Two and a half centuries ago, the American colonies launched a violent protest against British rule, triggered by parliament’s imposition of a monopoly on the sale of tea and the antics of a vainglorious king. Today, the tables have turned: it is Great Britain that finds itself at the mercy of major US tech firms – so huge and dominant that they constitute monopolies in their fields – as well as the whims of an erratic president. Yet, to the outside observer, Britain seems curiously at ease with this arrangement – at times even eager to subsidise its own economic dependence. Britain is hardly alone in submitting to the power of American firms, but it offers a clear case study in why nations need to develop a coordinated response to the rise of these hegemonic companies.
The current age of American tech monopoly began in the 2000s, when the UK, like many other countries, became almost entirely dependent on a small number of US platforms – Google, Facebook, Amazon and a handful of others. It was a time of optimism about the internet as a democratising force, characterised by the belief that these platforms would make everyone rich. The dream of the 1990s – naive but appealing – was that anyone with a hobby or talent could go online and make a living from it.
US tech dominance wasn’t the result of a single policy decision. Yet it was still a choice that countries made – as is highlighted by China’s decision to block foreign sites and build its own. While that move was far easier under an authoritarian system, it also amounted to an industrial policy – one that left China as the only other major economy with its own full digital ecosystem.
The pattern was sustained through the 2000s and 2010s. Cloud computing was quickly cornered by Amazon and Microsoft. No serious European or UK competitor emerged to challenge platforms such as Uber or Airbnb. These companies have undoubtedly brought us convenience and entertainment, but the wealth of the internet has not spread as widely as many hoped; instead, US firms took the lion’s share, becoming the most valuable corporations in history. Now the same thing is happening with artificial intelligence. Once more, the big profits look destined for Silicon Valley.
How did all this meet with such little resistance? In short, the UK and Europe followed the logic of free trade and globalisation. Nations, according to this theory, should focus only on what they do best. So just as it made sense for the UK to import French burgundies and Spanish hams, it also seemed logical to rely on American technology rather than trying to do it locally. Better to specialise instead in the UK’s own strengths, such as finance, the creative industries – or making great whisky.
Datacentres are the bottom rung of the AI economy, private infrastructure that simply channels profits back to US headquarters
But when it comes to these new platforms, the analogy with regular trade breaks down. There is a vast difference between fine wines and the technologies that underpin the entire online economy. Burgundies can be pricey, but they don’t extract value from every commercial transaction or collect lucrative data. The trade theories of the 1990s masked the distinction between ordinary goods and what are, in effect, pieces of market infrastructure – systems essential to buying and selling. That’s what Google and Amazon represent. A better analogy might be letting a foreign firm build toll roads across the country, charging whatever it likes to use them.
We’re seeing this again with the build-out of artificial intelligence. During President Trump’s state visit in September, the UK proudly celebrated Google and Microsoft’s investments in “datacentres” – vast warehouses of computer servers that power AI systems. Yet datacentres are the bottom rung of the AI economy, private infrastructure that simply channels profits back to US headquarters.
In another timeline, the UK could have been a true leader in AI. US researchers were once far behind their British and French counterparts. Yet, in a move neither Washington nor Beijing would have permitted, the UK cheerfully allowed the sale of most of its key AI assets and talent over the last decade or so – DeepMind’s purchase by Google being the most famous example. What remains is an AI strategy consisting of the supply of electricity and land for datacentres. It’s like being invited to a party only to discover you’re there to serve the drinks.
If tech platforms are indeed like toll roads, the logical step would be to limit their take – perhaps by capping fees or charging for data extraction. Yet no country has done so: we accept the platforms but fail to regulate their power as we do with other utilities. The European Union has come closest, with its Digital Markets Act, which regulates how dominant platforms treat dependent businesses. The US government, for its part, is also at the mercy of its homegrown tech giants, yet Congress remains paralysed.
If the UK wanted to take a different path, to resist this economic colonisation and extraction, it could partner with the European Union and perhaps Japan in order to develop a joint strategy – one that forces platforms to support local businesses and nurtures alternatives to mature US technologies. So far, though, alongside other nations disadvantaged by American dominance, it has been slow to adapt, instead hoping that the 90s playbook will still work, despite evidence to the contrary.
The truth is that we now live in a more cynical and strategic era. One way or another, the world needs an anti-monopoly framework with far greater force than anything seen so far. Wherever you live, it’s clear the world would be better off with more firms from different countries. The alternative is not only costly but politically dangerous, feeding resentment and dependence. We can do better than a future where what counts as economic freedom is merely a choice between relying on the United States, or relying on China.
Tim Wu is a former special assistant to President Biden and author of The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity (Bodley Head).
Further reading
The Tech Coup by Marietje Schaake (Princeton, £13.99)
Supremacy by Parmy Olson (Pan Macmillan, £10.99)
Chip War by Chris Miller (Simon & Schuster, £10.99)
