Big Tech Has Dug a Moat That Rivals and Regulators Can’t Cross
The biggest advantage for Amazon, Google and Facebook comes from physical infrastructure such as computer networks and logistics machines.
$90 billion of combined annual capital spending buys a big buffer.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
As U.S. anti-monopoly authorities weigh possible investigations into America’s technology superpowers, there is one advantage the government can’t touch: the size, scale and might of the tech giants’ computer networks, logistics machines and other infrastructure.
This week, Bloomberg News wrote about the irony of the last decade of flourishing technology startups. Many of the upstarts might not exist without the computing horsepower of Amazon Web Services, the vehicle-routing backbone of Google Maps or customer acquisition through ads on Facebook Inc. Younger companies such as Lyft Inc. are both a challenge to supremacy of the U.S. tech powers and heavily reliant on their products.