By being consistently 0.1% better in the early days, many of these companies earned themselves an unassailable lead. Why go to the little guy when the big guy is big and safe and familiar (yes we at HN don’t operate this way; we aren’t normies and are a minority so we don’t hold sway en masse)

Thanks to a lot of hard work to make great products, big tech has (earned!) market power but still has a mandate from shareholders - and even if not legally required via fiduciary duty it IS the current culture - to find growth at all cost.

When there’s no growth to be had by being nice, but you’re still being told to grow.. well, yeah.

The concentration of power of bureaucratic structures, no matter their nature, will always be in tension with individual freedom.

They still are bringing power to the people. It just turns out a lot of the media types don't really like the people. And honestly, I can't really blame them... a lot of people are awful. However, if you claim to want to return power to the people, then you should want to return it to all people. Otherwise, just be honest and admit you're a believe in oligarchy and aristocracy -- there is nothing wrong with that; most countries are aristocracies.