Regardless of whether this is a good or bad outcome, I'm still totally non-plussed that the best we can do in the law is to ban "unfair" business practices. What exactly is "unfair"? We all know it when we see it, I suppose, but we don't all see things the same way.
More importantly, and especially if the Chevron doctrine falls, I don't see how the Congress can delegate so much power, so ambiguously, to the FTC. It seems like a "major questions" issue, especially if the FTC then uses this to regulate practices in a way that amounts to usurping Congress's power. For example, imagine that the FTC declared walled gardens an unfair practice. Or suppose the FTC set a maximum transaction fee (think of Apple here). Such examples would have such tremendous impact as to arguably require legislation rather than bureaucratic fiat.
There has to be a better way. Perhaps the best way would be for Congress to every term consider banning recent innovations in business practices that are "unfair" -- to do it before the businesses using those new practices can use them to gain so much power that Congress might have a hard time banning those practices later.
Unfortunately, what you, I, or any non-billionaire voter thinks is reasonable or not is impertinent to the "free speech" of super PAC corporate lobbyists and $5 ideological fringe zealots near total monopolization of legislative output. No amount of grassroots action, voting, or dumb insurrections can break through entrenched corruption that is in the tank for billionaires, Russia, QAnon, and militant evangelical Christian white suprematists.
More importantly, and especially if the Chevron doctrine falls, I don't see how the Congress can delegate so much power, so ambiguously, to the FTC. It seems like a "major questions" issue, especially if the FTC then uses this to regulate practices in a way that amounts to usurping Congress's power. For example, imagine that the FTC declared walled gardens an unfair practice. Or suppose the FTC set a maximum transaction fee (think of Apple here). Such examples would have such tremendous impact as to arguably require legislation rather than bureaucratic fiat.
There has to be a better way. Perhaps the best way would be for Congress to every term consider banning recent innovations in business practices that are "unfair" -- to do it before the businesses using those new practices can use them to gain so much power that Congress might have a hard time banning those practices later.