As in they buy them out. There should be a more laws preventing this from happening for large corporations.

We now see that Google Search is turning more and more to AI. Perhaps if Google didn't buy DeepMind, but some other smaller competitor did, they could've turned that into an advantage against Google.

Either way, it was a loss for the market for DeepMind to be bought by Google instead of forcing Google to come-up with its internal competitor.

Companies with billions in profit should be "incentivized" to use that money to create their own competitors against threats - not buy them all out (often just to kill them). I think we can all argue that large companies buying out small competitors is a net negative for the economy at large.

No, companies that have billions in profit have grown too big : they can just use regulatory capture to ward off real threats.

The only thing that can be done is to prevent them from getting that big (economic incentives ? limited company life ?) or to shut them down completely (which needs enough popular support for a politician to do this kind of a risky move).

Regulatory capture only works if we vote in people who let them do it. It’s not a much different issue to enforcement of rules that stop companies from getting too big or shut them down. The same thing that does or doesn’t let regulatory capture happen also stands in the way of any other government attempt to control the companies.

I've noticed that regulatory capture by lobbies generally happens as a long-term process. Public opinion quickly gets tired/bored of a specific issue, while lobbyists never stop pushing.

On the other hand, a politician that makes one of his/her main goals to shut down (or block if not in US) the GAFAMs (or any other giant company), might be actually able to make a real and long-lasting change.

(Or the other way, to change a few of the most important laws that describe how ALL companies can function – also could be a main policy point.)