Do the FANGs need to be regulated?

FANGs – Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google.

https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21735026-which-antitrust-remedies-welcome-which-fight-techlash-against-amazon-facebook-and

Harms to consumer	Benefits to consumer	Positives of regulation	Negatives of regulation
Damages democracy by creating filter bubbles. Decreasing diversity in opinions/goods/services available to people due to the lack of competition.	Provide services for free/inexpensive.	Trust-busting (trusts are large companies with lots of market power) to open up opportunities for competition.	Possible increasing costs, loss of network effects/economies of scale. So lower profits.
Addictive – studies have found people who spend lots of time on social media to be more depressed. Business models encourage unhealthy/addictive behaviour.	More personalised user experience, as FANGs have the data to make this possible.		Hard to price regulate companies that don’t charge Price control backfires when companies don’t charge!
Barriers to switching services – in some cases there is no alternative at all.	Network effects - can make user experience better.		Disincentive for companies to scale up
Privacy concerns.			Regulatory capture
Extreme material.
Promotes inequality (?)

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Edexcel AS/A Level Economics revision

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