[borski]

Something being predicted poorly, hypothetically, doesn’t mean you can’t rectify a past mistake, right?

Not specifically related to this case, necessarily, but if you let an acquisition go through and discover a decade later that it was, in fact, anticompetitive (and intentionally so), presumably you would still try to break up the resulting monopoly, even if you didn’t predict it would happen?

[YetAnotherNick]

Mistake shouldn't be based on outcome. If Instagram failed, would they still have the antitrust case?

[blackguardx]

Take a look at the Alcoa case from 1945 [0]. The courts ruled that Alcoa was an illegal monopoly even though it acquired that status legally.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alcoa

[yieldcrv]

Wow that would never happen now! Interesting how

A) that would be considered bad law now.

B) despite all branches of government going after Alcoa (Congress passing a special law to support the case mid way through), nothing happened upon remanding the case to the lower court due to the successful argument that other companies began competing

C) that would never happen now primarily due to only anticompetitive practices being scrutinized, not merely having the ability to control prices. But now I see where the confusion comes from, a 13 year saga in support of the Sherman Act

D) it’s so interesting how much the country changed solely from trying to differentiate itself from communism. So its gone to more of an extreme of private maximum extractable value.

[henlobenlo]

This court decision seems insane, being illegal because you work hard to become the best.

[forgetfreeman]

Being a monopoly is correctly illegal regardless of how that status was obtained.

[fsckboy]

if you plan to steal something and get caught, you are guilty of planning to steal something, but you are not guilty of stealing it.

if you impulsively steal something and get caught, you are not guilty of planning to steal something, but you are guilty of stealing it.

monopoly is the same.