I don't think you can consider 5 companies to be an oligopoly especially when you don't see monopolistic practices. These companies regularly undercut each other and innovate.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...
and collude:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/07/apple-450...
...and collude:
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6590827/apple-music-m...
Those companies have had a decade at the top with all the money and talent in the world. Has tech gotten that much better since 2007? Has Apple's hardware gotten better relative to the competition? Has your web experience gotten remarkably better? Do we prefer Allo or Hangouts or x, y, or z to Google Talk?
With the clout they have you have to innovate some and they certainly have. The question is whether they have innovated substantially. It doesn't seem like it.
Yes
> Apple's hardware gotten better relative to the competition?
"Relative", explain why you put that qualifier please beyond not having an argument. Also yes.
> Has your web experience gotten remarkably better?
Yes
> Do we prefer Allo or Hangouts or x, y, or z to Google Talk?
Hangouts, what's your point here?
You really don't remember what tech was like 10 years ago.
(Actually I have one from work, but I only seem to use it as a wireless hotspot.)
But XP was very good for its time -- it brought in the big menus and (quasi?) full-screen stuff which later metastasied in Win 10. Though those menus were also a throwback to the good old DOS text-mode menu systems.
Win7 was of course another good one, a few years later. But note: the difference between Win7 and Vista was not the UI design -- it was the performance and other aspects of technical execution.
I used Vista until 7 came out. I usually upgrade Windows versions rapidly. Linux too, I usually jump into the Fedora betas. I haven't been sorry yet.
Anyway, your own statement is contradictory. From what you said 10% is not "no one."
> Do you think there would be more or less innovation with more smaller firms?
Likely less, I do not think that private space exploration or self driving cars would be possible without the massive accumulation of capital enabled by tech giants.
Now let's look at the counterfactual, the US has massive tech giants and the majority innovation comes from or to the US. Other countries don't, other countries don't have nearly as much innovation bar a few exceptions.
And truthfully, I find people that are anti capitalism to be far more interesting. It's amazing that people can convince themselves that private ownership is wrong while living in the most prosperous time in history and also believing that stripping those better off of their wealth will somehow lead to a more prosperous society when every time it has been done it has lead to disaster.
Yes Capitalism and Liberal Democracy is the most powerful system man has ever created. Hopefully we don't screw it up by giving all the credit to the guy handing you the apple from the orchard we call the "western world"
Football is an awesome game but without the guys in the black and white uniforms it would be nothing but chaos.
Yet people are building self-driving cars as a hobby project. Sure, the whole topic would not progress that fast, but that statement is a bit overblown. (Same for private space exploration to a much more limited extent.)
Also, they're building these systems using tech that has been developed and open-sourced by the big players.