Antitrust and Upstream Platform Power Plays: A Policy in Bed with Procrustes

In recent years, large digital platforms have been in the doghouse of antitrust decision-makers worldwide. Antitrust regulators agree, urgent intervention is needed. Interestingly, it is the plight of victimized suppliers―of merchants, app developers, publishers, platform labourers, and the like, who are upstream in the value chain―that has topped the policy agenda, prompting scrutiny of an almost unprecedented intensity. Amid such anxieties, Antitrust and Upstream Platform Power Plays asks a somewhat provocative question: are upstream platform power plays really 'competition problems', and ones for antitrust, at that?

The obvious answer―'yes'―is deceptively simple for a number of reasons. First, it contradicts contemporary antitrust's single-minded focus on consumers, which has all but erased supplier exploitation in the brick-and-mortar economy from the policy's radar. Second, the wider antitrust community remains bitterly divided when it comes to judging platform practices. In addition, if any consensus could be had, it would almost certainly confirm the long-standing tenet that antitrust cannot be about supplier welfare, as such. These paradoxes call for a policy introspection―precisely what this book provides.

The analysis offered in

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