Paging Tim Carney

The New Yorker on Google’s move into the Washington policy world:

 Google still faces obstacles from publishers and authors and television networks; search competitors like Yahoo! and Microsoft; so-called vertical search engines that rely on human experts; advertising agencies and telephone companies. One senior executive at Time Warner, who did not want to be identified, because Time Warner’s AOL division is a Google partner, says, “Sometimes I don’t know what to think of Google. We have the best relationship of anyone with Google. On the other hand, you always have to worry when someone gets so much more powerful than all the competition out there. This is why I come down to this: I hope the government starts understanding this power sooner rather than later.”

I don’t even know what it is, but it might affect my business! Maybe! Cause it’s so danged big! And stuff! Time to call in the regulators!

It’s a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless: So much of the business world is consigned to the notion that the government ought to regulate an industry simply because of its existence. If it’s out there  doing something, the government needs to have its paws in it, nevermind how or why.  Thus you end up with whole business models that are predicated on the expectation of regulation, of governments setting onerous, expensive rules and requirements rather than simply letting businesses innovate.  Not that this isn’t understandable, to some extent. When the government basically decides to enforce your business model, taking the pressure off your organization to fend off competitors, that makes things nice and easy — and tempting enough to produce quotes like the one above.