Well, in a literal sense, no. But they certainly have the ability to:
- Exclude you from the largest (and nearly monopolizing) media channels. Good luck getting an online business off the ground when an AI filter bans you from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google search results. And good luck contacting Google support to contest it, which is notoriously absent for virtually everyone.
- Have you socially ostracized by labelling you as X bad thing, all without you having any recourse or ability to contest the designation. The fact that stuff like this is legal blows my mind: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yelp-racist-alert-added-busines...
- Collude to affect government policy and prevent competitors from gaining any footholds. Typical BigCo stuff.
Sticking to the consumer-side of the discussion, the BigCos aren't going to break the cycle. In fact, it's a capitalist crime to do so. Their flywheel requires a steady cattle population to surveil in the fields. When we choose as individuals to remain in their ecosystem, we choose the hidden fees of surveillance capitalism over more straightforward payment models. This is what gives BigCos the muscle to wield against smaller capitalists.
We in our consumer role, by not participating in these business models, are the only truly free actors in the system at this time. The only other way out is for government to get bigger and step in, as it's doing in Australia now.
The government could do plenty of things (using laws written a century ago in the Teddy Roosevelt era) to encourage competition and break up de facto monopolies. They've simply been asleep at the wheel.
- Exclude you from the largest (and nearly monopolizing) media channels. Good luck getting an online business off the ground when an AI filter bans you from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google search results. And good luck contacting Google support to contest it, which is notoriously absent for virtually everyone.
- Have you socially ostracized by labelling you as X bad thing, all without you having any recourse or ability to contest the designation. The fact that stuff like this is legal blows my mind: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yelp-racist-alert-added-busines...
- Collude to affect government policy and prevent competitors from gaining any footholds. Typical BigCo stuff.