Breaking Up Big Tech: An Opinion from an Un-Opinionated Person
When I was in middle school, my english teachers tried so hard to squeeze an opinion out of me in my essays. I always thought I was presenting an opinion, and it only took eight years to realize that I may be one of the least opinionated people I know. I never feel like I’ve seen enough sides or thought about every solution to form a well thought out idea. That’s also the easy way out, however. Saying “I don’t know,” and moving on is way easier than thinking and formulating.
I’ve been thinking about big tech and privacy concerns for a couple months now, after I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix in September. Unfortunately, there is nothing clear cut and simple about this issue. It’s big and messy and there’s only about a million different angles to look at the issue from.
According to Tech Republic, these are some pros and cons of breaking up companies like Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon:
Pros
- small digital platforms companies will have a tough time competing
- new laws can promote competition
- with new companies comes the potential for new innovations that incumbents can’t see
Cons:
- these large companies have the resources to invest in R&D, and if broken up that could go away
- it could be harmful to innovation in the industry
- lack of discussion about what will actually happen if big tech is broken up
The Un-Opinionated Person’s Opinion
After listening to The Prof G Show with Scott Galloway podcast where he interviews Sinan Aral, the author of “The Hype Machine,” I realized that this conversation has been over-simplified. The only way it can be discussed as pros and cons of breaking up big tech is if you look through the lens of trying to resolve antitrust issues. But what about data privacy? Sure, breaking up big tech could teach Facebook a small lesson in data misuse, but the bigger problem at hand is ad-supported businesses, according to Aral.
The main idea I learned from watching The Social Dilemma is that we are being sucked into social media platforms to watch ads, and these platforms will collect as much data as humanly (or I guess AI?) possible to make sure you watch ads on their sites or apps.
All drama aside, breaking up big tech doesn’t resolve the idea of platforms trying to be more addicting than others to get the most ad viewers. Therefore, it doesn’t fully address data misuse. As long as these businesses can thrive on ad-supported business models, our data will most likely be mishandled in the name of making money.
At the end of the day, the conversation is not whether or not big tech should be broken up, unless you want to focus on misconduct. There are other issues that that conversation does not directly address, but are just as important. Personally, I believe that finding a way to prevent these companies from competing against each other, and rather work together is the right direction. Sinan Aral uses the term “interoperability,” and I honestly have no idea how exactly that would work, but it seems like a step in right direction.
The Copout Opinion: An Explanation
Sure, thinking that we’re oversimplifying the conversation seems like a sad excuse of an opinion, and I can hear my middle school english teachers begging me to go deeper. Yet, this is a topic that people have been researching for years, and it only gets more complicated as more platforms are released and data is misused in new ways.
Plus, I don’t think I can wrap my head around what would happen if these big tech companies were broken up, or if they switched from ad-based models. I’ve been in school for advertising and marketing for five years now, and that’s enough time to know that the implications of that would be massive on every company that runs digital advertising.
So, I loop back to my copout, but with a fancier wording than “I don’t know.” Yet, it’s not to move on and forget about it. It’s to keep learning, discussing, and reformulating ideas. I think it’s comfortable to think of a solution and stand by it, but not everything is that straight-forward (and this topic is the furthest thing from straight-forward).
If you want to help an un-opinionated person out, let me know what you think about this topic in the comments. I’d love to discuss it.
