Elizabeth Kolbert at The New Yorker writes about the implications that technology monopolies have for culture by asking "Who owns the Internet?". Three decades ago, few used the Internet for much of anything and the web wasn't even around. Today, nearly everybody uses the web, and to a lesser extent, other parts of the Internet for just about everything. However, despite massive growth, the Web has narrowed very much: "Google now controls nearly ninety per cent of search advertising, Facebook almost eighty per cent of mobile social traffic, and Amazon about seventy-five per cent of e-book sales."
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday August 24 2017, @04:12PM
It's still a monopoly when said company takes steps to stifle competition. Google has already demonstratively hurt a variety of other companies by doing anti-competitive things. Intentionally devaluing competitors in their search listings. Bundling their google services such that Android manufacturers have no choice but to use Google's services if they want to be validated and have access to google's play store.