Not only was this turn predictable - it was *predicted*. Back in 2017, #LinaKhan - then a law student - published a earthshaking *#YaleLawJournal* paper, "#AmazonsAntitrustParadox," laying out how monopolists would trap their customers and block new competitors as they raised prices and lowered quality:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
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Amazon is the titan of twenty-first century commerce. In addition to being a retailer, it is now a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction house, a major book publisher, a producer of television and films, a fashion designer, a hardware manufacturer, and a leading host of cloud server space.
A quick refresher. In 2017, Khan - then a law student - published #AmazonsAntitrustParadox in the *#YaleLawJournal*. It was a brilliant, blistering analysis showing how the #Reagan-era theory of antitrust (which celebrates monopolies as "efficient") had failed on its own terms, using Amazon as Exhibit A of the ways in which post-Reagan antitrust had left Americans vulnerable to corporate abuse:
https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox
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Amazon is the titan of twenty-first century commerce. In addition to being a retailer, it is now a marketing platform, a delivery and logistics network, a payment service, a credit lender, an auction house, a major book publisher, a producer of television and films, a fashion designer, a hardware manufacturer, and a leading host of cloud server space.
Cory Doctorow