Global internet power is concentrated in a secure US-Chinese corporate duopoly.

Evidence

These layers of power concentration offer to citizens and consumers a world that is highly connected, but the quality of connection is distinctly uneven. Beyond questions of individual access, countries vary in the robustness of their internet connectivity, while intercontinental cable laying is becoming a growth area for the social quantification sector itself. Although the exact distribution of the benefits of these power concentrations will no doubt evolve, at this point the global domination of a web of US companies and a small group of Chinese companies is secure. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 93

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to geopolitical-platform-dependence debates running through surveillance and data-governance literatures. — connects to: The internet’s connectedness is uneven and dominated by US and Chinese firms; Cloud finance gives Chinese platforms a power Americans cannot match — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 582; The internet’s egalitarian founding promise hardened into corporate libertarianism — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 34

Broader Connections

• The internet’s connectedness is uneven and dominated by US and Chinese firms #corroborates (0.88)
• Cloud finance gives Chinese platforms a power Americans cannot match #expands (0.82) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 582
• The internet’s egalitarian founding promise hardened into corporate libertarianism #expands (0.72) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 34