Big Tech May Look Troubled, but It’s Just Getting Started - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/01/technology/big-tech-troubled-just-getting-started.html
Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, together generated $166.9 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2018 alone — up 24 percent from a year earlier, when the four companies hauled in $134.4 billion.
“Much as people are now wary or even unhappy with the outsized power held by Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc., they are simultaneously quite dependent on the services they provide,” said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Big Tech needs to be regulated, many are beginning to argue, and yet there are worries about giving that power to the government.
“The government doesn’t have a good clue,” said Mr. Bajarin, the consultant. “They’re not even asking the kind of questions that would drive to regulation.”
Which leaves regulation up to the companies themselves, always a dubious proposition.