The European Union continues to collect: “On Wednesday, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, announced that Google’s parent company, Alphabet, was in breach of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a landmark law designed to curb monopolistic practices in the technology industry. Regulators accused Google of engaging in self-preferencing within its Search and Google Play platforms—an unfair practice where its own services are favored over those of competitors. The EU also ruled that Google’s Play Store restricts developers from steering consumers toward alternative services, preventing them from offering cheaper payment methods outside of Google’s ecosystem.”
If you own a blog, you will agree that the most annoying “currency” is the traffic as measured by Google. Around 2018, if 1000 visitors gave you say $20 per month, today you may need 10000 visitors for the same $20. In other words, that currency of traffic is devalued at multiples . Sure, blame competition but when you look at the profits of these big ICT utilities, you will agree that it is nothing but power positioning.
I support the work of the European Union on this because we cannot live in a world where ALL digital commerce powers are controlled by tiny fractions of companies. The mindset of “onye aghana nwanne ya” [do not leave your brethren behind] is a developmental philosophy I admire, and it is time we find ways to make it global.
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Nigeria needs to push and demand changes because if we continue this way, nothing will change for our digital companies. Get other African countries and challenge the status quo as the EU is doing. See how hotels ng, wakanow, etc have all been disintermediated with jobs lost. I know that Nigerians are enjoying better technology but that is costing young people job opportunities. I am not against big tech but I want big tech with balance for the locals. The EU has a template and Nigeria must pick up and push for changes.
I support these companies but I do not want them to destroy local companies. I do not eat data; fair game. But I do not like the idea that local companies cannot be discovered without them advertising. If we allow that, it is a locked system, and game over. When they open bigtech travel services, local digital firms in that area go. That must change if we hope to have local jobs.
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Sometimes it’s not about picking up fights here and there, just because you see others doing same. You have to also look at your positioning and leverages (or lack thereof) you have. Does Nigeria know how to support local businesses? You can create us vs them situation by citing how multinationals kill jobs, but when you drive multinationals away, can you support the local ones and make them globally competitive? We cannot in the name of wanting to sound like the big guys (which we are not) and destroy the small things we are managing. Electricity, transportation, water supply, effective legal system, etc, which of the wars have we won and who’s stopping us from winning? Google, Netflix and Microsoft are not our problem currently, except we think they are.
Local capital for investment, we cannot even muster, but we somewhat think we can pick a fight against the same guys that fund pretty much everything we know as tech startups here. Game on.