Whose Monopoly Is It Anyway?

In Caddyshack - an OG member of the Quotable Movies Hall of Fame - new money millionaire Al Czervik invades Bushwood Country Club with his boorish ways, his gaudy excess, his pimped out golf bag, his 1963 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III Drophead Coupé, and his Asian friend Wang, who'd have been debarred entry if he let on that he was Jewish, to survey the acreage with an eye toward purchase and development.

N.B. If you haven't seen the movie, call your job right now and take a sick day (or go home if you're 'sticking it to The Man' by reading The Roots of Liberty on the clock) and watch it, for all our sakes. Oh, and read no further. Return to this blog post only after you've resolved this disgraceful gap in your pop cultural awareness.

After taking measure of the man, Judge Elihu Smails, founding member and advocate of capital punishment for minors, was so outraged at the thought of the uncouth Czervik spoiling his little fiefdom that he started stuttering in apoplexy before attempting to strangle him.

Of course, today I speak of Twitter. Twitter, its current form, and despite it being the favorite hangout of the Best-and-Brightest, sucks.

Psychotically melodramatic prognostications of armageddon resulting from Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter continue to flood social media and mainstream news. The tears they shed are, of course, all of the crocodile variety, because their arguments about the corruption of speech boil down to this:

Someone they don't like is buying their favorite hangout.

Behold, the insufferable-to-the-point-of-farce Robert Reich, pontificating from… wherever.

Robert Reich @RBReich

It’s called platform monopoly. It’s bad for our democracy as well as our economy.

Where were you, dear Mr. Reich, all these past years? "Platform monopoly" is a description of the company’s market share, not its owner. If it is the only player in the game, it's a monopoly no matter if it's a publicly traded company run by a board or a private company run by an owner.

Just be ****ing honest, for once, and admit you're angry because Musk wants to give the Wangs of the world more access your exclusive, restricted country club.

Everyone with a shred of intellectual honesty knows this to be the real source of the anti-Musk protests. The loss of control of the public square, the reduced ability to keep the unwashed riffraff off the links and out of the pool, and the risk of undesirables commingling with the anointed are their actual reasons, illiberal, elitist, contemptible, and childishly selfish though they are.

As for this monopoly business? I'm hesitant to say "told you so," especially because all we have so far is Musk's promise to make Twitter more open and less censorious, but here I am.

We're far better off letting such things sort themselves out via market forces than demanding government intervene. For further evidence, consider the government's Ministry of Truth remedy for social media information. I have zero doubt that any government remediation of social media misbehaviors would not move things toward greater liberty, and will have many undesirable (to liberty lovers, at least; the censoriously statist might love them) side effects.

Alas, Reich's "Platform Monopoly" euphemism, ironic though it may be, will likely join "responsible opinion" in the contemporary ovine vocabulary. I'd bet none of those who will regurgitate this pap have had boo to say about Google or Amazon or Meta "platform monopolies."

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.