The upside of bowing to big tech

THE tech giants are too big. But what if that's not so bad? For a year and a half - and more urgently for much of the last month - I have warned of the growing economic, social and political power held by the five largest American tech companies: Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Because these companies control the world's most important tech platforms, from smartphones to app stores to the map of our social relationships, their power is growing closer to that of governments than of mere corporations. That was on stark display last week, when executives from two of the five, Facebook and Google, along with a struggling second-tier company, Twitter, testified before Congress about how their technology may have been used to influence the 2016 election.

Yet, ever since I started writing about what I call the Frightful Five, some have said my very premise is off base.