I'd agree that big tech are big because they built a (good) product that appeals to the masses. Make no mistake though, they've also used their power to abuse the system and cement themselves as monopolies which is modus operandi for a monopoly.

As for the comment that TikTok got big, sure they've managed to amass a fairly large user base but they pail in comparison against the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc on any metric that matters.

TikTok are also the new hotness and could just as easily go as much as they came. The big tech companies have survived massive market shifts, economic catastrophes, dodged/maneuvered their way through government regulatory apparatus around the world measured in decade time scales.

Railroad tycoons have also built a good sustainable product that appealed to billions, yet they leveraged their position of power, monopoly.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/rise-of-the-ro...

Just because someone creates a good product does not allow them to be free from scrutiny.

Certainly if whole traffic goes from the Internet to Facebook, Amazon, and other you may say that the traffic has been hijacked.

Exactly, it's just a scare tactic to make us and 'the enemies' believe that there's no way out and we already lost. The solution is in front of us, all that time. I follow a lot of blogs I scrambled together over the years from this place called HN, I do that with RSS. It's enough for me to get a good and healthy information diet (all your blogposts together are way more interesting than any social media platform can offer me). The only thing I miss are feeds with images, to have an image pop-up in my RSS-based timeline is always nice. And some kind of replacement for Youtube would also be nice to have.

This is just as much a social media platform on the Internet as all the others. Fewer pictures, same drama.

> built sustainable products

Google is spending many millions of dollars per year developing and maintaining free software like Chrome and Android.

If the government will miraculously enforce the current anti-competition laws and break the company like they did with Bell Systems in 1982, these Google’s products will suddenly become unsustainable.

They do not primarily maintain free softwares, they primarily maintain softwares to better control their business models.

And it is "free" because it does not impact their business models, on the contrary

> Google is spending many millions of dollars per year developing and maintaining free software like Chrome and Android.

From AOSP docs:

> Android is intentionally and explicitly an open source effort (as opposed to free software)

https://source.android.com/docs/setup/about

I meant “free as in beer”.

One of the reasons Android was a success while Windows Phone failed, Microsoft charged something like $30 per device for the OS license.

Chrome protects Google from any existential threats of being locked out of the web or the web losing to other platforms. Google search earns them billions of dollars.

Google has to play store on Android which earns them billions of dollars.

These "products" are built on deceit. They are only sustainable due to regulatory capture.

There has never been so much wealth and power amassed (legally) by exploiting the cracks of governance.

The Dutch East India Company was still bigger.

they were indeed bigger, but there wasn't much of professed governance back then besides the power of the gunboats.

Exactly my thoughts, all those tech companies were famously unsustainable, then had to find ways to become sustainable (and profitable) and got way less attractive to users in the process.

>way less attractive to users

They are still attractive enough to keep billions of users using their services.

Completely agree. I was just commenting on this earlier today: instead of complaining about American big tech incessantly, the EU needs to actually develop viable software products that users want to use. Until they figure out how to do that for more than just CRUD websites, they have no alternatives.

I do think that antitrust should stop big tech companies from acquiring potential competitors (or all their customers) though. Facebook should not have been allowed to acquire WhatsApp. Microsoft should not have been allowed to acquire Activision.

How will anyone find your site in order for it to become popular, if Internet giants gatekeep the only methods that people use to find or access things?

Internet giants control your browser, your smartphone, your search engine, your digital assistant, your DNS, most of the traffic going through CDNs, advertising, online shopping, app purchases, news, etc. Most of the internet is only accessible through the giants. Most of the experiences people have with the rest of the world is through them. (I'm being charitable; it's likely all the experiences people have with the rest of the world is through them)

Internet giants don't gatekeep the methods that people use to find and access things. The simplist way is to do a bunch of advertising for your site.

How do you advertise for your site if not through internet giants' advertising platforms? Billboards?

TikTok was able to grow by putting ads on properties like YouTube. Internet giants don't stop you from advertising your own platform.