Counting on Big Tech to invent future is a bad bet

The big tech platforms have become essential, the default infrastructure of much economic activity. But being essential should not entail an unfettered power to extract wealth from everyone else

- TIM WU

THERE WASA time, back in the early 2000s, when everyone seemed to think that the internet would make everybody rich.

The vision was compelling, if a little naive.The internet, optimists argued, would allow individuals and small sellers to reach a global market of customers at low cost and without the need for big retailers. Increased connectivity would also make it easier for people to find work, invest money and learn newskills. Thanks to platforms like eBay,the future belonged to the Davids, not the Goliaths.“Small is the new big” was a popular slogan during those heady years.

The prediction turned out to be wrong. Yes, platforms like Amazon and Google have generated immense wealth and transformed society. But the money and power have not been broadly distributed. Instead, the platforms have captured the lion’s share for themselves, leading to concentrations of wealth that hark back to the Gilded Age. The Davids of the world ended up working hard tomakea newset of Goliaths rich.

But we can still recover that early opti-mismand promise of opportunity. Whilewe can’t start over from scratch, we can — with the right laws and policies — begin to reclaim the potential of the internet-based economy, shifting its centre of gravity to encourage and reward the activities and innovations of the many instead of the few. This isa prescription foran economy that is fairer — and more dynamic, too.

No one can deny that the big tech platforms have become essential, the default infrastructure of much economic activity. But being essential should not entail an unfettered power to extract wealth from everyone else.

It is simply too risky to count on just a few platforms to invent our future. Yet that is the bet we are making by sitting back and letting Google, Amazon and Facebook dominate