Our government has abandoned a rich and socially beneficial history of trust-busting to allow big tech to dominate people’s lives.
Tim Wu, The Curse of Bigness
Big tech value
- Facebook, $759 billion
- Amazon, $1.6 trillion
- Netflix, $238 billion
- Google, $1.4 billion
- Apple, $2.2 trillion
- Microsoft, $1.8 trillion
The rise of FANGAM
Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Apple, Microsoft
Unsustainable growth
Big Tech rises even as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc. The S&P index closed in December up 18%—two-thirds were FANGAM stocks.
Some animals are more equal
Monopolizing a market frees the company from addressing market interest. Lack of choice on services essential to core processes leaves operations exposed. AI is a huge part of technology. Decision trees, including ethics and customer interest, shift away from customers toward elevating the monopoly.
Multifamily housing business relies heavily on Big Tech for marketing, property communications and business visibility. Operational continuity, data security and business resilience are imperative in all environments.
Expanding a business’s footprint with redundant systems and providers hedges risk and creates new lines of communication and marketing. This future-proofs apartment businesses through all possible outcomes of the future of Big Tech, as well as creates a back up operational plan.
Here are some tech alternatives that offer greater security through end-to-end encryption, anti-tracking, ad-free platforms and do not manipulate content.
Tech 202
TEXTING
Signal
Users: 50 million
Headquarters: Mountain View, Calif.
MeWe
Users: 8 million
Headquarters: Culver City, Calif.
GMAIL
Protonmail
Users: 20 million
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
DuckDuckGo
Users: 25 million
Headquarters: Paoli, Pa.
Parler
Users: 1 million
Headquarters: Henderson, Nev.
YOUTUBE
Rumble
Users: 80 million
Headquarters: Toronto, Canada
Following suit
The number of lawsuits against Big Tech continue to rise, nationally and internationally. Anti-competitive practices, closed operating systems, the lack of democratization and targeted de-platforming have catalyzed users and businesses to seek legal relief and alternatives.
Lack of candor
Without transparency operators have no remedy when AI systems change or fail. There’s no customer support line for data bias or problematic output. The only solution is to implement technology that allows business to control their own systems.
