NOT long ago,being the boss of a mammoth Western tech firm was a dream job. As the billions rolled in, so did the plaudits: Google, and Facebook,Amazon and others were making the world a better place. Today these companies are accused of being BAADD—mammoth, anti-competitive, and addictive and destructive to democracy. Regulators fine them,politicians grill them and one-time backers warn of their power to cause harm.
Much of this techlash is misguided. The presumption that mammoth businesses must necessarily be wicked is plain mistaken. Apple is to be admired as the world’s most valuable listed company for the simple reason that it makes things people want to buy, even while facing fierce competition. Many online services would be worse if their providers were smaller. Evidence for the link between smartphones and unhappiness is feeble. Fake news is not only an online phenomenon.
But mammoth tech platforms, or particularly Facebook,Google and Amazon, do indeed raise a worry approximately objective competition. That is...
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Source: economist.com