Tim should consider taking his own advice here and add "more disclaimers or warnings" to his piece indicating he hasn't actually read very much @stratechery and doesn't understand the thesis very well. 1/n https://twitter.com/superwuster/status/1321471153366589451

Ben has written extensively for instance about how the internet facilitates niche consumer preferences and *doesn't* result in "winner take all" markets ( https://stratechery.com/2020/never-ending-niches/). That's how Stratechery itself exists - reaching a niche audience through differentiated content. 2/n

With respect to the Google case itself, Tim argues "the rules of competition haven’t changed", but the claim Stratechery is making is that aggregation theory explains why today's today's tech giants are popular with consumers in a way past alleged monopolists were not. 3/n

That is key to understanding DOJ's complaint, which is fundamentally about a loss of alleged future competition, and not about present consumer harm. That in fact is Google's defense - they win because people love their product, not because of marketing/distribution. 4/n

That's the insight of aggregation theory, and what distinguishes the alleged control over distribution here from prior cases. In the short run, few consumers would switch irrespective of the alleged conduct because of the virtuous cycle aggregators create. 5/n

I don't have a deep take about whether DOJ or Google is right - antitrust is too fact-specific for anyone without access to confidential data/pricing/margins to be confident. But it's reductive and does a disservice to the dialogue to pretend like there's nothing new here. 6/n

Finally, this piece reeks of an unfortunate tendency in antitrust to ignore insights from people without law/econ degrees, e.g. backhanded comments like "Lacking a background in law or economics is not disqualifying", or suggesting Ben add a disclaimer that he's not a lawyer. 7/n

@benthompson doesn't need me to defend him, but our understanding of tech competition, business models, and trends is richer for the writings of Stratechery and specifically aggregation theory, and this sort of gatekeeping is unhelpful. 8/8