`You know you've really made it when you've got antitrust problems.' That's the sign of success."
Image via CrunchBase The Web's New Monopolists By Justin Fox Atlantic Magazine January/February 2013 Ask Jack Dorsey , the co-founder of the social network Twitter and the mobile-payment start-up Square , what his two companies have in common, and he has a quick answer: "they're both utilities." Mark Zuckerberg might agree: he spent years trying to convince people that Facebook is not a social network but a "social utility." Utilities tend to be boring, slow-growing beasts. They also-and this is the more important point-tend to be monopolies that are either regulated heavily by governments or owned outright by them. But companies like Twitter, Square, and Facebook-not to mention Google, Amazon, and Apple-aspire to a status similar to traditional utilities like Ma Bell . They attempt to position themselves so customers can't get around them, or can't afford to leave them. And when they succeed, they start appearing just lik...