| I don't have the answers here any more than anyone; but I notice that most approaches tend to cut along the existing verticals (e.g. the product areas). The break-up of AT&T provides another perhaps more viable arena for thought... There the breakup resulted in multiple, independent competing companies cleaved from AT&T. Three organically produced combinations now remain of the original 7:
1. Verizon is what was the north eastern region (Bell Atlantic + NYNEX).
2. The now reunited trademark AT&T started as the western ones (Pacific Telesis and Ameritech) then added the southwest (Southwestern Bell/SBC) in 2005 and the southern states' one (BellSouth) in 2006.
3. The midwestern region was Qwest which is still around in some form as CenturyLink/Lumen. From one massive company which did everything you got a bunch of companies that actually competed with each other in the main and market dominant sector. The market continued to evolve and real market forces forced combinations among them; IMO this is a good and natural thing. Remember MCI and Sprint? Did you know they were already around pre-breakup as starving competitors of the monopoly? Suddenly they became national brands and introduced their own leaderships' priorities into the consumer marketplace (MCI in particular was early in seeing the importance of several early Internet packet-based technologies and in consumer email). Prior to the breakup did you know that the domestic television networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, there wasn't Fox yet) had long-term contracts to send their signals over AT&T's terrestrial network? Almost immediately after the breakup (this is not a causal thing, but there is a lot of correlation) they all switched almost immediately thereafter to sattelite distribution (which had been available for nearly a decade). --
The point I'm making is that you don't have to just draw inside the preexisting lines. The goal isn't the punish Alphabet, but to maximize competition in the market to the benefit of the nation (externalities positive and negative) and its consumers (first-order real good). Promoting competition may result in 2 search companies that can't reunite or something equally unthinkable... |