The largest big technology companies based in the USA, are absolutely gargantuan in terms of their market capitalization, in regards to their yearly sales so made, and in respect to their profits so generated. In consideration, that there are governmental laws available to be utilized to force these big technology companies to diversify and to divest themselves, and of which, despite all the congressional hearings and the like, along with saber rattling so made, that nothing of substance ever seems to actually occur to force such divestment, this all seems rather curious. The only logical conclusion that one could make from this scenario is that either the government is in fit, form, and function, co-opted by big tech, or the government has deliberately allowed these big tech companies to get ever bigger and ever more powerful, because by so doing, they will in more ways than one, eventually force these companies to come to heel, if this has not already functionally occurred; because the massive amount of money so being generated and earned as well as the stock prices, thereof, necessitates those big tech companies not biting the hand that permits them to do whatsoever that they so desire to do, and thereby allows them seemingly carte blanche to keep on buying out competitors, in addition to pretty much permitting them to set the terms of the business so being done, to big tech’s constant advantage.
While one might make a very strong and convincing argument that it is those important personages in the Executive offices, as well as certain well-placed and influential stock owners, that functionally own and run a given big tech company; that can be countered by the fact that items such as local, State, and Federal taxation, tariffs, legal interpretations, legislation of all sorts, labor rules as well as environmental regulations are all absolutely pertinent to not only the continual profitability of a big tech company, but the growth thereof. That is to say, when a government makes an absolute commitment that a given big tech company is going to be taxed at a significantly higher rate, and further that offshore profits will be taxed as if those profits were made in America, in addition to higher tariffs being imposed upon all those goods manufactured to at least some degree outside of America, along with insisting that foreign labor and environmental regulations in foreign lands, must meet a specific minimum standard as propagated by America, this can all be chillingly effective, especially when such is all tied together with the most powerful law firms so known, working hand in glove with the government – then the upshot is that those that are the putative actuators of big tech are going to do what they so need to do to preclude such actions from ever being taken. This signifies, that if that government wants all the pertinent information that it so desires from big tech, for, as an example, “defense of the homeland” then those big tech companies are going to willingly give that information up; so that, in effect, whatever that government so demands, will be met with compliance, because such failure to be compliant and obedient to that government, could easily result in the lost of billions upon billions of dollars of not only revenue but also profit.
Sure, it looks like big tech is bossing the world, and perhaps they are. Then again, government can at any time, and at any moment, take away the punch bowl and thereby everything changes; because the power to tax is the power to destroy, and the power to regulate is the power to control, and the power to legislate is the power to own a corporation -- lock, stock, and barrel.