“This combination of powers is called ‘platform power.’” The model has been there for quite some time, however, the rapid accentuation of the internet in the past couple of years has increased the global reach of consumers and suppliers, creating extreme network effects," Jeroen van Gils, managing director at tech company Lifi.co, told Lifewire via email.
FOMO
For a service like Facebook, the Fear of Missing Out makes sense. Its business depends on engagement. That is, Facebook needs people to use Facebook as much as possible so it can gather data on their habits, connections, and so on. If a rival social network like WhatsApp starts to pull people’s attention away, then Facebook can either buy it (like it did with WhatsApp), or copy it (like Facebook and every other social network did with Clubhouse). “It seems that all big tech companies suffer from FOMO—the fear of missing out. That is why you see so many of them gobbling up other tech start-ups and companies, consolidating all of that power even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Cybersecurity Analyst Eric Florence told Lifewire via email.
Lock In
Canceling Prime might not yet be as disastrous as ditching Apple, its App Store, everything you have in iCloud, your entire photo library, and all your other personal data that’s locked up in there, but neither is it as easy as resigning your gym membership. Another big reason for tech giants to keep gobbling up services until they all begin to resemble each other is data. Facebook is now a trillion-dollar company, based on nothing but collecting and connecting our social graphs, and our internet activity. The more data a company can collect about you, the more it knows, and the better it can sell you products. Or sell the data itself.
The Danger
Whether big tech buys up new companies, or copies them, the result is the same. It’s also a lot harder for start-ups to compete with the resources of these tech giants. If Apple builds translation into its latest version of iOS, then it immediately cuts into the viability of translation services and apps. If Twitter and Facebook create Clubhouse clones, there’s little reason for users to try out Clubhouse itself.
