OPINION|Is Facebook, Amazon, Google bad for America🤔
It is believed that monopolies harm the economy. A lot of Americans still believe this fact. The Tech-Giants are growing, as each day passes by and people worry about the volume of personal data these companies pose.
According to Senator Elizabeth Warren, “companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have way too much power over our economy, society, and democracy.”
Facebook has around 2.4 billion active monthly users. Amazon accounts for around 40% of all e-commerce spending in the USA. Lastly, Google gets more than 92% of global search engine inquiries. If we add Apple to the mix; it becomes the first company to cross the One Trillion Dollar mark in market-capitalization-a mark cap which is larger than the GDP of Saudi Arabia.
As we are aware that acquiring small startups with good engineers or even taking over the functioning of an entire company is how the majority of companies grow. The tech giants have grown powerfully because of such acquisitions and are now monopolies that have exploited the weakness of the existing law and lax enforcement to maintain and expand their dominance in the market.
Amazon is everywhere: in your TV with Prime Video, in your year with its Echo smart speakers, behind the websites and apps we use every day, in our grocery list with Whole Foods. The overall revenue of Amazon in 2020 was $386 billion.
All other tech giants in one way or the other have grown and have asserted their dominance.
Back in the 1880s, many companies in the US were growing into monopolies with the use of anticompetitive, oppressive business practices. As a result of this Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, and the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914-out lawing monopolies, cartels, and trusts. These acts were passed before we had TV, radio, and telephones, yet the principle that it should be illegal to monopolize the market through different means still holds.
According to Michael Salinger (antitrust expert); Before smashing modern monopolies, it is important to figure out if the tech giants have broken long-established antitrust laws.
In a hearing on 07/28/2020, all the 4 tech-giants CEOs came in front of Congress, in a hearing held by Antitrust Subcommittee Chair David Cicilline, concerning a yearlong investigation on whether the four companies regulate more of the U.S economy than our public officials do.
Two-thirds of Americans think that these entities propagate misinformation, harm mental health, and promote racial discrimination, with no virtual accountability. Moreover, the harm is real, Americans have lost over a hundred thousand local independent retail businesses, a drop of 40% from 2000 to 2015 has been recorded and is largely because of Amazon.
Monopolies are Un-American
