Warning: This article may contain traces of truth. Consume at your own risk!
In a stunning display of foresight that would make Nostradamus look like an amateur fortune teller, Google executives in 2006 gazed into their crystal balls and somehow predicted that a money-losing video sharing site with zero revenue model would eventually become the second-largest search engine in the world. Their $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube, once mocked as wildly overpriced, now looks like the tech equivalent of buying Manhattan for $24 worth of beads and trinkets.
“We saw an opportunity to grow the entire industry,” explains Neal Mohan, YouTube’s CEO, with the sincere expression of someone who definitely isn’t sitting atop a digital advertising monopoly. “As the industry grows, our revenue grows as well.”1 Translation: “We bought this company before anyone realized it would become essential infrastructure for the modern internet, and now we’re collecting tolls on the digital highway we own.”
Welcome to Silicon Valley’s favorite game: Monopoly Fast-Forward Edition, where the goal isn’t to build hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place, but to identify and purchase future monopolies while they’re still affordable Baltics and Mediterraneans.
The Strategic “Little” Acquisitions That Changed Everything
The secret to playing Monopoly Fast-Forward isn’t buying the obvious properties—it’s recognizing the potential monopolies hiding in plain sight. When Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, tech analysts called it everything from “staggering” to “insane.” Fast forward a decade, and that purchase looks less like desperation and more like stealing the Hope Diamond during a mall clearance sale.
“Big Tech firms provide and control the means for different communities to interact,” notes the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). “For instance Facebook is the middleman between advertisers and social media users; Apple connects app developers and iPhone users; Amazon and Alibaba both link retailers and online shoppers.”2
This position as an intermediary allows Big Tech to collect what economists politely call “rent” and what the rest of us call “a toll booth on the digital economy.” The US Big Tech firms made more than 1,000 acquisitions in just 10 years, according to SOMO research. That’s not a shopping spree; that’s purchasing the entire mall, the parking lot, and the highway leading to it.
The “Buy Before They Notice” Playbook
The Big Tech acquisition strategy follows a predictable pattern that could be taught in business schools if business schools weren’t busy taking donations from the companies implementing it:
- Identify promising startups that could either compete with you or complement your monopoly
- Buy them before they become obvious competition
- Integrate them into your ecosystem
- Gradually monetize the hell out of them once users are hooked
Dr. Eleanor Futureproof, Director of the Institute for Monopoly Prediction, explains: “The genius of Big Tech acquisitions isn’t buying established companies—it’s identifying the future digital infrastructure of society before anyone else recognizes its value. It’s like buying all the land where highways will eventually be built, decades before the automobile is invented.”
The YouTube acquisition exemplifies this strategy perfectly. When Google purchased YouTube in 2006, the site was hemorrhaging money faster than a crypto startup at a Las Vegas convention. Its founders were meeting with potential buyers at Denny’s restaurant and negotiating deals on the hood of a car while being pulled over by police.3
“We were negotiating the acquisition prices between Yahoo and Google simultaneously with those rights deals, and we were saying to Yahoo and Google, ‘Look, just assume that we’re going to get those deals done and let’s negotiate accordingly,'” explained YouTube’s co-founder, according to search results.
Roughly translated: “We had no viable business model, but we knew someone would pay billions for us anyway because tech monopolies are built on hope, dreams, and investor FOMO.”
Regulators: Always Fighting Yesterday’s Monopoly
While Big Tech plays 4D chess, acquiring future monopolies before they exist, regulators play checkers with missing pieces. The regulatory approach to tech monopolies resembles using a sundial to time a rocket launch—technically sound in theory, hopelessly inadequate in practice.
“Competition authorities worldwide have mostly waved these deals through with little scrutiny,” notes SOMO. That’s because traditional antitrust frameworks focus on immediate market impact rather than future potential.
“Imagine if oil regulators in 1900 only looked at how much whale oil a company controlled, while ignoring their purchases of petroleum fields,” explains antitrust expert Jennifer Foresight. “That’s essentially what happens when regulators evaluate tech acquisitions based solely on current market conditions rather than future potential.”
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) apparently realized this problem in February 2020, when it issued Special Orders to the five largest tech firms requiring information about past acquisitions not previously reported to the government.4 This is roughly equivalent to asking Al Capone for his tax records 20 years after Prohibition ended.
The Innovation Myth: Killer Acquisitions and “Kill Zones”
Big Tech defenders argue these acquisitions drive innovation by providing resources to promising startups. What they don’t mention is the concept of “killer acquisitions”—buying companies primarily to eliminate future competition.
“A clear negative effect of acquisitions is that they can eliminate potential competition,” notes the Centre for Regulation in Europe. “The incumbent firm may have an incentive to buy out the potential rival to protect its dominant position.”5
This creates what industry experts call “kill zones”—areas where venture capitalists won’t invest because Big Tech’s presence makes success unlikely for any competitor.6 It’s like opening a mom-and-pop hardware store next to a Home Depot that’s owned by a vengeful god.
According to the Digital Ecosystem Observatory, venture capital investment in direct competitors to Big Tech platforms decreased 87% between 2015 and 2024, while investment in potential acquisition targets increased 290%. “VCs aren’t funding genuine competition anymore,” explains venture capitalist Mark MoneyBags. “They’re funding acquisition bait—companies designed specifically to be purchased by Big Tech.”
The PR Masterstroke: Rebranding Monopolization as “American Innovation”
Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of Big Tech’s acquisition strategy is its marketing. They’ve successfully framed monopolization as its opposite: innovation and entrepreneurship.
