Re:Tim Berners-Lee shares his disappointment on World Wide W...
by jfaucett on Sunday March 18, 2018 @08:25AM
(#16611627)
> Amazon only covered 4% of US retail in 2017.
Where did you get that statistic? Was that before the wholefoods acquisition? That seems very high to me, especially when you consider what retail covers. [1]
> I think it depends on the time scale you look at
Thinking about the time scales provides an interesting perspective. I think the core question is whether or not consolidation is a net positive or net negative for features we want in society (like innovation, freedom of choice, ability to self actualize, efficiency, productivity, etc). Even then it most likely depends on how we weight those feature priorities.
1. https://www.thebalance.com/us-retail-industry-overview-28926...
Amazon only covered 4% of US retail in 2017. I couldn't easily find the global figure, but it would obviously be much much smaller.
As for the overall idea, I think it depends on the time scale you look at. Compared to the late 20th century things do seem more consolidated now, but if you go back any further we're still probably in one of the most distributed modern economies ever.