Tech Monopolies and Antitrust
How Big Tech concentrated market power, the global antitrust reckoning, and whether existing competition law can tame digital monopolies.
The Concentration Problem
Big Tech's market dominance exceeds anything seen since the Gilded Age. Google controls roughly 90% of global search. Apple and Google's duopoly controls 99% of mobile operating systems. Amazon captures roughly 40% of US e-commerce. Meta's apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) have over 3 billion daily active users. Microsoft's Office suite is used by over 1 billion people.
This concentration was achieved through a combination of network effects, data advantages, aggressive acquisitions (Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp; Google bought YouTube and DoubleClick), and platform strategies that make switching costly. The result is an economic landscape where a handful of companies control critical infrastructure -- search, advertising, app distribution, cloud computing, and increasingly, AI -- with limited competitive pressure.