In some blockbuster movies in the United States, it is common to see some big bosses behind the scenes worth tens of billions of dollars trying to secretly develop a new product, and then change the rules of the whole world, and become the king of the world themselves.
In fact, this kind of thinking does exist in the United States. And the big bosses in the movie, who are worth tens of billions of dollars, in real life, naturally correspond to those billionaires who are now worth hundreds of billions of dollars, as well as the world-famous technology companies behind them.
I don't know if you have noticed, in recent years, human beings seem to have made new breakthroughs in the field of science and technology. From the metaverse to the current AI, both have brought a wave of technology boom, and countless billionaires and companies have joined in.
From a deep perspective, the reason why those technology companies in the United States are actually keen on the metaverse and AI is actually trying to get rid of the shackles of the real world and enter the world of bits with their own rules. Isn't that what AI is like today?
However, the U.S. government does not want that. The lawsuits that have come out of Capitol Hill have been a reminder to American tech companies and their leaders that the ideals that drive tech companies are not just themselves, but the U.S. government.
What if tech companies don't obey?
Since 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission have begun antitrust investigations against Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta (Facebook's parent company). Among them, the U.S. Department of Justice is targeting Apple and Google, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is targeting Amazon and Meta.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice has been investigating Google since 2019, but it lacked the budget and manpower at that time, so it had to start the investigation with Google first. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice began a formal investigation into Apple. The investigation against Apple is considered the most significant federal antitrust lawsuit in these antitrust cases.
According to the New York Times, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission will concentrate on the big four technology companies as early as the first half of this year.
Apple is the worst, because the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into Apple is all-encompassing, involving all of Apple's software and hardware ecosystems.
The U.S. Department of Justice reportedly asked Apple's many competitors, who told them that Apple refused to allow them to use key features in iPhones such as Siri. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice also found that when other brands of smartwatches are connected to the iPhone, fewer features are available than the Apple Watch. This shows that Apple is actually still living in the business model of the closed product ecology in the past.
Naturally, Apple does not agree with the US Department of Justice's accusations, saying that its model is to make the pie bigger and create opportunities with developers and enterprises. Apple CEO Tim Cook once told the Antitrust Commission that Apple competes with Google, Samsung and other companies, but does not occupy a dominant market share.
For Google, the U.S. Department of Justice specializes in its online advertising and search businesses, which are Google's core businesses that have survived the PC era and the mobile Internet era.
In January 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against Google in conjunction with 17 U.S. states, accusing Google of illegally using its dominance in the online advertising business. Even, the U.S. Department of Justice has brought up Google's two acquisitions more than ten years ago.
In the case of Amazon, the FTC said it was not being investigated for being too large, but because Amazon had adopted a series of exclusive measures to prevent the development of competitors and the emergence of new competitors. For example, Amazon prevents sellers on its platform from offering lower prices on other platforms, and also punishes merchants who don't use Amazon's fulfillment services in disguise.
The FTC's lawsuit against Meta is a bit far-fetched. Because it was the Federal Trade Commission of the Trump era that first filed an antitrust lawsuit against Meta. After Biden became president of the United States, the lawsuit against Meta was dismissed in June 2021. After that, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission gathered evidence again and tried to sue Meta again.
Ironically, the evidence gathered by the FTC is Meta's two deals when it bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission believes that Meta's acquisition of the two companies was illegal, so it requires Meta to sell the two companies.
The question is, will the United States, which serves capital, really hurt their capital with its own hands?