Another Era is Ending So Let's Break Up Big Tech

The front page of the New York Times today features Google’s legal woes —

Google Is a Monopolist in Online Advertising Tech

And don’t forget that Zuck is sitting in court all this week trying his best to prevent Meta from breaking up.

But let’s party like its the 90’s.

Who remembers the Microsoft antitrust trials? They didn’t really result in a sea change by any means; Microsoft argued that a monopoly can actually serve the consumer in the case of software - in that a larger ecosystem and larger user base lead to a better product, and theoretically cheaper prices. Microsoft had some experience fucking up monopolies as well; Word and Excel weren’t always the entrenched products they are today, and the launched into a world where there were real monopolies in these spaces. There was WordStar and then WordPerfect. There was Lotus 1-2-3. And slowly but surely Microsoft wrested away market share until it dominated. That’s not to mention Internet Explorer; engineers may have a longstanding hatred of IE8 and 9, but there was a time when Netscape dominated the market before losing their lunch to Microsoft in the browser wars. When the antitrust trials started in 1998, Microsoft controlled a vast holding of the software landscape.

But.

But the PC was also becoming a commodity product when the trials started. The great mobile shift was beginning, which Microsoft famously missed the boat on. A new wave of tech rose up as the old guard was mostly relegated to commodity products (Apple going from near bankrupt in the PC era to the winner of the mobile shift).

It seems fitting that Google and Meta are in the hotseat now in 2025. I personally doubt the antitrust proceedings will result in anything astonishing; even if you break up Facebook, the constituent companies will still be wildly successful and do their best to keep a grip on their marketshare. But the vibe shift is underway anyways. AI native companies are introducing new ways to use computers that are dramatically changing how software engineers work — it’s mostly a matter of time before the wave catches the rest of the workforce and then the consumer. In this wave, we’re seeing OpenAI capturing the consumer and nontechnical market while Anthropic entrenches itself in the developer space; I doubt the old guard is catching up, which is likely why Microsoft itself is betting so heavily on OpenAI.

The DOJ is a little late, just like last time. Search, ads, and social media are commodity services. LLM’s might become a commodity themselves a little faster in this world but the next decade or so is bright, just watch out for the next antitrust fight.