Growing concern over the rise of internet giants

Absrtact: A print edition of the British economist, which will be published on December 1, said that Google (Weibo), Apple, Facebook and Amazon were the four major internet age giants, with an unprecedented growth rate and broad business coverage. and the market for Internet giants

Google (Weibo), Apple, Facebook and Amazon are the four major internet age giants, with unprecedented growth and business coverage, according to a print edition of the British economist, which will be published on December 1. And the growing concern over the rise of internet giants has led to a number of antitrust investigations, with Google leading the way, but antitrust authorities should tread cautiously.

The following are the main contents of the article:

The four giants of the internet age-Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon-are comparable. There has never been a single company in the world that has grown so rapidly and has reached such a wide range of business as the four companies mentioned above.

Apple has become a Big Mac in the capital markets, with a weighting of 4.3% per cent in the S & P 500 index and a 1.1% per cent share of the global securities market. Today, about 425 million people are using the itunes online store to buy music and other digital content products through the dense virtual shelves. At the same time, Google is undoubtedly the global search and online advertising market leader. Of the global smartphone shipments, the Android operating system takes up three-fourths of the equipment. Amazon is a leader in the online retail and e-book markets of many countries, less known for its cloud computing business. As for Facebook, if the social network is likened to a country, its 1 billion users are enough to make it the third largest population in the world. With the help of these technology giants, the digital revolution, which has benefited consumers and businesses, has helped to promote freedom of speech and the spread of democracy, but it has also sparked fear and suspicion in the market. Without control, the size and pace of these firms will either curb competition. That is why they are closely watched by regulators.

The biggest threat to the company is Google. The European Commission (hereinafter referred to as "the European Committee") and the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") have been investigating Google, according to allegations that Google manipulated its search results to benefit its services. Mini-advertisements Commission In addition, Google faces a number of other allegations, including the use of its patents to impede legitimate competition in the smartphone market. The law enforcement department wants to deny that the alleged Google is able to change its approach, and if the talks break down, Google may be stuck in expensive lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic. The antitrust lawsuit proposed by Google has become a decisive battle in the Internet era, as Microsoft defined the PC era as a landmark antitrust dispute with the European Union 10 years ago, accusing Microsoft of bundling IE with Windows operating systems.

The size of the company is important.

Today, there are three trends warning that digital giants are becoming too powerful for consumer interests. First, the "winner take All" mode in the rise of the Internet. While Microsoft has invested heavily in Bing's search engine, Google still occupies more than two-thirds per cent of the U.S. search market, compared with 90% or more in some parts of the European market. Facebook, too, is a quasi monopoly in the age of social networking. Rivals worry that the big four will take advantage of their dominant position in other areas to gain an overwhelming competitive advantage, which is the core complaint against Google's antitrust case.

Second, the tech giants want consumers to indulge in their own "platform", combining online services with smartphones and safe computer applications. These platforms are very attractive. Apple is actually making a lot of money because its lucrative iphone has become a remote control for many people's digital lives. However, markets are worried that companies such as Apple are building a "walled garden" that restricts users ' transfer of content between platforms.

Third, internet giants are always annexing companies that have prospects before they become their own threat. This week, Amazon issued 3 billion dollars for its first issue of bonds in 15 years to buy Zappos, an online footwear retailer determined to compete with Amazon. Facebook and Google have also carried out large mergers and acquisitions, such as Instagram and AdMob, which have led to tough scrutiny by regulators.

So far, regulators have largely taken "surgical strikes" in areas such as quick attacks, such as the online search market and the E-book market (Apple and several publishers have been investigated for allegedly monopolizing the price of E-books). The aim of these regulators is to quickly reach a settlement agreement with negotiated remedies to reduce bad market behaviour.

But some people think it is too weak. The market has been called on to split Google into two separate companies, its search business independent. Tim Wu, a professor and FTC advisor at Columbia University Law School, Tim Wu even suggested that to promote market competition, large "information monopolies", such as Apple and Google, should be forced to choose between digital content providers, hardware manufacturers and confidence-makers (services like cloud computing).

Such companies do more harm than good. In fact, the rush to the platforms of large web companies shows that consumers are perfectly willing to make trade openings for convenience and ease of use. If they want to change providers, the cost of doing so has fallen sharply in the broadband era. Switching to a new search engine or music service is only a matter of seconds. This time, in addition to a market leader (such as Microsoft), there is a scuffle between all opponents.

Smartphones, which use Google's Android operating system, have become the dominant smartphone market, breaking the Apple iphone's dominance of the market. Amazon's Kindle Tablet PC is also starting to hand-to-hand with Apple's ipad. Google + is on Facebook in the social networking arena. Facebook and Apple, plus Microsoft, are now eyeing Google's dominance in the search market. Smaller companies such as Twitter are also keen to become Big Macs and have rejected bids from giants. And Facebook itself was just a start-up 8 years ago.

Schumpeter theory, version 2.0

In fact, the rapid advances in technology have reminded Joseph Schumpeter (Joseph Schumpeter, note: Schumpeter, one of the representative figures of contemporary bourgeois economics, is the first scholar to associate the market layout with the innovation movement) to compare capitalism to " "The eternal storm of creative destruction", the idea that innovative insurgents challenge recalcitrant incumbents and sweep the economic circles of the day. It now appears that while regulators are still dealing with the issue, Microsoft's antitrust problems do not seem to be as serious as they are, and the tech giant Octopus does not realise it is running counter to current business trends. Today's big Four are also being accused of arrogance and making enemies everywhere. If they really want to keep the antitrust people out of the door, they should not allow themselves to expand.