I have long since given up trying to understand voting patterns in HN :)

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Sadly it was the core of anti-trust law, since 1970s things have changed.

The predominant view today (i.e. Chicago School view) in both judiciary and executive are influenced by Justice Bork's ideas that consumer benefit being the deciding factor over company's actions.

Consumer benefits becomes opinions of projections by either side of a case about the future, whereas company actions like collusion, pricing fixing or M&A are hard facts with strong evidence. Today it is all vibes on how the courts (or executive) feel .

So now we have Government sanctioned cartels like in Aviation Alliances [1] that is basically based on convoluted catch-22-esque reasoning because it favors strategic goals even though it would be a violation of the letter/spirit of the law.

[1] https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/aviation-policy...