Are anticompetitive tech cases really necessary?

Google is charged with two things. The first allegation: “Google engages in preferential search results so that consumers see content that benefits Google, not the best content for consumers,” as phrased by Stephen Kaufer, chief executive of TripAdvisor, a travel review site. “Today’s announcement by the commissioner is the first step to making search on […]

Google is charged with two things. The first allegation: “Google engages in preferential search results so that consumers see content that benefits Google, not the best content for consumers,” as phrased by Stephen Kaufer, chief executive of TripAdvisor, a travel review site. “Today’s announcement by the commissioner is the first step to making search on Google better for consumers.” Basically, this is what this case is about: when you ask Google Search to tell you where you could find certain items to buy on the web, the program tells you that you can only find the items in Google stores. (This is some real deceptive stuff.) Although itself a convict in prior anti-trust suits, Microsoft was very happy that EU got Google.
The second case against Google, if EU goes forward with it, concerns whether or not the company abused its dominant position by pre-installing its apps and services onto Android smartphones that potentially gave Google preferential treatment compared to its rivals.
Google has obviously come a long way from its “don’t-be-evil” mantra days, when the company was young and “naive.” However, I am not judging Google today – there is plenty of opportunity to do that in future if it becomes necessary. Quite a few American companies have fallen prey to EU’s anticompetitive axe. For example, Microsoft reportedly paid $3.4 billion in fines to EU regulators, in cases that lasted for 20 years, over what EU called anticompetitive use of Microsoft’s dominant position in the operating system for personal computers. Intel, the company that manufactures the computer chips inside a large majority of the world’s PCs, is still battling and appealing an antitrust case brought against it by the EU 15 years ago, with no visible end in sight. Furthermore, it seems as if the EU watchdogs are also not happy with the apparent control that Internet platforms like Amazon and others have over how Europeans gain access to online services.
A question to ask is whether or not the various antitrust cases (by EU and others) have yielded the intended effects. It’s not easy to tell. Have the cases really affected the way the tech companies play? It appears that the outcomes might not have always justified the efforts: somehow, the accused companies end up retaining their leads in the respective technologies. For instance, in spite of the heavy fines imposed on Microsoft, the Windows operating system (OS) still drives most of the PCs out there. And Intel? Well, the company appears to be more powerful now than it was when the EU case was initiated.
In the case of Microsoft, the question today might as well be whether or not the dominant position that the company enjoyed and still enjoys has much relevance, since the media for computing seem to have drastically shifted away from PCs (to mobile devices – tablets and smartphones). PCs are still very useful but they are used only by folks who really have to:  programmers, computation-intensive apps, productivity buffs, graphics designers, office workers, etc. It is the case that PC does have less of the pie compared to the situation during the Microsoft Windows heydays.
Moreover, it seems that disruptions by newer tech companies usually render the antitrust cases irrelevant. It appears that if the regulators have cooled their nerves, the normal process of tech disruption might have taken its course.
Put differently, shouldn’t the antitrust watchdogs allow the fluidity and unpredictability of the tech marketplace take its course in determining market trends – by springing up new businesses that essentially disrupt today’s technology and rendering today’s incumbents relatively irrelevant? Or is it the case that the antitrust cases act as a check on the growth and dominance of the incumbents, thereby enhancing the birth of formidable disrupters?
The first of the two conjectures above is predicated on the incumbent faltering in ways that may once have seemed unthinkable. The second says that we use legal means hold down the incumbent while a competitor catches up! In Microsoft’s hey days, circa 1999, the company was found guilty (by the U.S. government) of unfair competition against Intel, Apple, IBM, and Netscape. It the case of the latter, Microsoft actually blocked Netscape Navigator, which was the dominant browser at the time, from seamlessly interoperating with Windows. In place of Netscape, Microsoft forced Internet Explorer on users, as the program came bundled with Windows.
The 1999 ruling against Microsoft explicitly stated that there were “no products, nor are there likely to be any in the near future,” that people could use as substitutes for Windows computers. But the judge was wrong because such substitutes started to spring up not too long after the judgment, courtesy of Microsoft competitors. In 2007, iPhone was released, followed by Android. The rest is history; Microsoft’s edge was basically neutralized by the new world of smartphones and tablets. It does not seem that the evolution of smartphones and tablets was the result of the various transatlantic anti-trust cases against Microsoft. The tech marketplace is simply too fluid, and it does not seem that anti-trust watchdogs do in fact enhance the emergence of tech disrupters.
Google Search, which is Google’s mainstay, might also be heading the way of Microsoft Windows – relative insignificance. The money from direct search ads may have plateaued, according to some tech experts, and the next wave of digital advertising is predicted to come from big budgets reserved for TV commercials. Other companies (Facebook?) are believed to be better positioned (than Google) to take advantage of it. The essence of the EU anti-trust case against Google becomes irrelevant when this happens.