Five Tech Giants Just Keep Growing | Hacker News Reader

Five Tech Giants Just Keep Growing

wsj.com

6 pointsthrowawaysea7 comments

> The stock market gives a glimpse of just how enormous these companies have become in this extraordinary period: Combined market value for the five Big Tech companies is now over $8 trillion, accounting for nearly a quarter of the total value of the companies in the S&P 500. That is nearly double the percentage five years ago.

We need new and revised antitrust laws, and a strong push to enforce them, to restore a fair, competitive environment that welcomes new businesses. Right now these conglomerates are too big, wield too much capital, have too much influence, and can copy others’ ideas freely to keep growing. Anytime we see someone smaller innovate (like Slack), we see a tech giant steal the idea (like Microsoft Teams). Their massive patent war chests make challenging them difficult. Their access to capital means they can loss lead and enter new markets while starving others. And as we have seen with their censorship and deplatforming efforts, they are as powerful as governments, able to control public speech across hundreds of millions of people. What we have today is an unacceptable situation.

I also think a new revival of small and medium businesses could be a great way to fairly redistribute power and wealth, within the structure of a competitive market environment, rather than simply redistributing towards equal outcomes for everyone.

It is not just, people keep giving their money to them. Problem is that most common people always value a convenient prison over a little less convenient freedom. Most common people can't deal with freedom and need a hand of their favorite overlord to function. It is not a conscious decision as if you ask them they will reject that thought.

But the products created by these giants are in fact often better than their smaller competitors, even if for no better reason than because the large company is subsiding the construction. The narrative assumption that people want the bad parts of these companies ignores the survey data that shows that people do care about things like privacy, and choose options when possible that optimize for it... they just can't afford it or have to make tradeoffs against it versus other things; like, I would never leave Facebook as I have lots of friends who use it and I want to see their photos and hear about their lives and get invited to their parties. A remarkable number of people--despite all the pains and costs of doing so--jailbroke their iPhones: most people like what Apple is selling despite it being closed, not because of it.

Do you mind my asking what survey data this is? I would like it to be true, but my everyday experiences with people continually suggests otherwise. You just have to look at the example you give, Facebook, to see how much data people willingly put online in the public domain. This isn't because they wish they could share privately with a small number of people and have had to compromise - it's because they relish the act of publishing to a virtually infinite audience.

Isnt most of their profit cloud services to businesses?

https://archive.is/cbMRz

Has anyone else had issues using Archive on mobile browsers? I always see a CAPTCHA that renders off screen, with no way to pan it into view or react to it.

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