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It's scary to think how easily a handful of giant corporations can destroy most smaller businesses, either through malice or indifference. If Apple/Google wipe

It's scary to think how easily a handful of giant corporations can destroy most smaller businesses, either through malice or indifference. If Apple/Google wipe your store or restaurant off their maps, or let only bad reviews stay visible, if Cloudflare drops their DDoS protection, if Chrome flags your website as harmful, or Windows flags your app as malware, an app store bans you.. even your personal life can be made difficult if Amazon or Uber ban you from their services.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
That applies to everything in life though... even when your literally doing nothing, just sitting under a tree on a pleasant day, a single big tree branch falling could end your life in an instant. Purely due to random chance that a tree branch grew too weak and fell at the wrong time.
- omeid2 3y ago
  But the issue is that there is now only 3 trees in town and you have little to know control over their maintenance or what goes on and off the branches. You still need shade, and so do others, and if you're doing any business that requires shade, you have no choice, but these 3 trees.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    I'm fairly certain many many businesses are not reliant on those '3 trees'. Even in a narrower scope, just talking about mass market businesses selling consumer products, an example would be the huge number of Walmart suppliers that do fine without sitting under those specific '3 trees'. Yes a large fraction do sit under the big 'Walmart tree' but they're not chained to it forever, the big 'Costco tree' is also available, along with many other smaller trees.
    - jevoten 3y ago
      So it's not a problem until it's impossible to run any business at all without relying on "those 3" (for any value of "those 3")?
    - omeid2 3y ago
      If your counter argument to consolidation is "Walmart", you're way off the mark to begin with, because they're a megacorp of their own. But even then, in a very interesting twist of absurdity that is the current state of affairs, your argument gets even more funny when you consider that Walmart spends some 4 billion dollars on ads per year, and are one of the largest customers of Google ads and Facebook Ads. So even Walmart depends on those 3 'trees'.
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Did you not finish reading the comment? I mentioned other alternatives...
- neftaly 3y ago
  This analogy fails to mention the axe-weilding megacorp working in the canopy overhead :P
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    1 in a million random chance is a simpler assumption, if there was some sort of coordinated 'working in the canopy overhead' to mess with the mapping of small rural roads and farmers... that would require a very elaborate set of circumstances.

MichaelZuo 3y ago

That applies to everything in life though... even when your literally doing nothing, just sitting under a tree on a pleasant day, a single big tree branch falling could end your life in an instant. Purely due to random chance that a tree branch grew too weak and fell at the wrong time.

omeid2 3y ago
But the issue is that there is now only 3 trees in town and you have little to know control over their maintenance or what goes on and off the branches. You still need shade, and so do others, and if you're doing any business that requires shade, you have no choice, but these 3 trees.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I'm fairly certain many many businesses are not reliant on those '3 trees'. Even in a narrower scope, just talking about mass market businesses selling consumer products, an example would be the huge number of Walmart suppliers that do fine without sitting under those specific '3 trees'. Yes a large fraction do sit under the big 'Walmart tree' but they're not chained to it forever, the big 'Costco tree' is also available, along with many other smaller trees.
  - jevoten 3y ago
    So it's not a problem until it's impossible to run any business at all without relying on "those 3" (for any value of "those 3")?
  - omeid2 3y ago
    If your counter argument to consolidation is "Walmart", you're way off the mark to begin with, because they're a megacorp of their own. But even then, in a very interesting twist of absurdity that is the current state of affairs, your argument gets even more funny when you consider that Walmart spends some 4 billion dollars on ads per year, and are one of the largest customers of Google ads and Facebook Ads. So even Walmart depends on those 3 'trees'.
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Did you not finish reading the comment? I mentioned other alternatives...
neftaly 3y ago
This analogy fails to mention the axe-weilding megacorp working in the canopy overhead :P
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  1 in a million random chance is a simpler assumption, if there was some sort of coordinated 'working in the canopy overhead' to mess with the mapping of small rural roads and farmers... that would require a very elaborate set of circumstances.