Senator Warren's proposal would create massive new problems, have significant unintended consequences, and not address the issues she is concerned about
Senator Elizabeth Warren deserves credit: I have been writing about antitrust, particularly in the context of Aggregation Theory …
Context & Ripple Effects
Senator Warren's 2020-campaign platform calls for breaking up big tech and unwinding past acquisitions at Amazon, Google, and Facebook, with her proposal singling out Apple for running the App Store while distributing its own apps in it — a point she defended directly in a Verge interview. Early reactions split along predictable lines: Techdirt called it grandstanding populism that addresses valid concerns without enough substance behind it.
Stratechery's entry into the debate comes from the opposite flank — not defending the platforms, but arguing from an [[a:/entity/aggregation-theory|Aggregation Theory]] lens that the remedy misdiagnoses the disease. The piece matters because it tests whether structural breakup proposals survive contact with how these businesses actually make money.
First-order effects
- Amazon, Google, and Facebook would face forced divestitures of completed acquisitions, and Apple would have to choose between operating the App Store and selling its own apps through it.
- The proposal converts antitrust from an enforcement question into a campaign position, putting every large platform's corporate structure on the 2020 ballot.
Second-order effects
- A credible rollback threat chills the acquisition market that startups rely on as an exit path, pushing venture funding toward companies that can stand alone rather than sell out.
- Platforms facing breakup pressure gain an incentive to argue their integrations benefit consumers — expect Apple, Amazon, and Google to litigate the definition of 'platform' itself rather than any specific deal.
Third-order effects
- If structural remedies displace conduct-based enforcement, the debate shifts from 'what did the company do?' to 'how big is too big?', a standard that later actions like Warren's demand for a broad FTC review of Amazon's MGM acquisition show becoming routine scrutiny of large deals regardless of market overlap.
- The pattern points toward dedicated tech regulators and licensing regimes — the direction Warren herself later pushed with the Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act — replacing case-by-case antitrust as the governing model for platforms.
The trend: Antitrust politics is shifting from consumer-welfare enforcement toward structural breakups and standing regulators, with platform acquisitions treated as presumptively suspect.