We are going to have to get creative or settle in and prepare for an eternal reaming.
You have to pay the bribes.
June 7th, 2000:
"A federal judge today ordered Microsoft Corp. split into two companies, prescribing the biggest corporate breakup since AT&T while harshly rebuking the software giant for stifling computer-age competition. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000607/aponl...
Then Microsoft and the DOJ made a deal on November 2nd 2001. Bush won the Presidency November 7th 2001. It's very likely the Clinton DOJ made a deal to ensure all of their hard work - indeed their victory - couldn't be easily reversed by the dramatically more business friendly Bush Administration if he were to win.
(*at the time, when the sector was much smaller)
This was a bit of an accident really.
Maybe one day big companies with monopolistic tendencies will be broken-up. But it will be a long and hard process.
Look at the Standard Oil monopoly of the late XIXe/early XXe century, it took decades to break it up, even with laws against it.
When the break-up will happen, I see two ways this could happen:
* either break by activity (separate AWS and Amazon, Gmail, Youtube and Search in Google, etc)
* break each service in a way to form a distributed system shared by several companies
For example, split Google Search with part of the search index and engine distributed across several companies, and each companies having their own offer in term of UI design, data privacy, additional functionalities, plugged on this shared index.
They remind me of the internet I remember from 1998-2006.
I wouldn't say it's the 'old' internet, because I wasn't alive for the supposed glory days of arpanet, but it definitely has the sleazy, probably illegal, never say who I am irl vibe I remember and miss.