Microsoft is too big to live

The central argument is that antitrust was weakened not by removing its formal rules, but by making those rules practically impossible to enforce. The account frames laws through their substance, scope and administrability: a rule may be sound in principle yet fail when it applies to too many situations or requires costly, intricate judgments. Digital technology created this problem for copyright, turning routine computer use into a stream of potential infringement questions once handled mainly by industrial firms and lawyers. Antitrust, it argues, was deliberately made similarly unworkable through demands to prove a company’s intent and to define precisely the market it dominates. Both inquiries invite prolonged, expensive disputes, while a surge in mergers made enforcement cases arise far faster than authorities could resolve them.

Microsoft’s history illustrates the result. Despite controlling about 95 percent of desktop operating systems, it used arguments over intent and market boundaries to drag out its case; after a conviction, the Bush administration abandoned the effort to break up the company, and Microsoft faced no meaningful penalty. The piece connects that history to the company’s renewed power and political alignment, including its services for immigration enforcement and its leverage over foreign governments dependent on its cloud products. Its warning is that countries relying on Microsoft for essential software and data may be vulnerable to political pressure or sudden loss of access. Digital sovereignty, in this view, requires confronting monopoly power before dependence becomes impossible to escape.