(IntegrityPress.org) – Monopolies and corrupt business practices have been a problem for hundreds of years. The ideal scenario is one in which there exist many businesses engaged in similar practices such that they compete to offer higher quality products or services at lower costs to consumers.
Monopolies can warp markets which is why in the past major companies like Standard Oil and Bell were broken up by government action. Today Google, Amazon, and Meta Platforms all have acquired megacorporation status, but Senator Elizabeth Warren isn’t concerned about those conglomerate tech companies. She’s worried about “a sandwich shop monopoly.”
She took to X (formerly Twitter) to affirm the Federal Trade Commission’s recent investigation into Subway’s purchase of Jimmy John’s and McAlister’s Deli – two other sandwich shop businesses.
Writers covering the story mocked Warren for daring to compare monopolies of the last century with a sandwich shop. Standard Oil was broken up in 1911 because it dominated the industry and could virtually control the price of oil at the time. Warren is worried your lunch may suffer a similar fate if not for immediate government action.
X (Twitter) commenters immediately mocked her with memes and jokes. One video game executive inquired if it was a parody account.
Quote posts prodded the Senator for battling “big sandwich.” Some found her phrasing of “a sandwich shop monopoly” hilarious by itself.
The number of potential investigations the FTC could investigate over the last few years is astounding. Companies like Meta Platforms, Alphabet (Google/YouTube’s parent company), and Amazon dominate the digital sphere.
Meta Platforms is currently being sued by 41 states and the District of Columbia for addicting preteens and failing to remove them from the platform citing “complex” difficulties in ascertaining their under-13 status. There’s not any critique from government officials about their ownership of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, however.
There’s similarly been very little scrutiny of Google/YouTube parent Alphabet. Google and YouTube are two of the largest digital assets on the web, but Sen. Warren is concerned about sandwich shops instead.
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