Google is a near-$4tn monument to monopoly power

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Here’s a number to conjure with: $1.3tn. That’s the amount of market capitalisation Google parent Alphabet has added since September 2 — and it is equivalent to nearly double the combined gain in the rest of the so-called Magnificent 7.

Why that date in particular? Because it’s when a US antitrust judge decided Google’s monopoly was no longer a potent threat in the age of AI. That decision left the company free to flex its muscles. With Alphabet’s market capitalisation edging closer to a colossal $4tn, the rest may soon be history.

Google’s monopoly in online search — the judge did at least call it what it is — did indeed seem at risk for a while. The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 threatened to drain the moat Google had created around itself. Analysts at Wells Fargo estimated in 2023 that the shift to “conversational” search, with inherently…