Coopting Disruption - How Five Companies Dominate the Web

A new paper titled "Coopting Disruption" exposes the tricks and tactics used by BigTech to stay ahead of startups and potential competitors.

“The most exciting thing I see on the horizon right now for the tech industry is the raft of antitrust suits”

- Mark Hurst, “Big Tech’s corruption was 25 years in the making”             

In the digital world, we are prisoners who are told we are free. 

Just five companies: Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Meta have deciding influence over the entire digital economy and infrastructure. 

• Alphabet’s Google search has 81% of the search market

• Chrome has 59% of the desktop browser market

• Android has 47% of the mobile operating system market

• Amazon has at least 40% of the online retail market 

• AWS has 24% of the cloud computing market (three times the share of its closest competitor, Microsoft Azure) 

• Apple’s Safari has 56% of the mobile browser market

•  iOS has 52% of the mobile operating system market

• Meta’s social media platforms: Facebook has 1.8 billion users, WhatsApp has 2.0 billion users, and Instagram has 1.4 billion users. 

• Microsoft Windows has around 73% of the desktop operating system market. 

For twenty years now, the five tech giants have blocked new competitors from entering the market. As a result, digital innovation has stagnated and consumers have very limited choice over what services to use. 

At the same time, recommendation algorithms and filter bubbles have flattened culture and turned creative work into status-seeking games with a higher traction for posts that cater to common denominators and follow trends.  Arguably, monoculture is the work of algorithms and the tight grip a few domineering platforms have on the digital infrastructure. 

We are now seeing early signs of a reckoning. Federal antitrust lawsuits are happening in the US against Amazon, Meta,  Google, and Apple. In the EU, Apple was fined €1.8 billion last month following a complaint brought by Spotify regarding the unfair trading conditions on Apple’s App Store, and new, tight regulation that will adversely impact the tech giants recently came into force with the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act. 

This week’s post summarizes some of the key findings from a paper written by Mark A. Lemley from Stanford Law School and Matthew Wansley from Yeshiva University, posted on SSRN on February 6, titled “Coopting Disruption”.  The authors describe the hidden tactics used by the five tech giants that keep them in control of our digital lives and block competition. As Cory Doctorow says the tech giants have “disrupted disruption”.