Have the Big Tech Giants got too much power ?

[No, this not another Trump v. Twitter thread. The issues go much beyond that]

There are actually not many places left where you can safely debate this sort of topic without running the risk of being shadow banned or face other sanctions like having your *social credit score reduced.

Big Tech, that is the likes Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft have amply demonstrated that they don't shy away from using censorship, denial of services etc. to influence opinion and events also in the political arena.

These companies have inveigled themselves into this position by their monopolistic practices, systematically destroying competition and now in an incredible position to abuse the monopoly of power which they have accumulated.

Surely this cannot last. It is inevitable that they will face an increasingly hostile regulatory environment which will seek to neutralise this power they have accumulated. (Taxation, Anti Trust fines, mandatory divestment etc.)

China is actually a good example here because the "free world" (yes, that's us!) appears to be closely following where they lead and the monopolistic practices of the big tech giants such as Ant Group Co. are coming under increasingly severe scrutiny.

Don't even imagine these giants are providing all these services (even including free services) for altruistic reasons. They are dumping these services to snuff out the competition or to harvest data in order to increase their power. In other words, they are currently reaping where they have not sown.


*China - not yet practised here.

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If you have difficulties with a post which contains a link to a site in one of the Swiss languages, use Google Translate or your own favourite translating browser.

Pst - you advertize Google in your siggy.

Otherwise, I agree.

Way too much power..

But .. People want convenience .. and accept the cost of the loss of their privacy.

We're not all using Threema because, well everybody else is not so we'd be lonely on there by ourselves.

Many facebook clones offering privacy have come and gone.

Until we walk away en masse this is it..

People managed to walk away, decently and civilly, from "communism". I agree with what you wrote.

A perfect example of the power that Google has accumulated. They built have that translator from the data they harvest that others have painstakingly collected, scanning newspapers, emails, documents etc. and have successfully destroyed the alternatives like dictionary publishers etc.

No ones forces you to use google, cisco, microsoft and etc... you use it because its convenient for you...



With that being said, the power its you that providing for the techs.



Blame on them its not fair... btw, theis policy and privacies things are very clear to be read.



I use google to search, but my browser is pretty much hardened against cookies and etc.



We start here saying about tech with too much power... then its better to avoid cellphones...

That is the nature of a monopoly service. Nobody forces you to take a SBB train from Zürich to Bern, for example. But trying to organise your own would be next to impossible. What protects you from massive exploitation when you buy such a train ticket, though, is the regulatory environment. Exactly that is ineffective in your dealings with Big Tech.

I think they got protection they did not deserve: publishers. They aren't.

It's like barging in private talks and saying people can only 'vous-voyer'.

Well, they also know from ResearchGate papers that get stored on Google search that people tend to retain very little from digital sources compared to really published papers. And that with hard copy of documents, fraud is less possible. Teachers know.

I think tech companies will continue to have power over people as long as people do not bother to question what kind of power it has over them. I see a LOT of people using Facebook, etc. without ever questioning how it's designed to affect and manipulate them psychologically and program their behavior. And then of course, when you do talk about it, most people just get angry and defensive about it, because they're addicted and don't want to admit they're being manipulated.