The increasing power and reach of tech giants has been troubling me for some years, and no one has seemed to care about this creeping concentration of power . . . or at least care enough even to question it or do something about it.
For most people, the power of Google is pretty invisible (except in the aspect of all the ads that appear on our screens for anything we may done a search for, whether for ourselves, an aged parent, an inquisitive grandchild, or a mere fancy). But it has our lives in lock: it's not just a question of privacy. It's an economic influence, and an influence on the kinds of information to which we have access.
The biggest bugaboo for me is Amazon, which is out of control. Not content to wreak havoc on the publishing industry (strong-arming them into pricing that has affected the kinds of books they're able or willing to publish) and retail in general, they've taken over one of the nation's largest newspapers, and now are encroaching on our food supply.
I've been receiving daily emails from the Washington Post ever since I signed up to receive daily briefings from Ezra Klein's Wonkblog many years ago, before he left to start his own endeavor. Just recently, these daily emails have been arriving not from the Washington Post but from Amazon! Really? Should that even be legal? Where is the bright line that would separate a business concern from a publishing one? I now refuse to open these emails.
We have an obligation to fight this alongside Democratic politicians. You don't have to buy from Amazon (no matter how convenient it is). Their prices are not always better, and if they are, most stores will match their price if you show them (I do it all the time). You can protest that Amazon is now pushing the newspaper that its owner also owns ... the effects are yet to be seen.
Like the consolidation of banks into giant behemoths that started in the late eighties and early nineties, this monopolization of tech companies needs to be aggressively fought before its too late to turn back. We'll have no right to complain ten years from now if we enable it go on now.
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