Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google are among the five largest firms in the information technology (IT) industry in the United States and are known as the Big Tech. Microsoft is occasionally added to this list when it fulfills certain criteria of market cap, profits, revenues, employee count, or desirability as an employer.
Big Tech businesses have become some of the most lucrative publicly listed companies in the world, with market capitalizations ranging from $500 billion to $2 trillion. They operate in several sectors and have a strong effect on consumers across multiple platforms. Each of the major technology firms serves as a hub for high-tech internet services and activities.
These top IT corporations enjoy a monopoly in their respective fields. For example, Amazon is the e-commerce giant, Facebook is the leading social media platform in the world, Google is the search engine chief, and Apple is the communication hardware chairman. These digital behemoths wield such power in their areas owing to their in-depth understanding of market demands and their ability to provide products that meet those needs while ensuring consumer satisfaction.
The Big Tech giants also know how to break into new and emerging markets. Facebook bolstered its social networking position by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. While Amazon dominates both e-commerce and streaming services. Moreover, its acquisition of Whole Foods has significantly boosted its physical presence. Google isn't only about search engines; they also provide email, video sharing, and other services to users.
These leading IT companies of the world have radically altered how people use technology, establishing a digital ecosystem that relies on these businesses' services on a daily basis for millions of individuals. As a result, questions and concerns about these businesses' ever-increasing degree of power often arise. While some argue that these firms are promoting social change, others point to their commercial dominance and express concerns about a tech monopoly.
Since Big Tech has so much power and has such an impact throughout the world, concerns have also been voiced that its authoritarian business methods are excessively concentrated and focused on disproportionate profit, mass monitoring, inadequate security and privacy, obnoxious advertising, and rampant data theft. Their development, on the other hand, is unstoppable, with free internet services, improved smartphone capability, and widely accessible e-commerce.
Since they provide consumers cheaper services than ever before, several of the big digital corporations have been able to dodge any significant competition inquiries. Monopolistic practices, on the other hand, are increasingly being investigated.
Their ability to pay what looked to be excessive fees for quickly developing competitors has been one topic of attention. According to emails obtained by the US Congress, Mark Zuckerberg suggested that Facebook acquire Instagram in order to counteract the threat it poses. Facebook has started to merge Instagram's messaging capabilities with its other social network, Whatsapp, in breach of previous assurances.
In the United States, Google is under severe antitrust scrutiny for its dominance in internet search, which the EU determined it had exploited by enhancing results for its own operations in 2017.
Companies attempting to offer services to iPhone consumers are becoming hostile to Apple. Epic Games, the founder of the massively popular Fortnite video game franchise, and Spotify, the music streaming platform, have both submitted legal objections against Apple's assertion on taking a 30% cut of all app store sales, including music streaming subscriptions, which Spotify and many other third-party app developers have long complained is an unreasonable "tax."
However, blockchain is a big fighting chance for companies who want to end the monopoly of Big Tech.
Many tech companies are currently developing methods to leverage blockchains and related technologies to establish social media networks, store online information, and host websites without the need for a central authority. It will be far more difficult for any government or corporation to block accounts or remove content if this is implemented.
After the big tech companies have exerted their leverage in ways that raised worries about their authority, these experiments have resurfaced. Tech companies are investing in cryptocurrencies simply because they are based on a simple internet technology that is independent of any single person or entity's control or influence. This is what the internet aspires to be, and it will become more so over time.