By Nick Colas of DataTrek
Ben Evans is out with 2 pieces on the future of Tech industry regulation. His take is that effective rulemaking is a matter of getting into the weeds (as Europe has done) and breaking up US Big Tech is unlikely to fundamentally damage Google or Facebook. Our take: Ben’s right, and his view explains why markets discount any chance of dramatic/damaging regulatory action.
Ex-Andreessen Horowitz staffer Ben Evans had two recent tech thought pieces with overlapping themes. Here’s a brief summary of each and a few thoughts of our own.
#1: “Regulating technology”
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“… when software becomes part of society, all of society’s problems get expressed in software…” and “… When something is systematically important to society and has systematically important problems, this brings attention from governments and regulators.”
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Regulations, however, typically address specific issues, not “industries”. Car companies must install seat belts, but automakers aren’t liable if one of their vehicles is used in a robbery, for example.
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This makes “regulating technology” a complex matter because it is very situation/concern specific and, on top of that, no two countries think the same way about important issues like freedom of speech or privacy.
The bottom line: tech will certainly see more regulation in the coming decades, but history says it will be based on specific issues and geographies rather than blanket policy.
#2: “Would breaking up ‘big tech’ work? What would?”
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The network effects so common in Big Tech are essentially natural monopolies.
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