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Democratizing Tech Giants! A roadmap Hans Gersbach1 Received: 4 November 2019 / Accepted: 14 September 2020 / Published online: 22 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020

Abstract How society should deal with the self-strengthening Tech Giants is a much-discussed issue. We suggest to democratize them by giving users a say in their decisions. With newly-developed collective decision rules and user councils, democratization of Tech Giants becomes feasible  and complements, e.g., competition and basic data protection laws. Keywords  Tech Giants · Democratization · Assessment Voting · Co-Voting · User councils

1 Self‑strengthening monopolies For better or worse, we daily contribute to powerful monopolies: We use products of the world’s largest technology companies—Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.1 The more of us are using them, the more useful they become to us. Several further aspects make this type of monopoly self-strengthening (see e.g. Müller and Wambach (2018); Crémer et al. (2019)). First, if an internet service like Google attracts more users, its search results become more relevant and its algorithms more refined, which makes it more attractive for individual users and thus for advertising companies—so that Google reaps more benefits. Second, many of the services offered by so-called “Tech Giants” are free of charge for the individual customers, thus heightening incentives to join and use these services. The growing number of users allows to demand higher prices for advertising on theses services. Of course, the users pay for the services without noticing it, by paying attention to advertisement and by contributing to valuable databases. 1   We note that ownership structures are more complicated. Alphabet owns Google, for instance. Moreover, the set of Tech Giants must not be limited to these five companies, as social media like Twitter might be included as well.

* Hans Gersbach [email protected] 1



CER‑ETH ‑ Center of Economic Research at ETH Zurich and CEPR, ETH Zurich, Zürichbergstrasse 18, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

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Third, for those services and products we do have to pay, the positive network effects entail better products. As so many people use Microsoft products, for example, these products are more likely to be improved constantly, and the programming of any new (external) application will ensure its being compatible with Microsoft products. This, in turn, will attract more consumers and reinforce Microsoft’s monopoly. Fourth, although Tech Giants also face competition for services and products, their monopoly manifests itself in various forms. Amazon offers a wide range of products. This makes it attractive to buyers and sellers, but also relegates competitors to “niche products”, on a smaller scale. Apple has built up such an impressive reputation for innovative, attractive “must-have” design and the flair of innovation in functionalities that customers are practically addicted to its products. Fifth, thanks to their economic power, Tech Giants can