The Internet of Change: Foreword to the Symposium on the Google and Facebook Cases

Date01 March 2022
Published date01 March 2022
DOI10.1177/0003603X211070122
https://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X211070122
The Antitrust Bulletin
2022, Vol. 67(1) 3 –11
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/0003603X211070122
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Article
The Internet of Change: Foreword to
the Symposium on the Google and
Facebook Cases
Harry First*
Abstract
In this Essay, which serves as a Foreword to the Antitrust Bulletin Symposium issue on the Google
and Facebook cases, I argue that the Internet is now in the process of disrupting antitrust, as it
has disrupted so many other areas of business and political life. This should not be surprising. The
basic architecture of the Internet—decentralization and content agnosticism—enabled disruption;
disruption is a “feature not a bug.” There is no reason to think that this disruption is now over and
good reason to recognize its effect on antitrust. The Essay thus sketches out some of the ways in
which the “Internet of Change” is now disrupting antitrust, including basic legal concepts (“markets”
“monopoly”), economic models (reduced output is not the problem), and theories of harm. The
Essay then provides short descriptions of the articles in the Symposium and concludes that although
the Internet of Change has increased our impatience, we may have no choice but to await the slow
and uncertain progress of the current litigation.
Keywords
Big tech platforms, monopolization, google, facebook, internet
We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.
–Marshall McLuhan1
I
In 1962, J.C.R. Licklider, a psychologist and engineer, came to Washington, D.C., to head the Advanced
Research Projects Agency (known as “ARPA” or “DARPA”), a new office at the U.S. Department
of Defense. He conceived of the idea of “netting together” several different computer centers using
an agreed-upon language. Other scientists subsequently joined ARPA and saw the possibility of
*Charles L. Denison Professor of Law, New York University School of Law, New York City, NY, USA
Corresponding Author:
Harry First, Charles L. Denison Professor of Law, New York University School of Law, 40 Washington Sq. South, New York,
NY 10012, USA.
Email: harry.first@nyu.edu
1070122ABXXXX10.1177/0003603X211070122The Antitrust BulletinFirst
research-article2022
1. Maybe it was McLuhan, or maybe not. See http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/06/26/shape/ (pointing out that the quote
probably originated with Winston Churchill, using “buildings” not “tools”; McLuhan’s change was popularized by John
Culkin writing about McLuhan’s thought in 1967, but McLuhan himself may never have written it down).

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