JAMES BALL
On each day of 2018 Apple sold almost 600,000 iPhones, Amazon made more than $500m in sales, some 1.47bn people logged onto Facebook, while there were 3.5bn searches on Google. The oldest of these companies, Apple, was founded in 1976, and just a decade ago all four were seen as scrappy—if fast-growing—outsiders. Today, even after Apple’s recent market travils, they are four of the biggest companies on the planet.
Any set of companies growing so big this rapidly would be cause for concern. But in the case of the technology giants, “concern” doesn’t quite cut it. Facebook is the biggest platform on the planet, and has been implicated in efforts from Russia and others to poison the online information ecosystem. Retailers and suppliers alike fear Amazon’s market power, while Google’s dominance of search feels all but unassailable—and Apple has shown its ability to flex its power over app and music markets, not just the mobile phone market it most obviously plays in.
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March 2019
 
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