Which I think is overall good for the consumer, many of the companies are only merging to lessen competition, not provide any extra value to us.

The value accrues in the form of incentivizing new products and companies to enter the market. The two options these founders (and their investors) have to capitalize on building a good company is to either go public or get acquired.

Severely limiting the ability to be acquired reduces the incentives for new founders as well as investors in new companies if the only realistic path is waiting for them to go public. Especially since being acquired doesn't require you to be in nearly as good a financial position in terms of profit as going public does.

I can't think of a single time that was overall beneficial for the US in the last decade. A bunch of time sucking sites I don't consider life improving. It won't stop small business and it'll stop big companies from their shitty VC style squeeze everyone out of the market tactic? I don't mind losing that 'value'.

However, product innovation doesn't happen without competition. Acquisitions aren't necessarily bad, but a company being bought by a competitor with a similar product lessens competition and can lead to less innovation.

There’s a bigger picture than just the consumer. If there is not a chance to exit then founders won’t be incentivized to create these companies and employees won’t be incentivized to join or stay at these companies. If M&A markets are limited then the only option is IPO which goes through major cycles and probably can’t support the number of companies needed. Plus many companies can’t get big enough to IPO.

Is this true? I assume there must be founders who won't start companies if they can't get acquired, but I'm not one of them. And I think my closest friends aren't either.

While I agree that this deal was ultimately bad for consumers, weaker M&A markets, in the long run, may hurt consumers equally as bad. A lot of “copycat” companies get created when they see a particular company doing well. While sheer profitability is the major factor in this, M&A, and the likelihood of a liquidity event play a large role here too.

Hopefully future us won’t look back at this deal as the beginning of a weak M&A market

"May". Less small business and more corporate control isn't making the world good enough to say we need more M&A.

In the same way that animal cruelty laws is bad for the cock-fighting market. Is the "M&A market" a valuable market worth having?

Do companies like YouTube and Instagram get started and funded less frequently if the climate evolves to “it’s impossible to have large mergers approved”?

It’s a bit like asking in 2009 if the secondary mortgage market is a valuable market worth having. It provides significant good (IMO) to support real estate transactions.

I'm not sure.

But, I don't think that YouTube or Instagram are an inherent moral requirement for society, so I don't think it's the end of the world if they never existed.

Extremely few companies meet an “inherently moral requirement for society” standard.

Right :)

It's sad for the bad part of the M&A market that is against competition. there's tons of good M&A that will still get approved. it's not bad that companies need to think twice and consider anti-trust before getting deals done

And good for users because it means Adobe can't nickel and dime creatives by buying out competitors. Tell me you're an MBA without saying it.