The big tech firms are a little more circumspect than Thiel. For Facebook, it is not trying to build a global empire of influence so much as “bringing the world closer together.” It is supposedly a “different kind of company that connects billions of people.” To do that right, however, requires a global monopoly. Meanwhile, Google wants to organize the world’s information, but to do so they need to get their hands on all the information in the world. Amazon, meanwhile, wants nothing more than to serve the consumer, which is great, and you can check out any time you like, but you can never
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