THE RISE OF TECH GIANTS AND CAPITALISM(POLITICAL ECONOMY PERSPECTIVE)

Critical political economy is a variant of political economy that draws on the insight of Marxian political economy to analyze the communication industry. It seeks to critically examine the power relations and unequal distribution of surplus as well as labour and what goes into production and distribution.

"Political economy is the study of the social relations, particularly the power relations that mutually constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication resources”. -Vicent Mosco

Using lessons from critical political economy, i seek to examine how the tech giants has become so powerful and how their dominance permeate professional life, flows of information and communication. The monopolies enjoyed by these giants are hinge on the system of capitalism and how it operates. Today, the tech giants use tactics to knock out other small companies that are viable to compete against them through unethical acquisition, or charges. These giants have successfully cap and undermine competitors, commodify data and audience and all they care is to make profits unethically. The tech giants are using communication platforms as a conduit to milk those who uses it for social and business purpose.

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There's no doubt that the digital revolution and the emergence of platforms like Steem, Twitter, Facebook Apple etc. has really helped social interaction and transaction of business globally. The tech giants in the world has helped bridge the communication gab among societies due to its social purpose as well as its commercial purpose of linking customers globally.

Indeed the tech giants companies has help facilitate business around the globe and are doing it very well however, the worry is the power wield by these techs and how exploitative they have become instead of serving us the people.

Today, the tech giants are so powerful and making huge profits especially because they have smartly leverage the increasing economic opportunities the covid-19 pandemic brought thus, increasing the rate at which we transact online, the time we spend and alternative means for social interaction. The rise of their financial power has results in dominating the market with unrestricted influence on social and professional life. The digital platforms has monopoly over information flow and capital accumulation and this is the reason why they continue to sell users data without any challenge.

One key lesson of political economy is "commodification" and is not surprising that the tech giants has commodified data. The implications is that the capital accumulation of the tech giants and the digitisation of the world calls for rethinking of the tech giants and how capitalism has helped them accumulate such wealth. The increasing power of the tech giants and their monopoly has force other smaller companies to revolve around them thus, becoming more powerful.

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Commodification is undeniably at the heart of capitalism and the tech giants are no exception of this due to how audience are being package and sold as a commodity.

Commodification of dataData is the basic resource that drives these firms, and it is data that gives them their advantage over competitors. They use data extraction procedures and packaged users’ data to create new markets for this commodity. Together, the tech giants collect and control quantities of data about users behaviors, which they turn into products and services since the data generated when one uses the platforms are sold to advertisers and politicians to target people with political messages and ads. All user information the tech giants have are not utilize for research into curbing disinformation and inciting of political extremism but rather, it is used to make money regardless of its consequence.

Rentiership and commodification

The recent acquisition of Whats App and Instagram by Facebook for example, illustrate how desperate they are to counter competition and make sure that innovative start-ups continually depend on them for survival. Today, it's almost impossible for any app developer to thrive without using Play Store as a platform .At the end, these platforms are rented to these app developers and your ability to survive the market is dependent on the platform.

To conclude, I believe that it is not only audience data that has been commodified, but the very platforms that allows this tech giants to thrive has also be commodified as well. Commodification of the tech giants could be well understood using the models of the big techs and how their activities are preventing other smaller companies to compete against them. The tech giants has gradually become part of the capitalists’ economy and best thrives under liberal society where their regulations are not strict. The model of the tech giants and the strategies they use continues unchallenged by any western government apart from the Chinese government.

One critical thing is the shocking unscrupulous procedure the big techs use to steal audience data sell to make profits despite the fact that the whole world is on its knees due to the economic hardships of covid-19. This shows the role of capitalism in as system in contributing to the stellar profits the tech giants making out of their customers.

The tech giants has mastered their game and have been able to control the direction of information as well as social behavior. The activities of these tech giants shows that there’s the need for strict regulations to make sure that these tech giants do not prevent smaller companies from competing against them.
Again, lawmakers should come in to make sure that the tech space is sanitise well and consequently, audience are not package and commodified as goods.

The recent shut down of Twitter in Nigeria is a wake=up call for African governments to enact laws to regulate these giants so that they do not become more powerful than the state more importantly users data are not sold for ads.
Finally, the tech giants can emulate the the style and model adopted my the STEEM social network by rewarding its users and giving them the chance to own a stake in the company. This would help decentralize wealth instead of capital accumulation in the hands of few.