies, and have had these laws for quite a long time. The "social contract" between the government and private corporations is, essentially, "you can privately own property and capital, and you can engage in commercial activity and transactions with minimal or no interference from the government, but you have to play by certain rules. You cannot abuse your power and your riches in order to exploit people and other companies."
There are many such laws, but one particular type of law that most such countries have is so-called "competition law", also called antitrust law, and even anti-monopoly law.
These laws seek to maintain healthy competition in the market and industry by limiting the monopoly status of companies that get too big. Competition has always been seen as necessary for economy, both because it benefits the end consumer (by improving products and lowering prices, among other things), and deters abuse (when customers have options to choose from, they can move away from companies that mistreat them).
A company gaining absolute monopoly on a certain aspect of commerce can be highly problematic. When there is only one company, with no independent competitors, determining everything related to that field, it can easily lead to abuse of power that solely aims to benefit the company at the expense of the customers.
A similar situation happens when a handful of companies gain this kind of exclusivity on that particular field, and start collaborating together, ie. forming a cartel. While technically speaking they may be independent "competitors", the fact that they are working together for mutual benefit essentially makes them a joint monopoly.
Sometimes a company can have a de facto monopoly status. In other words, competitors exist, but they are so small and have such a small market share that it's pretty much effectively as if they didn't exist at all. The vast majority of customers still use (and are perhaps in fact pretty much forced to use) the services or products of this one huge company, perhaps because the alternatives are not feasible.
The level at which anti-monopoly laws are enacted can vary quite a lot from country to country, and from government to government. In the worst (or best?) case scenarios governments have forcefully split a company into two or more independent ones, in order to break its monopoly status. More commonly, however, governments will punish companies for abusing their monopoly status, for anti-competitive practices. This even if the company only has a de facto monopoly status. (As an example, back 10-15 years ago when Apple had a de facto monopoly on portable MP3 players, many governments sanctioned the company for making the players closed, ie. you were only able to put music in them from Apple's own services and not any third-party sources. This was deemed anti-competition activity due to the ubiquitousness of Apple's MP3 devices back then.)
Nowadays, a new form of monopoly/cartel abuse has emerged, which seems much harder for governments to tackle. Especially since most governments seem unwilling to tackle it because of political reasons.
You see, 90+% of all free online services (at least measuring by the number of users and the amount of traffic) are owned and controlled by a dozen or so giant tech megacorporations, all headquartered in the same city in the west coast of the United States, and all working together as a de facto cartel. (A few of these companies may be headquartered somewhere else, even in a different State, but still have huge presence in that same Silicon Valley city.)
They have pretty much effectively a monopoly status on the vast majority of internet online services, including social media services and video sharing platforms. Probably more than 99% of people who use such services, use their services primarily or even exclusively. This gives these companies a huge amount of power and control on what people do online, what they can say and publish, what they can see from others, and how many other people they can reach.
All these companies regularly engage in collusion and jointly organized activity, often with political (rather than economic) motivation. Nothing is a better indication of this collusion than a half dozen of these companies, who ought to be independent competitors, banning the same celebrity from their platforms on the same day. It couldn't be more clear that this was an agreement among them (especially given that the ban was not caused by any single individual thing that the person did). Even just two of them banning the same person on the same day would be quite a coincidence, not to talk about half a dozen.
What's worse, even other giant megacorporations are colluding with them, such as the major credit card companies and payment processors.
So they pretty much effectively form a cartel that controls well over 99% of all the internet activity of people. And they are abusing this power for political purposes.
Anti-monopoly laws were created and exist primarily to stop corporations from abusing their power for financial gain. It's rarer to see them being used to stop corporations from abusing their power for political purposes. However, these laws should still apply.
The problem is what happens when the government itself promotes the same political agenda as the corporations, and thus has no interest in enforcing the anti-monopoly laws. What happens when the government itself tacitly supports the silencing, banning, shunning and discrimination of political dissenters?
The time may well come, pretty soon, where governments themselves, especially in Europe, pretty much essentially join the tech megacorporations in this de facto cartel to drive their political agenda. The megacorporations will be safe from government interference, and may on the contrary be encouraged and directed by the government to engage in even more abuse of political dissenters.
I think that if this goes far enough, it will eventually only be ended by either a complete economic collapse of all western countries, or by civil war. It's quite clear that this kind of quasi-corporatist totalitarian regime cannot be maintained forever, especially since the regime is set on destroying their own society by importing as many non-integrating non-working immigrants as possible. At some point there will be a tipping point, where the entire structure will collapse.
