When I heard that Microsoft was going to lay out $70 billion in cash (where the hell did they get all that PURE CASH?) to buy the gaming company, Activision Blizzard, I thought I would hear screams of outrage that one of America’s top five techno-gorillas was expanding into yet another horizontal space. This is the very definition of how the Big Tech boys have moved laterally into new spaces–Microsoft buys LinkedIn, Facebook buys Instagram, Apple defends its empire, Amazon buys Whole Foods, and Google/Alphabet takes over the universe. This is the pattern of domination.
But instead, the media coverage is fawning. Oh, these poor gamers were going to suffer because Activision was suffering major management issues. “New Owner Is Welcomed by Gamers.” See NY Times story here. Oh, it’s going to be part of the Metaverse, says Brian X.Chen here. This is the term dreamed up by Jeff Zuckerberg to justify his monopolistic tendencies and now Microsoft has adopted the argument–and the Times is buying it.
If the Biden Administration is serious about anti-trust issues, it needs to put a stop to these deals, or at least to establish a legal framework that could govern them. Existing anti-trust law dates back to the days of the railroads and steel companies. If they bought a competitor, they could then raise prices and hurt consumers and customers. Our anti-trust law has not been modernized since those days. Come on, folks, wake up to the new game.
