Oversize #18: Big Tech got bigger while the world shrank

Why read this story?

Editor's note: Technology giants, often referred to as Big Tech, are some of the largest corporations in the history of the world, with a broad impact on everything ranging from pop culture to commerce and even governance. A year of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, has made the already huge Big Tech companies even bigger thanks to a greater reliance on their products and services. There’s now little chance of a retreat from this dizzying growth. This newsletter could very well be called Supersize now. Services As the pandemic raged across the world, people began spending an unprecedented amount of time at home, and online. According to Jessica Bay, a PhD candidate in communication and culture at York and Ryerson universities in Canada, the months we’ve all spent surrounded by screens and tethered to digital lifelines have driven home the omnipresence—and power—of technology. “They’ve become somewhat essential services,” she said. In a year that also saw an unforeseen economic downturn, spending on computers, video games, online retail, cloud-computing services, and digital advertising surged. Amazon’s revenue, for example, jumped 38% to $386.1 billion last …