To give you an example of this working well:
In some countries(UK) regulators recognized that you cannot operate in the society without a bank account. So a rule was made that a bank cannot close down your bank account without a court order. They can block your access to nearly all other services, block all of your cards, but at the end of the day, you cannot lose access to your basic bank account and money in that account unless a judge says otherwise. The solution to the problem of "every citizen needs a bank account to function" wasn't "let the free market sort it out". It was to force banks to maintain access to a basic checking account no matter what until a court order is given.
In my opinion, Google should be forced to do exactly the same - no matter what, you should never lose access to your google account without a court order. It might be placed under severe restrictions(no new uploads, restriction to storage etc) pending review, but until a lawful court agrees that you broke the rules somehow and google is free to kill your account? They should be forced by law to keep providing their service.
"Losing access to the money in that account" is blatantly stealing from you. It's should be obvious that no company should be able to do this under any circumstances, but that is a separate issue from the question of adequate competition.
You still need competition because a monopoly can find an unlimited number of ways to abuse their customers and regulators can only address the ones they foresee ahead of time.
> The solution to the problem of "every citizen needs a bank account to function" wasn't "let the free market sort it out".
Which allows banks to remain an uncompetitive yet inherently necessary market. But how is that better than having enough competition between banks that anyone can find one willing to provide service?
Just because the market is regulated doesn't mean there is no competition.
It's better because the banks can't gang up on you like tech companies do. At least in the EU.
I'm really curious what you mean here. Banks(here in UK) are stupidly competitve, there's constant offers and incentives to switch, I cannot imagine anyone in this country thinking "oh I would switch but they can't close my account so I won't".
>>It's should be obvious that no company should be able to do this under any circumstances
Are you familiar with a small company known as PayPal? Where they can lock your account for 6 months without providing any reason whatsoever and you don't have access to your funds? You can't dismiss a real issue by just saying "it should be obvious". Sure, it's obvious but the only way we stop this from happening is through regulation.
How exactly is a bank uncompetitive with this regulation?
You can still do most things without card access:
- keep standing orders flowing;
- transfer your money out through the mobile app or website;
- withdraw money from an ATM using an authenticator (nation-wide example in Poland: https://www.blik.com/);
- if push comes to shove, go to a branch and withdraw your money in person.
