Reply to post: It won't work, and that's the issue worldwide

It won't work, and that's the issue worldwide

As the reforming of AT&T proves, even when it almost works, it's very temporary - and see Net Neutrality for an example of any reduction in regulatory capture or the power of the guys with the wires and spectrum. And of course, AT&T merely experienced a name change...and that's about it.

Tried to break up MS, but it came down to "we'll just see who is the government here" - and didn't even get to first base. All they had to do was discredit a judge and that gave cover to the politicians to look away.

EU futher took on MS to document things like SMB - which was an utter failure, by the time they got around to almost complying, SMB had changed such as to make interop just as difficult as before.

Nice try, no cigar.

Now people want to do it to Google, and of course, Apple is next (and already tried over some pricing issues in their walled garden, with utter failure).

While this seems to collect downvotes, the issue is - no one government seems able to pull off the regulation of companies that now effectively have more power than a government. As a world, we can't even get them to pay taxes, they can venue-shop to whoever caves the easiest, and of course do.

And of course, while we can get them to pay a week's worth of profit in fines now and then - which has other fairness issues, did any of the drug money-laundering banks, or the various cheating by Wells Fargo draw enough of a fine to even cover their ill-gotten gains, much less actually hurt? No, it's just a forced bribe, everyone goes away happy - except we who actually pay for that.

One rule for thee, another for me. I can do all the same dodges - but in the tax example, it takes having an employee and an address in one of the sandwich countries - pocket change for a big outfit, but way out of line for mine. Notice all regulations for, um, my last 65 years of paying attention have this effect? A tiny % to comply for the big boys, but put the little guys out of business - and no real resistance to those passing by the big boys, because they know this very well.

And then we moan about the lack of new businesses that create all the decent jobs.

It's just as illegal for the rich to beg, sleep under bridges and so on, as it is for the poor - they just don't need to. And heck, that's not even true anymore - we have a just-us system now (worldwide).