Breaking up Big Tech will not really solve the core problem

A long overdue antitrust push is gaining steam. But it’s focusing on large tech companies like Facebook Inc. and Google-parent Alphabet Inc., which present complex problems that classic antitrust approaches won’t always solve. The best outcome might be for Big Tech to remain big, but to submit to a new framework of antitrust regulation that restricts the companies’ behaviour in all the areas of concern. But while it would certainly be cathartic, it’s questionable whether break-ups would actually resolve many of the complaints people have about the biggest tech firms. In exchange for being allowed to keep their corporate structure intact, they could submit to regulation that would lower ad prices, restrict acquisitions, prevent in-house promotion of products, protect privacy, ensure political neutrality in news and search results and bar them from working for the Chinese government.