Do Big Tech companies compete with each other?
Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon compete in some realms but also collude and finance each other.
Apple versus Google. Microsoft versus Google. Google versus Facebook. Apple versus Facebook. Microsoft versus Apple. Amazon versus Microsoft. There are many popular narratives of tech companies competing with each other. When people call for antitrust regulation many are quick to point out that these companies don’t need more competitors, they compete with each other!
In many realms that’s true. We see Apple implementing ad restrictions to destroy Facebook’s advertising business while they scheme to launch their own Apple Ads service. Google and Apple famously compete with each other in the smartphone market. Microsoft and Google are trying to catch up to Amazon in terms of cloud services offerings. YouTube and Prime Video go head to head. There are many ways you can slice and dice how Big Tech companies compete for each other.
One thing that’s often overlooked though is how Big Tech competes cooperate, collude, finance and support each other. A common shallow critique of antitrust is saying well if there’s one competitor it isn’t a monopoly. What we have most resembles an oligopoly running the American tech economy.
