One of my favorite people is Glenn Greenwald, and here he is with a typically great piece.

A big part of what I like about him is that I don't agree with him about certain things, yet his positions are always thoughtful and articulate. For instance, the tale he crafts in the aforelinked editorial is one of evil corporate monopolies boxing the average American into a political and economic corner. He cites lots of evidence in support of his position. However, in my view he also lumps many disparate corporations into this the same giant basket.

From my perspective, Amazon is on top because they really did innovate, taking retail to the next level. People don't shop there because they have no choice: they shop there because of the superb item selection and excellent low prices. If Amazon lost those advantages, they'd start to collapse overnight: the free market is still functioning in retail, although it may not be for much longer if governments around the world continue these so-called "lockdowns".

In other words, I don't think it's fair to lump Amazon in with Google, the latter of whom have done nothing to innovate since probably the advent of Android twelve years ago-- which itself was merely a clone of Apple's iOS-- or Facebook, or many of these other companies.

In general, the biggest political threat comes from the bottom-up, not the top-down: at the end of the day, corporations can't make me do anything I don't want to do-- rather, it was my neighbors with the radical yard signs who are causing me the pain, by voting in the government we see today. It was millions and millions of SJWs and Wayzata limousine liberals voting, lying, and cheating their way to electoral "victory", at the grass roots level: "People get the government they deserve."

It is true that the "social media" tech companies influence people's opinions-- but even that has its limits. So far as I can tell, most of the indoctrination happens in universities, not via corporations. And as I type, there is a mass-migration to alternative tech platforms like BitChute and Parler anyway. So the "monopoly" argument doesn't hold water: there are tons of viable alternatives out there, and people are flocking to them.

And this is the problem I always have when people start throwing out the "monopoly" word: in every single instance they are demonstrably incorrect-- and in my view, it's their latching onto that word that is causing them to overlook the real proximate cause of some problem.

America today is an ochlocracy, not an oligarchy.