Thursday, October 1, 2026
I’ve spent the past decade teaching New York entrepreneurs how to launch and grow successful small businesses. Today, sophisticated digital tools help many entrepreneurs scale and succeed with unprecedented efficiency. So I was astonished when, just a few months ago, New York lawmakers seriously considered legislation called The Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act, which would have effectively rendered many of those tools illegal.
Fortunately, the act didn’t pass. Unfortunately, many of its central ideas seem to be gaining traction, and I’m worried that it (or something like it) will be reintroduced, once again threatening the state’s entrepreneurs and small-business leaders.
The Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act assumed that market-leading businesses gain “dominant” positions not by offering appealing products, services and/or the best prices, but by engaging in “abusive” behavior. It particularly targeted leading tech companies like Microsoft and Apple, claiming they stifled competition and hurt small businesses.
It’s easy to think the big guys are the bad guys. In reality, the biggest tech companies offer high-value, low- and no-cost digital tools that thousands of New York small businesses rely on to find customers, grow, compete and succeed — and the legislation’s passage would have shattered those tools.
Small businesses turn to the biggest tech companies for cutting-edge capabilities, efficiencies and reach that smaller competitors can’t match — and that small businesses could never achieve on their own. For example, local restaurants use leading delivery platforms like GrubHub to reach more customers and compete with big chain restaurants. Likewise, niche businesses launch inexpensive marketing campaigns on big social media platforms like TikTok, helping them tell the right audiences about their products and services. Small businesses can also access sophisticated, integrated business-software packages like Microsoft 365, often for just a few dollars a month. And many small app developers leverage leading outlets like Apple’s App Store to launch and grow innovative new app-based businesses with astonishing efficiency.
Those tools empower small businesses to succeed; that’s why small businesses use them. But because the tools are provided by leading companies — and because they’re often offered in integrated packages of services — the Anti-Trust Act could have labeled them illegally “abusive.” Accordingly, thousands of New York small businesses would have lost access to affordable, world-class services that have helped them reach and serve customers throughout the state and across the country.
The act raised other serious concerns. First, it would have hit minority- and women-owned business enterprises especially hard. These businesses often have difficulty securing startup funding and loans, and typically have limited professional networks. That makes access to affordable, large-scale tools and infrastructure provided by tech leaders critically important — and means that losing that access would be particularly damaging.
Second, the legislation’s vague language suggested that any successful New York company could have been accused of anticompetitive behavior — simply for succeeding! Suppose you opened a family of gluten-free bakeries that bested neighborhood competitors thanks to superior quality and lower prices. If the law had passed, you could have been accused of unfairly dominating the local gluten-free baked-goods market. That would be terrible for consumers, and leave small businesses vulnerable to frivolous lawsuits they couldn’t afford.
Third, the act’s introduction revealed that many state legislators fundamentally misunderstand today’s digital economy. The biggest and smallest businesses aren’t always competitors — they’re often partners. That is, small neighborhood businesses use the tools, platforms and reach of global tech companies to level the playing field and compete with bigger players.
I’ve spent much of my career helping small local businesses — particularly those owned by women, minorities and veterans — achieve success. I’m extraordinarily proud of the work I’ve done — because when small businesses thrive, families, communities and local economies do, too. New York’s entrepreneurs deserve thoughtful legislation that will make it easier — not harder — for them to grow and succeed. The failure of the Twenty-First Century Anti-Trust Act was a win for New York’s small businesses.
Richard Hayes is executive director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and an associate professor of management and entrepreneurship at Hofstra University.
