I just found an article in a german newspaper called Süddeutsche Zeitung. It inspired me to write the following post. I've been thinking about that topic for a while know and I've been discussing it with friends quite a few times. I would like to share this discussion with you.
What's it about?
Growing unrivaled strength of mega-corporations such as Amazon, Google and Facebook
The facts
companies market share
Amazon: 65 percent online book trade
Google: 90 percent search engine market
Facebook: 75 percent of mobile communications services
In addition, Google and Facebook account for 90 percent of digital advertising revenues
One thing is clear: Economic competition is in jeopardy. What is to do about the seemingly exponential growth of those companies? Big problem: We actually don't really want it ourselves! I find myself in"we" as well and so do many of my friends. More precisely, I can only think of a handful of people who are not in possession of a Facebook account. I have already ordered on Amazon. Granted - it is very comfortable. And who can honestly claim that he doesn't jump to Google's main page if he wants to look up some facts?
And why do we focus only but on global big players?
Very simple:
This results in the following difficulties, among others:
- Other companies are losing momentum and capability to be innovativ product quality decreases
- Decreasing availability of regional jobs
- Less chances for young start-ups to get a foothold in the market
What can be done about it?
There's two instruments based on antitrust law
Merger control: Large companies can be more rigorously controlled and, if necessary, be prevented from buying up smaller, potential competitors. However, the limits are not always clear, especially when a company's services are offered free of charge. Example: Facebook buys Whatsapp, which had little sales. Merger control could not intervene. Now the law has become more stringent in this respect.
control of abusive practices: Dominant companies are checked for illegal activities. This is strategies that weaken competition in general. For example, Google was charged with a record fine of $2.4 billion for displaying its own products first in the online search.
It is quite remarkable that the EU is more critical in terms of competition law than the US authorities. That is why these companies are also becoming increasingly strong, especially in the United States.
In addition to the usual online behaviour of users, Google knows 70 percent of all credit card transactions.
Now we have just slipped from one topic to another issue of concern: Data privacy. But I would rather safe that for another day. I am writing this article because I think the facts it contains are worth knowing, assuming that most attentive consumers are not entirely mindblown. We all know them, we all use them - no surprise. But numbers often cause me to reflect better. It's simply more accessible for me.
Now I'm really curious about your thoughts on the subject. If you buy from Amazon, will you find alternatives, how do we make the market more independent again?
Finally, I would like to recommend a search engine that I have known for a long time and that I just - in the process of writing - set as my default search engine: With the use of Ecosia we even contribute to our environment - great!