How and why to break up Big Tech

My new Locus column, “Vertically Challenged.”

My latest Locus Magazine column is “Vertically Challenged,” an analysis of why and how to break up Big Tech, and the changing narratives of tech leaders that make these breakups likely.

https://locusmag.com/2022/03/cory-doctorow-vertically-challenged/

Science fiction has always trafficked in tales of supergenius business tycoons — sometimes as heroes whose singular vision shines through our collective foolishness, and sometimes as supervillains whose great intellect allows them to subordinate whole nations to their self-interested plans.

These narratives have been of enormous use to the tech leaders who conquered the tech landscape. At first, they styled themselves as Tony Stark-style superbeings whose wisdom was so beyond our ken that they could not be challenged. Then, as that narrative grew stale, they pivoted to styling themselves as evil supergeniuses whose empires emerged from their transhuman mental powers, who cannot be removed without risking the very firmament of our digital society.

That’s where the debate over tech has arrived at: the idea that we must preserve giants like Facebook and Google and Apple and Amazon to continue to derive the benefits they deliver, and that only the great geniuses at…