Remember when everyone said "don't be evil" and actually meant it? The DOJ apparently doesn't. They've finally figured out that maybe, just maybe, letting Apple control app distribution, Amazon own both the marketplace and compete with sellers, and Meta buy every social media competitor wasn't great for the free market.
Here's what's actually in motion:
Apple App Store investigation: The DOJ is examining Apple's 30% cut of all iOS app revenue and their control over app distribution. Epic Games has been screaming about this since Fortnite got banned in 2020. Developers have been getting fucked by Apple's fees for over a decade, but apparently it takes government lawyers this long to read a profit-and-loss statement.
Amazon marketplace probe: Amazon runs the marketplace, competes with third-party sellers, and uses sales data to clone successful products with "Amazon Basics" brands. It's like if Walmart owned the shopping mall, ran competing stores, and had access to every tenant's sales figures. The DOJ just noticed this might be problematic.
Meta social media dominance: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. They bought or killed every social media competitor since 2012. Instagram for $1B, WhatsApp for $19B, and they tried to buy Snapchat before launching Stories to copy them anyway. The pattern is obvious if you've been paying attention.
The timing is suspicious. Google just got slapped with antitrust penalties yesterday. Now suddenly the DOJ wants to investigate everyone else? This feels like political theater designed to look tough on tech monopolies without actually breaking anything up.
Here's what I've watched happen to client products firsthand:
Apple's App Store: Clients pay 30% fees to Apple, then 3% payment processing fees, then deal with arbitrary app rejections that can kill months of development work. Try explaining to a client why their app got rejected because it "duplicates core iOS functionality" when it's literally a calculator.
Amazon's two-faced marketplace: I've seen Amazon clone client products after they gain traction on the platform. Amazon gets sales data, reverse-engineers successful products, and undercuts with Amazon Basics versions. It's legal, but it's also why nobody trusts them with proprietary products anymore.
Meta's social media moat: Every social app eventually gets copied by Meta. Stories, Reels, Spaces, even the fucking green dot showing you're online. They have 3.9 billion monthly users across their platforms. Competitors can't reach users without going through Meta's ecosystem.
The real problem the DOJ won't address: Network effects and data moats. Breaking up these companies doesn't solve the fundamental issue that social networks, marketplaces, and app stores get more valuable as they get bigger. Users go where other users are, sellers go where buyers are, developers go where users are.
European regulators actually tried to fix this with the Digital Markets Act. Apple had to allow alternative app stores in EU countries. Result? 0.5% of users installed alternative app stores, because nobody trusts F-Droid with their banking apps.
What would actually work: Interoperability requirements, data portability, and algorithmic transparency. Force platforms to let users export their data and move between services. Make social networks interoperate like email providers. Require algorithmic audits for content ranking systems.
Instead, we'll get performative Congressional hearings where 70-year-old senators ask Tim Cook why iMessage is blue while Mark Zuckerberg pretends he doesn't know how advertising algorithms work.
The investigations will take 3-4 years, result in settlement agreements that change nothing, and tech stocks will rally because "regulatory clarity" is somehow bullish for monopolists.