The basic assumptions of the new socio-economic evolution, promised in the New Economy phase, are being realized over the years, and today we are witnessing a strong control of the Internet by a few monopolies.
In particular, a handful of U.S. companies control several strategic network sectors that are now evolving into Artificial Intelligence:
- search engine, video and browser – (Google – Gemini)
- Social media, personal data and instant messaging systems (Meta – Meta AI)
- e-commerce and cloud services (Amazon – Q)
- software and operating systems (Microsoft – Copilot and ChatGPT)
- devices, app store and media library (Apple)
Similar private platforms have also sprung up in Asia, and especially in China, such as Tik Tok, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu, all now engaged in the development of AI systems (the most famous being DeepSeek and Manus).
These entities obviously respond to the needs of finance and economics, so their primary purpose is to generate profit.
The power relations between these vertical monopolies from 2023 onward have been challenged by the advent of large-scale AI: for example, web search, long a monopoly of Google in the West, now sees itself under direct or indirect attack by other players, such as ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Apple’s dominance of personal devices is being put under attack not only by its traditional competitors, but also by Meta, which is attempting to overtake the smartphone with AI-integrated glasses.
Italiano