[4eleven7]

Antitrust law does exactly this. If Amazon owning EA overly concentrates market power/forms a monopoly, it'll be rejected and the deal with fail.

Why would you want to put an upper cap on the size of companies? It feels like stifling innovation and productivity, which will be overly negative for everyone.

[loudmax]

I think I agree with your point that antitrust laws should focus on preventing monopolies rather than on limiting size per se. Ideally, a company should be able to grow to any size so long as it doesn't prevent competition.

In practice, large companies have been able to use their leverage to influence political outcomes and antitrust laws have not been enforced. It's good that we have laws to ensure a free market, but they're not much use if they're ignored.

In this case, I'm not sure that Amazon acquiring a video game company does much to hinder competition. There are lots of indie video games and I don't see that Electronic Arts has any particular technology that locks in customers or excludes other vendors.

As a society we absolutely should be vigilant against concentrations of power, foremost of which are the big tech companies. But when it comes to monopolies, there are more significant things to worry about than this particular acquisition.

[webmobdev]

> It feels like stifling innovation and productivity, which will be overly negative for everyone.

From a business perspective that might be partly true. But anti-trust / anti-competition policies are not just to provide a level playing ground for businesses but also consumers. A giant conglomerate might have a higher productivity, but that doesn't mean that benefit will be passed to the consumer unless they have rival businesses to compete with. Competition promotes more innovation and is more socially beneficial to both businesses and consumers than giant conglomerates that just become obese and unhealthy after a point.

[killyourcar]

Amazon owning EA will absolutely stifle innovation, especially given their history in the gaming space.

[master_crab]

I’m not disagreeing with the general jist of your argument, but EA hasn’t exactly been a hotbed of innovation in years.

[moomin]

Honestly, whilst very successful, they’ve become so inessential I have forgotten what they actually make anymore.

[4eleven7]

Why will Amazon stifle innovation? All EA do is release the same games every year with slightly different content (FIFA, Battlefield, Madden, Sims, etc).

What am I missing?

[killyourcar]

A whole bunch of innovative games? Skate 4, It Takes Two, Star Wars Squadrons, Jedi Fallen Order, Apex Legends, A Way Out, Fe, and arguably battlefield 5.

Yes, plenty of annual sports games, though even those evolve over time with different career modes and gameplay. But EA is still making moves in the space.

[syzar]

It seems to me most innovation comes from increased competition and upstart companies. Do large conglomerates provide the main driver of innovation?

[4eleven7]

True, and I agree, but an 'upper cap' wouldn't be used against just the companies that we don't think provide innovation (such as Amazon in this scenario). The caps would also be used against Tesla and Apple, two very big drivers of innovation, and probably many others. The world would be a worse place without Tesla, and without Apple. Arguably the world could be a better place without Amazon, but that is surely down to consumer voting with their wallet, the executive team, and shareholders encouraging Amazon, rather than the government not restricting Amazon. Amazon aren't buying EA, only because they can.

Once again, how can someone define an 'upper cap', is it market size? Is it revenue, or employee count? Market share? The unintended consequences of an upper limit doesn't seem to me something we should be encouraging.

I could be wrong, it just feels like we shouldn't be restricting everyone because of one bad actor.

[syzar]

From my perspective for every large innovator like Apple there are several like Comcast. While Apple would not exist in the hypothetical world where max size exists for companies who knows what other innovations would exist or would not have been quashed by large companies. There are unintended consequences with the status quo. It’s easy to overlook those because we are used to the system in place. Are those unintended consequences worth keeping? I don’t know but it’s worth exploring other options.

[AlexandrB]

I think it depends. Bell labs famously invented many of the foundations of modern computing while Bell was a monopoly. It's also hard to do capital intensive research (e.g. semiconductor manufacturing) as an upstart. You need the resources of an Intel.

Meanwhile, companies that leverage existing technologies in new ways can be innovative with much fewer resources - e.g. your typical web startup.

[syzar]

One can find examples in support of either position. What is the overall benefit of one side vs. the other? I don’t know the answer and it isn’t clear to me which is the better option. There are pro and cons to both positions.