American tech giants are making life tough for startups

This article makes the case for government intervention [0]. The central thesis is that, had Microsoft not been sued for antitrust in the 90s and wary of yet another lawsuit, they would have killed Google in its infancy. Apparently anonymous sources in both companies confirmed this would have been a distinct possibility. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/magazine/the-case-against...

This can cut both ways. Even after the recent massive dip, Snap's valuation is an order of magnitude greater than Facebook's notorious buyout offer. Twitter's Fleets feature lasted less than a year, and Im not sure that their Clubhouse-"inspired" feature has gained much traction. Its not clear that even Facebook will be able to disrupt Tiktok's momentum. Slack exists and is successful despite consolidated offerings from the tech giants (Google famously has a double-digit number of chat apps). Generally, startups…

With Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. seemingly investing in so many promising technologies (ML, robotics, infrastructure, etc.) are we past the era when innovation primarily came from startups? It used to be that BigCorps didn't want to rock the boat for fear of disrupting their businesses. These tech companies were built on the missed opportunities of the entrenched players, and with our current financial climate and its easy access to cash, they are not likely to make the same mistake?