While I think the article is pretty low quality I agree with the premise all the same. The internet as a whole is probably one of the least regulated markets you can find yourself in (ignoring the oncoming ISP problems for a second), and yet we see it dominated by a few large companies
What stops smaller search engines from competing? Or smaller social media alternatives to Facebook? To me I think the answer is simple: Once you reach a certain size you can continue to squash competition through sheer momentum. For the people who are more tech savvy we might switch to using DuckDuckGo or Vivaldi but even my parents who are nigh-illiterate when it comes to computers knows about Facebook, Google and Chrome. Heck, every time we tell someone to 'just Google it', we see how successful Google is with capturing mind share.
What stops smaller search engines from competing? Or smaller social media alternatives to Facebook? To me I think the answer is simple: Once you reach a certain size you can continue to squash competition through sheer momentum. For the people who are more tech savvy we might switch to using DuckDuckGo or Vivaldi but even my parents who are nigh-illiterate when it comes to computers knows about Facebook, Google and Chrome. Heck, every time we tell someone to 'just Google it', we see how successful Google is with capturing mind share.