When Google defends its advertising practices in court, its representatives don’t say “we bought our way to dominance.” Instead, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan argues their advantage “falls back to one single thing: product innovation and the sale and services we were able to offer.” This statement was made while defending Google against antitrust allegations that it monopolized the digital advertising market through acquisitions like DoubleClick ($3.1 billion in 2007), which now forms the core of Google’s advertising empire.7
The public relations genius is connecting tech acquisitions to core American values. “Innovation” and “entrepreneurship” are practically engraved on Mount Rushmore alongside Washington and Lincoln. Criticizing acquisitions means you’re against innovation, entrepreneurship, and probably apple pie too.
“These acquisitions create a powerful narrative,” explains Dr. Spinmeister, fictional professor of Public Relations Ethics at Non-Existent University. “The startup founder gets rich (American Dream achieved!), the big company gets new technology (innovation accomplished!), and consumers get… well, a more monopolistic digital landscape, but that part gets mentioned in paragraph 27 of the press release.”
The Monopoly Mathematics: Network Effects and Data Domination
The monopolistic potential of these acquisitions is amplified by two factors: network effects and data accumulation.
“Through the exclusionary contracts that Google has built with firms that hold tremendous market power, like Apple, the company has accumulated large pools of data, bringing with it an inherent structural advantage over its competitors,” explains Encode AI, a research group.8
Network effects mean that platforms become more valuable as more people use them—Facebook is useful because everyone is on Facebook. Data accumulation means that more users generate more data, making the service better, attracting more users in a self-reinforcing cycle.
“In economics jargon, this market suffers from ‘indirect network effects,’ meaning that the value of the product to a consumer is increasing in the number of people making use of the product,” notes Encode AI.
This creates a digital Matthew Effect—the rich get richer. Google receives nine times as many searches as all rivals combined, with over 90% of unique search phrases only seen by Google. Each day, this data advantage increases, making it harder for any competitor to catch up.
The Dystopian Future: Your Life, Sponsored By Big Tech Monopolies™
If the current trend continues, we’re heading toward a future where every digital interaction occurs on infrastructure owned by one of five companies. The Institute for Digital Dystopia (which sounds real but isn’t) projects that by 2035:
- Amazon will control 72% of all e-commerce, 64% of cloud infrastructure, and 58% of smart home devices
- Google will process 97% of internet searches and control 89% of digital advertising
- Meta will own platforms used by 4.8 billion people for an average of 3.7 hours daily
- Apple will capture 83% of premium hardware profits worldwide
- Microsoft will power 91% of business productivity software
“We’re approaching a future where digital diversity resembles the Soviet Union’s automotive industry—you can have any platform you want, as long as it’s owned by one of the Big Five,” warns digital economist Dr. Cassandra Warning.
This monopolistic control extends beyond economics into culture and politics. When six companies control most information flows, democratic discourse itself becomes privatized. YouTube now functions as a de facto public square, with Google determining its rules and boundaries.
“Five or ten years ago, watching a YouTube video with minimal interruptions was normal. Today, it’s the exception,” laments one content creator. “We’ve become so accustomed to the relentless ad barrage that we’ve forgotten the platform’s original appeal.”
The Unexpected Twist: When Monopolies Eat Monopolies
Here’s the most delicious irony: In the ultimate game of Monopoly, eventually even monopolies get monopolized. After conquering their respective domains, the Big Tech giants are now encroaching on each other’s territories like digital kaiju battling for supremacy.
Google bought YouTube to dominate video, but now Amazon Prime Video competes for eyeballs. Facebook bought Instagram to control social images, but now TikTok threatens that dominance. Apple’s App Store monopoly is challenged by Android alternatives. Amazon’s e-commerce empire faces threats from shop integrations in Instagram and TikTok.
“The final stage of monopoly consolidation isn’t multiple monopolies peacefully coexisting—it’s monopolies consuming each other until only one remains,” predicts tech historian Professor Endgame. “It’s like the Highlander of capitalism: in the end, there can be only one.”
This creates the ultimate antitrust paradox: regulators may eventually allow further consolidation among giants because only another monopoly has the resources to challenge an existing monopoly. Imagine the Department of Justice approving Google’s purchase of Netflix because “only Google has enough power to challenge Amazon’s streaming dominance.”
“Without Google’s acquisition of YouTube back in 2006, the online video market would likely be much more vibrant and colorful today,” notes one analysis. The same could be said for social media without Facebook’s acquisitions, e-commerce without Amazon’s purchases, and digital advertising without Google’s buying spree.
In the most darkly comedic timeline, we’re headed toward a future where the only solution to Big Tech monopolies will be even Bigger Tech monopolies. It’s monopolies all the way down.
And in the grand finale of Monopoly Fast-Forward, when one company finally owns everything, they’ll probably just rename themselves “Innovation, Inc.” and we’ll all applaud.
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References
- https://www.tubefilter.com/2024/09/17/youtube-ceo-neal-mohan-google-ads-business-monopoly-trial/ ↩︎
- https://www.somo.nl/our-work/sectors/big-tech/ ↩︎
- https://www.businessinsider.com/google-youtube-acquisition-inside-story-2020-6 ↩︎
- https://itif.org/publications/2020/11/09/monopoly-myths-big-tech-creating-kill-zones/ ↩︎
- https://cerre.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cerre_big_tech_acquisitions_merger_control_EU_2020.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/238049/1/Prado-Kill-Zones.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.tubefilter.com/2024/09/17/youtube-ceo-neal-mohan-google-ads-business-monopoly-trial/ ↩︎
- https://www.encodeai.org/machines-monopolies-google-big-tech-and-antitrust-in-the-ai-revolution/ ↩︎
