Who said that? The point is that anticompetitive acquisitions, like Adobe acquiring a direct competitor, hurt everyone but the acquirer, and should be tightly controlled.
Nobody would care if Figma were getting acquired by GitLab or Salesforce or Atlassian or whatever. The fact that it's a direct competitor known for destroying acquisitions is the problem.
Why would Gitlab want Figma? Could it afford it? I am sure the owners of Figma thought this was the best available option. It’s their company - not yours or the governments. If they want to sell their property it’s theirs to sell.
Would Gitlab make it a better product if it was sold to them?
It's just an example of a non-monopolistic acquisition. There are other examples of larger companies that may be able to support it better, like Microsoft or Dropbox or Zoom or something.
DropBox isn’t doing to well itself if you haven’t checked. How well are their previous acquisitions doing? Would you rather have a company acquire Figma with no expertise in the area (MS)?
I think everyone would prefer Figma to continue to be an independent business that challenges and competes with Adobe, forcing both products to be better.
“Everyone” but the people who own the company, created the product, found investors, took the risk of starting their own company, the employees who all could have probably made more money during the intervening years by working for BigTech.
Their priorities and wants are a lot more important than yours.
If you had an idea that attracted investor interest, convinced engineers to forego BigTech compensation and created a product that people wanted, I am sure your opinion would matter a lot more.
No. But I hate the idea that people who did absolutely nothing to create the company think they by proxy of the government should have the right to tell others to do with their property. If you want a company that meets your ideals - create a company yourself.
Customers do to some degree have a sense of ownership over the product. Marketers literally try to cultivate that "sense of ownership" factor. Especially where there's network effects, or a marketplace ecosystem forming. It very literally becomes a community and a standard.
More and more I think we'll see companies have to signal their intentions and be lightly bound to their community, or see those ecosystems form somewhere else instead.
The best for the acquirers and acquired isn't necessarily, and is in fact rarely, the best for the consumers at large. Unless you want to end up in an abusive relationship in all of your transactions, governments should intervene to keep things level, competitive and innovative.
"history". Yes, that concise and short read that just tells you government bad. Do you have anything in particular in mind?
I really struggle to find an excuse for not wanting to involve government regulations in obvious cases like monopolies almost monopolies. Even some libertarians, who are far from being a logical bunch of people, agree with this (alongside safety regulations and sometimes even infrastructure). The free market cannot function properly when it concerns externalities, infrastructure with high upfront costs, monopolies/oligopolies.
Fuck yes. The government is there for everyone. I want to not be abused as a consumer by for instance having a single ISP, phone manufacturer, etc. etc. price gouging me and everyone else, and i practice what i preach.
In a similar vein, i don't want trash on the ground, so i inconvenience myself by collecting my trash and throwing it at the appropriate places. You know, normal "sacrifices" one does as the cost of participating in a society.
Who said that? The point is that anticompetitive acquisitions, like Adobe acquiring a direct competitor, hurt everyone but the acquirer, and should be tightly controlled.
Nobody would care if Figma were getting acquired by GitLab or Salesforce or Atlassian or whatever. The fact that it's a direct competitor known for destroying acquisitions is the problem.