Over the years, I’ve written many columns concerning the war on Internet freedom. My usual targets are the politicians and government agencies who serve as shock troops for the Dark Side across fronts ranging from encryption to sex worker advertisements to darknet marketplaces.

On the “private sector” side of things, I’ve generally just noted that anti-freedom business practices are bad business practices, that bad business practices tend to be self-punishing, and that none of the Big Actors in Big Tech are, strictly speaking, monopolies.

Now the war’s been tuning up into its next phase, and Big Tech is finally taking an open stand against, rather than for, freedom. Facebook and Twitter are cracking down on speech (of both “right” and “left” varieties). Google, Amazon, Apple et al. are trying to take down sites and apps on which speech can’t be easily regulated.

Why is Big Tech finally showing us an anti-freedom face?

If you have to ask why, the answer is almost always “money.” That’s certainly true in this case. Most of the firms in question enjoy substantial revenue from government contracts. They want to keep their single biggest customer happy both to preserve those revenue streams and to avoid the imposition of regulations that might cut into their profit margins.

But at this point, it’s also safe to say that they’re looking for “regulatory capture.”

They see the handwriting on the wall. Regulation is coming whether they like it or not, but they’re big players with plenty of lobbying money. They expect to influence the coming regulation to their own advantage.

They don’t want to be big fish in a small pond. They want to be the ONLY fish in a big pond. They don’t want to beat new competitors on the merits of their product and services. They want to use government regulation to make it impossible for those new competitors to put up any competition at all.

They’re not monopolies yet, but they want to be. And they’re making their play right now.

But unlike previous instances of regulatory capture — such as that of electric power, which after a century of government-imposed “natural” monopolies imposed for the express purpose of benefiting Big Business, still has us over-paying to keep our lights on — this one isn’t going to work.

Short of government simply cutting the Internet off entirely,  there’s only one way this ends. If the Internet is allowed to survive at all, the would-be monopolies are going to come to grief. Even China’s Communist regime and its quarter-century-old “Great Firewall” have proven inadequate to the task of separating users from the content and applications they seek.

The long-term result of American Big Tech allying itself with the state to suppress Internet freedom will be its withering as users desert it for offshore hosting and unstoppable peer-to-peer and distributed applications.

Yes, things are bad. They’re going to get worse. But the outcome isn’t in doubt. Big Tech can switch to the users’ side, or it can go extinct.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose.” by Thomas L. Knapp, Anchorage, Alaska Press, 02/01/21
• “Big Tech’s playing Monopoly. It’s going to lose,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, North Carolina Observer, 02/02/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose.” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 02/04/21
• “Big Tech’s playing Monopoly. It’s going to lose.” by Thomas L. Knapp, Havasu City, Arizona News-Herald, 02/05/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose.” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 02/05/21
• “Big tech’s playing Monopoly. It’s going to lose.” by Thomas L. Knapp, New Rockford, North Dakota Transcript, 02/08/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pottstown, Pennsylvania Mercury, 02/10/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Montgomery and Bucks Counties, Pennsylvania Reporter, 02/10/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Chester County, Pennsylvania Daily Local News, 02/10/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Exton, Pennsylvania Mainline Media News, 02/10/21
• “Big Tech’s Playing Monopoly. It’s Going to Lose,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania Reporter & Item, 02/10/21
• “Big Tech is playing Monopoly,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kingsport, Tennessee Times News, 02/15/21

In late January, a band of merry men (and women) organized via Reddit and other Internet forums to stick it to The Man. They began buying shares of failing retail chain GameStop to drive its stock price up.

Their target: Wall Street hedge funds engaged in the tactic of “shorting” GameStop’s stock.

Their main weapon: Robinhood, an app which allows pretty much anyone to buy  stock in small amounts. Its stated mission is to “democratize finance for all.”

You’ve probably read 20 explanations of “shorting” by now, so I’ll keep it simple: To “short” a stock is to bet that its price will go down.

Hedge funds bet heavily against — “shorted” — GameStop. Robinhood’s band of merry men and women bet for GameStop by buying its shares, bringing the price up. The hedge funds lost billions.

Naturally, those hedge funds howled. And Robinhood, instead of siding with its users, sided with the funds. It shut down its users’ ability to buy Gamestop stock, pushing the price back down.

Robinhood’s terms of service specify that it “may, in its discretion, prohibit or restrict the trading of securities.” That clause may or may not sufficiently cover the company’s posterior in a legal sense. But in this  application, it gives lie to the company’s name and supposed mission.

With its attack on its own users, Robinhood is stealing from the poor (or at least the poorER) to give to the rich.

