We are living in a digitalized world in which four gigantic platforms, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, are dominating our daily lives. Speaking from my own experience: virtually not a single day goes by without using at least one of these platforms. But what kind of effect do these platforms, these massive companies have on our daily lives?
Scott Galloway, as a guest speaker in TED Salon, compared the ‘Digital Big 4′ to four organs that make us humans act irrational. One of these organs is our heart, which is compared to Facebook. Every individual needs to be loved and every individual also needs to love others. Another organ is our “consumptive gut”, which is compared to Amazon. Our instinct tells us that the penalty for too little, e.g. starvation, is much greater than the penalty for too much. This explains why we have way more stuff in our houses/student rooms than we actually need.
The Digital Big 4 are attacking the consumers’ irrational organs and these companies are performing very well. Currently, the combined market capitalization of the Digital Big 4 is equivalent to the GDP of India, meaning that only five countries in the world have a higher GDP!
Not only consumers, but also shareholders/traders are convinced of the strength of the Digital Big 4. An example given is the announcement of Nike, at 30-06-2017, that it was going to sell its products through Amazon. The result was that the stock of Nike went up, but a lot of other footwear stocks, such as Foot Locker Inc., went down.
The platform giants are growing at a fast pace and are influencing and manipulating our daily lives more and more. But what is their mission? What is their end goal? Is it to connect us? Is it to create a higher level of humanity? Or, is it purely to create shareholder value? Or a bit deeper, is it to control us and manipulate us for scarier-sounding purposes?
Footnote: Due to word constraints, I do not go deeper into the (potential) dark side of the increasing power and influence of the Digital Big 4. But, if you are interested, please watch the video in the link below. Zeynep Tufekci provides some interesting insights in the potential effects of the development of the platforms giants.
Reference:
Galloway, S. (2017). How Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google manipulate our emotions. TED Salon: Brightline Initiative. Video available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_amazon_apple_facebook_and_google_manipulate_our_emotions/up-next?language=en
