Google And ICT Utilities
In an article in Harvard Business Review, I used “ICT utilities” to describe digital giants like Google and Facebook: “Apart from those areas, everyone is competing against global ICT utilities like Google and Facebook”, “Overcoming the disruptive challenges posed by these global ICT utilities will be hard”, “A good strategy could be to find ways to position startups to build on the existing infrastructure of these ICT utilities”, etc.
Just now, I am reading from Samuel Nwite’s piece that Ohio state (USA) planned to classify Google as a public utility, and Google is fighting that in court.
There are many reasons why Google will not like that to happen: loss of freedom to set prices on its products without a ratification by some bureaucrats in city halls. But technically, the position of Facebook, Google and others are there: they power our digital lives just as electricity boards and waterboards do.
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Expect a democrat to make that case in a future presidential debate in 3 years! And the progressives to take it home. More work for the legal department in these digital empires. I hope Google wins because the government is already controlling many things
Opportunity for thinkers to look at ways to run things by brain.
Who know which word will win this time. Facebook won by "consent"
*Updated: They may win this with the word "unique" , since they are not serving everyone the 'same thing'.
Although, they are seen as a digital utility they don't give the same answer to different search, rather search based on your input.
On this I may certainly be wrong. A humble caveat!
