GAFA The problems linked to these platforms and what can we do to remedy it :
French critics came up with the acronym Gafa [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon] to encapsulate America's evil internet empire.
Premises :
Not long ago, being the boss of a big Western tech firm was a dream job. As the billions rolled in, so did the plaudits: Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others were making the world a better place. Today these companies are accused of being BAADD—big, anti-competitive, addictive and destructive to democracy.
Now the author raises the point that this tech clash is misguided. He emphasized the point that not because they make things people wanna use or buy they shouldn’t be demonized.
Then he addresses the urgent issues linked with the fast growth of this company which is fair competition and legal exemptions. On the long run, this would only grow to the digital form and the data-driven business model that these companies follow
The less severe contest :
The platforms have become so dominant because they benefit from “network effects”
Some facts :
. Amazon captures over 40% of online shopping in America.
. With more than 2bn monthly users, Facebook holds sway over the media industry
. Firms cannot do without Google, which in some countries processes more than 90% of web searches.
. Facebook and Google control two-thirds of America’s online ad revenues.
Results :
. The barrier entry are rising
. Most ideas will be bought by big companies
. The successful startups will also be bought
The rivalry remedy:
The problematic
In the past, societies have tackled monopolies either by breaking them up, as with Standard Oil in 1911 or by regulating them as a public utility, as with AT&T in 1913. Today both approaches have big drawbacks. The traditional tools of utility regulation, such as price controls and profit caps, are hard to apply since most products are free and would come at a high price in foregone investment and innovation. Likewise, a full-scale break-up would cripple the platforms’ economies of scale, worsening the service they offer consumers. And even then, in all likelihood one of the Googlettes or Facebabies would eventually sweep all before it as the inexorable logic of network effects reasserted itself.
Proposed solutions:
. make better use of existing competition law
. Immunity to content liability must go. trustbusters need to think afresh about how tech markets work.
In essence, this means giving people more control over their information. If a user so desires, key data should be made available in real-time to other firms—as banks in Europe are now required to do with customers’ account information.
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