IN THE digital world, the laws of physics can be suspended on a programmer’s whim. Equally, that world’s corporate architects have seemed able to defy economic gravity. Since 2005 the digital share of American gross domestic product (GDP) has risen by a third, to 10 per cent.

America’s tech oligopoly—Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple (MAAMA, if you will)—has outpaced even that breakneck growth. Collectively, MAAMA’s revenues and profits have swelled by nearly 20 per cent a year on average over the past decade, while America eked out nominal annual GDP growth of less than 4 per cent. Covid-19 may have cramped physical lives, but it enriched digital ones—thereby enriching Big Tech as never before.

This year gravity has reasserted itself. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index is down by a quarter since January, half as much again as America’s broader stock market. Profitless not-so-big tech has been dragged down by anaemic revenue growth and high interest rates, which make the far-off earnings of firms like Snap look less valuable today.