There are many such laws, but one particular type of law that most such countries have is so-called "competition law", also called antitrust law, and even anti-monopoly law.
These laws seek to maintain healthy competition in the market and industry by limiting the monopoly status of companies that get too big. Competition has always been seen as necessary for economy, both because it benefits the end consumer (by improving products and lowering prices, among other things), and deters abuse (when customers have options to choose from, they can move away from companies that mistreat them).
A company gaining absolute monopoly on a certain aspect of commerce can be highly problematic. When there is only one company, with no independent competitors, determining everything related to that field, it can easily lead to abuse of power that solely aims to benefit the company at the expense of the customers.
A similar situation happens when a handful of companies gain this kind of exclusivity on that particular field, and start collaborating together, ie. forming a cartel. While technically speaking they may be independent "competitors", the fact that they are working together for mutual benefit essentially makes them a joint monopoly.
Sometimes a company can have a de facto monopoly status. In other words, competitors exist, but they are so small and have such a small market share that it's pretty much effectively as if they didn't exist at all. The vast majority of customers still use (and are perhaps in fact pretty much forced to use) the services or products of this one huge company, perhaps because the alternatives are not feasible.
The level at which anti-monopoly laws are enacted can vary quite a lot from country to country, and from government to government. In the worst (or best?) case scenarios governments have forcefully split a company into two or more independent ones, in order to break its monopoly status. More commonly, however, governments will punish companies for abusing their monopoly status, for anti-competitive practices. This even if the company only has a de facto monopoly status. (As an example, back 10-15 years ago when Apple had a de facto monopoly on portable MP3 players, many governments sanctioned the company for making the players closed, ie. you were only able to put music in them from Apple's own services and not any third-party sources. This was deemed anti-competition activity due to the ubiquitousness of Apple's MP3 devices back then.)
Nowadays, a new form of monopoly/cartel abuse has emerged, which seems much harder for governments to tackle. Especially since most governments seem unwilling to tackle it because of political reasons.
You see, 90+% of all free online services (at least measuring by the number of users and the amount of traffic) are owned and controlled by a dozen or so giant tech megacorporations, all headquartered in the same city in the west coast of the United States, and all working together as a de facto cartel. (A few of these companies may be headquartered somewhere else, even in a different State, but still have huge presence in that same Silicon Valley city.)
They have pretty much effectively a monopoly status on the vast majority of internet online services, including social media services and video sharing platforms. Probably more than 99% of people who use such services, use their services primarily or even exclusively. This gives these companies a huge amount of power and control on what people do online, what they can say and publish, what they can see from others, and how many other people they can reach.
All these companies regularly engage in collusion and jointly organized activity, often with political (rather than economic) motivation. Nothing is a better indication of this collusion than a half dozen of these companies, who ought to be independent competitors, banning the same celebrity from their platforms on the same day. It couldn't be more clear that this was an agreement among them (especially given that the ban was not caused by any single individual thing that the person did). Even just two of them banning the same person on the same day would be quite a coincidence, not to talk about half a dozen.
What's worse, even other giant megacorporations are colluding with them, such as the major credit card companies and payment processors.
So they pretty much effectively form a cartel that controls well over 99% of all the internet activity of people. And they are abusing this power for political purposes.
Anti-monopoly laws were created and exist primarily to stop corporations from abusing their power for financial gain. It's rarer to see them being used to stop corporations from abusing their power for political purposes. However, these laws should still apply.
The problem is what happens when the government itself promotes the same political agenda as the corporations, and thus has no interest in enforcing the anti-monopoly laws. What happens when the government itself tacitly supports the silencing, banning, shunning and discrimination of political dissenters?
The time may well come, pretty soon, where governments themselves, especially in Europe, pretty much essentially join the tech megacorporations in this de facto cartel to drive their political agenda. The megacorporations will be safe from government interference, and may on the contrary be encouraged and directed by the government to engage in even more abuse of political dissenters.
I think that if this goes far enough, it will eventually only be ended by either a complete economic collapse of all western countries, or by civil war. It's quite clear that this kind of quasi-corporatist totalitarian regime cannot be maintained forever, especially since the regime is set on destroying their own society by importing as many non-integrating non-working immigrants as possible. At some point there will be a tipping point, where the entire structure will collapse.
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