Cloud Streaming: Market or Distribution Method, CMA Right or Wrong

[Doctor_MG]

I think the most practical way to look at this is whether or not services like Netflix are their own market. Which I believe that the FTC does.

The issue I have is that western society (particularly America) continues to perpetuate huge growth for these gigantic corporations and it ends up affecting us in the end. Industry consolidation and oligopolistic markets have amplified over time. Beer, groceries, e-commerce, physical retail, music recording industry, TV/film, airlines, etc...we have seen this time and time again. The problem with the way we have been regulating companies is we basically have to predict the future. This has had detrimental effects in the market, not from a business standpoint but a consumer one, as a result of oligopolies. There are a variety of studies which have shown this effect.

But we can't prove that MS will cause an issue in a relatively new market, so it will probably go through. If it happens that it does have a negative effect on the market, the decision can't simply be reversed. In addition, allowing MS to do this reinforces further consolidation by other companies. Maybe MS buys Activision, so Amazon buys EA (which they are looking to do), and Google buys Ubisoft. Does it sound like a snowball argument, absolutely, but we have historical precedent gathered from a huge amount of other markets to show that this thought process isn't unreasonable.