In theory, the stock market is about capitalizing companies that offer goods or services, turn profits, and pay dividends to their shareholders. In reality, many traders (including large institutional traders) treat the stock market like a casino, placing short-term bets, collecting their winnings or losses, and moving on to the next spin of the roulette wheel.

Which is fine, I guess, except that the high rollers, in addition to acting as players, consider themselves “the house.” The house always wins in the long term, but instead of swallowing even this single loss and betting smarter in the future, they leaned on the cashier cage (Robinhood) to stop selling chips to smaller players who were on a winning streak, so as to force those players away from the table.

To its everlasting shame, Robinhood assisted “the house” in its cheat. Above and beyond any legal or regulatory price it pays for its perfidy, it’s also outed its own claims of financial “democratization” as deceptive hype.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Robinhood: Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/29/21
• “Robinhood stealing from poor, giving to rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wilson, North Carolina Times, 01/29/21
• “Robinhood stealing from poor, giving to rich,” Spring Hope, North Carolina Enterprise, 01/29/21
• “Robinhood stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Elko, Nevada Daily, 01/29/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 01/30/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 02/01/21
• “Robinhood stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wahpeton, North Dakota Daily News, 02/01/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens, New York Examiner  [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Queens, New York Ledger [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Brooklyn, New York Downtown Star [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Greenpoint, New York Star [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Forest Hills / Rego Park, New York Times [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  New York Leader / Observer [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Stealing From the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Long Island City / Astoria Journal [web and print], 02/02/21
• “Robinhood no Robinhood,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Orangeburg, South Carolina Times and Democrat, 02/02/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Dillon, Montana Tribune, 02/03/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Roundup, Montana Record-Tribune & Winnett Times, 02/03/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Claremont, New Hampshire Eagle Times, 02/03/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Dearborn, Michigan Press & Guide, 02/05/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sterling Heights, Michigan News-Herald, 02/05/21
• “Robinhood: Stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Millbury, Ohio Press, 02/05/21

Eight days ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Gallup reported that “[a] majority of Americans, 57%, say there is a need for a third, major political party. The poll results aren’t an artifact of Donald Trump’s presidency: “These views have been consistent since 2013.”

Easier said than done, though. Duverger’s Law puts it bluntly: “[T]he simple-majority single-ballot system favours the two-party system.”

With more than 140 years to entrench themselves in that system and fortify their position with ballot and debate access barriers to keep competitors broke and voiceless, the Republicans and Democrats  have little to fear.

Or do they?

Trump himself has quietly leaked word that he intends to remain with (and in control of) the Republican Party rather than launching a “Patriot Party” as many in his committed base, feeling betrayed by GOP cooperation in certifying the election results, had hoped and called for.

Perhaps he’s meditated on the fates of three Progressive Parties created as vehicles for former “major party” contenders (former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Senator Robert La Follette, Sr. in 1924, and former Vice-President Henry Wallace in 1948).

Or maybe he’s just biding his time, waiting to see whether the Republican Party remains in his grip, before pulling the “Patriot Party” trigger if that looks like a plausible path back to power. Things could still get interesting.

Duverger’s Law predicts a two-party system in general, not the dominance or even survival of any particular two parties.

The Whigs, split over the issue of slavery, fell on hard times and were displaced by the Republicans in the 1850s. While it’s unlikely that a notional “Patriot Party” could replace the Republicans as a major party, such a Trump-centric effort might enjoy just enough support to take the GOP down with it, creating an opening for something new.

One side effect of the long Democrat/Republican “duopoly” is a sleepy centrism. If political ideology is a 360 degree circle, the “major” parties cover perhaps five degrees in the comfy “center-right” arc of that circle.  As third party (and proto-Trumpian) presidential hopeful George Wallace noted in the 1960s, there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two in substance, despite their “polarized” presentations.

Could the (third-largest) Libertarian Party or (fourth-largest) Green Party surge into the vacuum left by a Republican fade? Decades of failure to make much headway say Americans aren’t ready for that degree of change.

But if change is coming whether Americans are ready for it or not, both parties have advantages. They already hold a few elected positions (on city councils and in state legislatures, even one Libertarian congressman for a year). They’re veterans at navigating difficult ballot access barriers. They’re tanned, rested and ready.

As the news guys like to say, “developing.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “The Next Major Party Won’t be a Trump Production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 01/27/21
• “The next major party won’t be a Trump production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Elko, Nevada Daily, 01/28/21
• “Why the Next Major Party Won’t be a Trump Production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 01/29/21
• “The Next Major Party Won’t be a Trump Production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 02/06/21
• “The next major party won’t be a Trump production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sterling Heights, Michigan News-Herald, 02/09/21
• “The next major party won’t be a Trump production,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Dearborn, Michigan Press & Guide, 02/09/21