Regulators did in fact become substantially more aggressive about blocking or conditioning acquisitions by large internet and tech platforms in the early‑to‑mid 2020s, matching the dynamic Chamath was describing.

In Europe and the U.K., competition authorities forced Meta to unwind its completed acquisition of Giphy on the grounds that it would further increase Meta’s already significant power in social media and display advertising markets — the first time a Big Tech firm was ordered to divest a closed deal on competition grounds. (cnbc.com) Regulators also pushed Amazon to abandon its $1.4–1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot over concerns that Amazon could use its dominant marketplace to disadvantage rival device makers, and their stance was widely framed as part of growing global antitrust scrutiny of big tech M&A. (apnews.com) Likewise, Adobe and Figma terminated Adobe’s $20 billion takeover after the EU Commission and U.K. CMA signaled they were likely to block it because it would remove an emerging rival and entrench Adobe’s position in design and creative software. (apnews.com) All of these are exactly cases where regulators acted to prevent already‑large tech firms from compounding their advantages via acquisitions.

Major platform deals that did proceed often faced unusually heavy conditions. The U.K. CMA initially moved to block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard to prevent Microsoft from using the deal to dominate cloud gaming, then only cleared a restructured transaction in which Activision’s cloud‑streaming rights were divested to Ubisoft and subject to long‑term licensing commitments designed to keep the market open. (cnbc.com) This is a textbook example of regulators insisting on structural changes to stop a dominant platform from further entrenching itself in a fast‑growing adjacent market.

U.S. agencies also shifted toward challenging more ecosystem‑strengthening acquisitions by dominant tech firms. The FTC sued to block Meta’s purchase of VR fitness app maker Within, arguing Meta was trying to “buy its way to the top” instead of competing on the merits and that acquiring Within would lessen innovation and choice in VR fitness — a case aimed squarely at Meta extending its existing VR platform. (cnbc.com) The same FTC and the DOJ have brought major monopolization and merger cases against Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft that explicitly seek to prevent further entrenchment of already‑large platforms, even where courts have ultimately been skeptical.

Beyond individual cases, regulators introduced structural tools specifically aimed at preventing gatekeeper platforms from reinforcing their power through smaller deals. The EU’s Digital Markets Act designates the largest online platforms as “gatekeepers” and is explicitly intended to keep digital markets contestable and fair, limiting conduct by entrenched firms that would let them leverage dominance into adjacent services. (en.wikipedia.org) Separately, the European Commission’s 2021 guidance on Article 22 encouraged member states to refer below‑threshold mergers — particularly in tech and pharma — to catch so‑called killer acquisitions of small but strategically important rivals by incumbents. (skadden.com) Even after the EU’s top court curtailed this specific tool, the Commission and national authorities signaled they would look for other ways to scrutinize such deals, and by 2025 senior officials were openly discussing bringing Big Tech “acquihire” transactions under merger review for the same reason. (reuters.com) These policy moves are motivated by exactly the fear Chamath described: that unchecked acquisitions let dominant platforms build compounding advantages that regulators now see as their responsibility to limit.

While enforcers have not won every case — U.S. courts, for example, ultimately rejected the FTC’s bid to unwind Meta’s Instagram and WhatsApp deals — the overall pattern since 2020 is clearly toward more frequent, more aggressive attempts to stop or heavily condition acquisitions that would let already‑dominant tech platforms further entrench their ecosystems. That observed trend aligns closely with Chamath’s prediction that regulators would increasingly act to prevent such compounding advantages through M&A.