The future of the tech industry was once decided by messianic entrepreneurs (assisted by venture capitalists and assorted Silicon Valley boosters) pumping out their sermons to rapt crowds in cavernous arenas. Today it's the fustier crew of competition regulators and policy wonks - more commonly spotted in carpeted conference rooms - who appear to have seized the pulpit.
Investors in Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet will no doubt testify to this shift in power after the threat of US antitrust action caused their shares to fall at the start of this week (Apple's have rallied slightly).
There was certainly a great show of purpose from the attendees at an OECD trust-buster gathering that I attended in Paris on Monday, helped no doubt by the Americans finally starting to follow Europe's lead in tackling the tech giants' monopolistic tendencies. Margrethe Vestager, the EU's top competition official, lined up with officials from the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, as well as top regulators from Britain, France and Germany, to offer pointers about what lies in store for the industry.
Source:
https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/opinion/apple-facebook-and-google-have-lost-the-monopoly-argument-2049064
