#take this with a grain of salt it’s 4am and i speedread up on things in the past few hours

[ikjun]

idk if it’s interesting for anyone but the reason the hybe sm deal goes through with little economical fanfare is bc the fair trade laws surrounding big conglomerates like this are fairly weak sauce and what hybe (and kakao if they would have gotten the deal) is doing is basically just. buying off the market 101 in a chaebol-enforced economical makeup to keep kakao from creating their own bigger monopoly over the tech and entertainment sector. hybe is not yet in the process of aggressively and actively creating a monopoly, but they are creating an environment in the kpop industry that makes them the sole provider of artists / artistic labour etc. hybe buying into yg’s subsidiary shares and now making the deal with sm on behalf of lsm doesn’t make them seem like they’re forming an actual hostile monopoly bc they are moving through subsidiaries and ‘only’ acquiring shares in these companies through mutual agreement (lol) rather than downright buying them off. though we all know that is their end goal, especially when it comes to being the sole provider of kpop globally. sm basically handed the board to hybe while chris lee wanted kakao to have it. you pick your poison i guess … but it will still be poison.