If you truly believe that tech monopolists are critical to national security then the only safe option would be to nationalize them. Incidentally, that would also remove the profit motive for bad behavior, solving one of the largest problems with allowing a monopoly to exist. But apparently that would be anti-free. Because nothing says Free Country like letting a handful of the most rich and powerful people on the planet hamstring your democratic government.

> If you truly believe that tech monopolists are critical to national security then the only safe option would be to nationalize them.

They are critical to national security because of their ability to perform. Nationalizing them would complete distort their incentives and destroy the company so thoroughly we might as well have just broken them up.

What are their incentives currently causing them to do? Lobby the government, spy on private citizens, sell influence, make products increasingly user-hostile... why do we pretend that a profit motive results in good behavior even in the face of evidence that it does not, at least in this one case we're talking about taking action on?

Fully agree.

And for the people who think nationalizing businesses leads to socialist/communist hell, at the very least, if you've decided that a business is critical to national security, it should be funded at least in part by the government (with the government having a real, if not controlling, stake in it), and heavily, heavily regulated.

I don't believe in nationalizing anything and there just needs to be competition.

Even if we do want to nationalize anything for security reasons, defense contractors should be at the top on the list but they have already bought the US government so DOJ is after those who haven't paid their dues