How big is too big? The past and future of tech monopolies

Two decades ago, witnesses at Microsoft’s landmark antitrust trial claimed the company had threatened to violently murder software. One said Microsoft had ordered Apple to abandon QuickTime by “knifing the baby.” Another recalled a threat to “cut off Netscape’s air supply” and metaphorically asphyxiate the browser company into submission. Microsoft denied both quotes. But as the trial progressed, a team of filmmakers took the next logical step: what if Microsoft was literally murdering software programmers?

Thus Antitrust was born — a convoluted thriller that, looking back, is both cynically conspiratorial and surprisingly optimistic about the future of Big Tech.

In early August, the creators of the incredibly popular game Fortnite announced that they would be leaving the Android Play Store. Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, decried the “monopoly app store” model that Google had established. A few months before that, the Supreme Court accepted a lawsuit against Apple’s App Store from users who alleged Apple was abusing an iOS monopoly. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has struggled to name a company that competes with Facebook’s services, and there’s a credible argument for breaking it up. The internet today feels increasingly dominated by a few huge platforms, and users are locked in by these companies’ sheer size.

These concerns date back to the earliest days of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. At that point, they were playing out against a very different landscape where America was still getting online, and the consequences of having massively powerful platforms weren’t necessarily so obvious. They laid a foundation not only for the rise of modern tech platforms like Google, but for the way we think about regulating these platforms — or have neglected to do so.

Securus has had more than its share of negative headlines. In the past few years, the company, which provides technology services to prisons and jails, has been slammed by inmates’ families who say they’re charged outrageous prices to phone loved ones. The controversy has extended into video call and email services, two other places the company has staked a claim. In October, the company was hit with a $1.7 million fine for allegedly misleading the FCC during a regulatory maneuver. By May, attention shifted to another scandal, as the company took heat for enabling warrantless cellphone tracking around the country.

It’s against that backdrop that Securus is now moving ahead with a merger that could further consolidate a market already criticized as woefully consolidated. The company, which already claims to service more than 1.2 million inmates in North America, has announced its intention to acquire ICSolutions, a smaller competitor in the industry. While exact market figures are difficult to come by, and Securus has pointed to a handful of smaller businesses that offer similar services, inmate advocates argue that the merger will allow two companies to effectively dominate the market. The only thing standing in the way is the FCC.

Antitrust crusaders have built up serious momentum in Washington, but so far, it’s all been theory and talk. Groups like Open Markets have made a strong case that big companies (especially big tech companies) are distorting the market to drive out competitors. We need a new standard for monopolies, they argue, one that focuses less on consumer harm and more on the skewed incentives produced by a company the size of Facebook or Google.

Someday soon, those ideas will be put to the test, probably against one of a handful of companies. For anti-monopolists, it’s a chance to reshape tech into something more democratic and less destructive. It’s just a question of which company makes the best target.