Are we missing something about the power of Big Tech?

I want to talk about power. I know, we have been talking a lot about the growing power of Big Tech these days and their troubles in the US, Europe and even China. But I’m not going to write about antitrust. (Ok, that’s a lie, I’ll mention it, but only to compare it to something else.)

Big Tech’s power has been spreading in two ways:

1.  BIGGER: Through the creation of monopolies, category kings and oligopolies. An example would be Google’s dominance in web search, digital advertising and smartphone software. They have very little true competition, the barriers to entry are very high and they can basically ask the prices that they want. This is not a new phenomenon. And governments have always sought ways to fight these power dynamics by breaking giants up into pieces that seem more harmless to them. Just think of AT & T that was chopped into 7 different companies in 1974.
2. WIDER: On August 20, it will be 10 years since Marc Andreessen wrote the visionary “software is eating the world”. What he meant was that “every company needs to become a software company”. After 10 years, it turns out that software has indeed eaten a big part of the world. But it’s not so much the atoms companies who have turned their business digital. It’s mostly the Big Tech companies that have been slowly munching away at many new industries.

Making themselves essential

Technology companies have been creeping into many different industries for quite a while now. Not just adjacent tech industries like consumer electronics, AI and quantum computing but in mobility, energy, healthcare, agriculture, smart cities and education. And they are joined by some very clever and immense players that know how to wield technology. Walmart and Ping An moving into healthcare would be good examples.

What strikes me the most is that their biggest investments seem to be in industries that are conceived as essential industries. Industries that find themselves in the lower half of the Maslow pyramid of needs: like healthcare (safety needs), smart cities (physiological needs) and agriculture (physiological needs).

Here are just a few examples:

Tech companies in agriculture

Amazon (Plenty), Microsoft (Agro-brain), Google (Mineral), Alibaba (Agricultural Brain platform), JD.com (JD Intelligent Stock Breeding Solution)

Tech companies in healthcare

Amazon (Amazon Pharmacy, Amazon Care), Google (Verily, Google Healthcare Natural Language API), Microsoft (digital offering for personalized healthcare and shopping together with Walgreens Boots Alliance and Adobe), Apple (wearables and consumer health)

Tech companies in education

Netflix (through its documentary library), YouTube has many courses available, Google (Google Career Certificates), Amazon (Amazon Academy), Tencent (Tencent Education), Microsoft (Microsoft Educator Center)

It could be perceived as strange that governments see problems in the BECOMING BIGGER power dynamic of – too much power over one product, service or industry - but not in the WIDENING process. I understand why, of course. While governments claim they are protecting the citizen, or the consumer, what they are really doing is safeguarding the market. Also, whatever would they tell them? “Hey, man, not cool, man, stick to your own industry, man?”

Protecting the market, not the citizen

Monopolies and oligopolies turn markets into very unhealthy places. And yes, if the market is unhealthy, then the citizen suffers. So they are indirectly looking after them too. But they seem not very protective when the same company that knows their (mental) health data, what they are eating and how little they are moving, might sell them expensive health insurance. It’s understandable. Someone who eats chicken nuggets every day, no veggies, doesn’t move and drinks a lot of beer, will probably get health problems at one point. In a way, it’s only fair that they would pay more if they don’t take care of themselves.

Or is it? Is it when we know that poorer people tend to eat less healthy, for instance? Everything has a dark side. Just the same with personalization.

Now, is it good news that Big Tech and Tech Wielding Giants are moving into essential industries? To quote Vicky Pollard: “Yeah, but no, but yeah, but no.”

Yeah, but no, it’s great innit, cuz’:

• When a service gets ‘techified’ it often becomes more accessible and cheaper. In the case of essential sectors, that is always good news. Over-expensive pricing is one of the metrics that governments use to track monopolies and this is pretty much the opposite that’s happening.
• The data that the service produces, is fed back into the machine and the service gets better. As a side note: it gets better for the user (better service) and for the company (know more, sell more).

No, but yeah, it’s bad innit, cuz:

• Like I said, data and personalization have a dark side. Healthcare services might get cheaper, but only for those “good boys and girls” who eat healthy, sport and have an extensive safety net of loved ones (important for mental health).
• Also: it’s very delicate to have big companies wield too much power in essential businesses.
• And the more services in the more industry one player offers you, the more knowledge and power he has over you.
• So, in the end, the price may not be expensive in euros or dollars or whatever - one of the red flags for monopolies - but it is in privacy, control, freedom and probably even equality.

In a way, software is not just eating the world, but our lives. One day, we might even be moving into a “one (wo)man, one company” kind of situation where we buy all of our essential and other services from the same company, possibly with some sort of life subscription.

Am I a hater of Big Tech or technology in general? Absolutely not. Technology has helped us achieve wonderful things. But I do think that we should be asking a lot more questions about it. 

This piece was first published in my bi-monthly newsletter 'The Questions'. If you like what you've read, it would mean a lot to me if you considered subscribing here.