How we got here · Technology
Who controls what you see and what you pay for connectivity?
Platforms, broadband, phones, algorithms
Timeline · newest first
2022→Tech
Generative AI arms race
ChatGPT-era models turn compute, chips, and cloud into strategic assets. A small set of model labs and chipmakers sit on the bottleneck.
2007–08Tech
iPhone + App Store — gated platforms
Smartphones become the default computer. App stores take a cut and set rules; mobile becomes a two-sided market controlled by a few gatekeepers.
2000s–10sMarket
Social platforms and the ad-targeting machine
Facebook, YouTube, and later TikTok turn attention into the main ad inventory. News and politics ride engagement algorithms built for growth, not civic calm.
1998–2001Court
United States v. Microsoft
The browser wars antitrust case marks peak “software as monopoly” politics. Settlement and appeals blunt the breakup; the industry moves on to search and then mobile.
1996Law
Telecom Act and the broadband era
1996 rewrite shapes competition rules for phone, cable, and later internet access. Local broadband markets often settle into cable/telco duopolies.
Nuance Same law as media consolidation — different chapter. Connectivity pricing is a local market-structure story as much as a tech story.
1969–1995Institution
From ARPANET to a commercial internet
Public research networks become the commercial internet in the 1990s. The pipes start public; the platforms that later own attention are private.
What people disagree about
- Whether big tech is a natural monopoly of networks or a product of weak enforcement and acquisitions.
- How much algorithms cause polarization vs. reflecting audiences that already sorted themselves.
Where we are now
Your feed, your phone OS, your cloud, and your ISP are different choke points — often owned by different Power Index names.
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