Talk:Big Tech/Archive 1

Archive 1

TODO - plenty of work

It's amazing how little sourced content is present on an article on the handful of totalitarian organisations that dominate the online world, and thus, the real world to a large degree. [Conspiracy theorists: you can create some conspiracy theories about GAFAM blocking Wikipedia editors ... ;) ]

But seriously: this page is worth doing some work on. There should be plenty of sources. Boud (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Correction: GAFAM + Wikipedia + git repositories dominate the online world - where Wikipedia/git repositories are the complete opposite to GAFAM. Anyway, let's see if I or others find time to do some work on this... Boud (talk) 13:29, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Word salad in lead

The term Gang of Four was coined for this context by Eric Schmidt in 2008 [??] Phil Simon, and Scott Galloway as describing the companies "behind the consumer revolution on the Internet" and "avoid[ing] taxes, invad[ing] privacy, and destroy[ing] jobs".

— MaxEnt 21:19, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Split proposal: Big Four tech companies vs GAFAM

Proposal: WP:SPLIT this article into separate, partially overlapping, articles GAFA (or Big Four tech companies = present main name; I'm not proposing a name change) and GAFAM.

This informal proposal is motivated by recent edits by @RaphaelQS:. In this edit and this revert, RaphaelQS seemed to suggest that we split the article into two separate articles for the US versus the French views of the world's 4-5 dominant software/internet corporations. I oppose the proposal (see below), but I'm making a proposal so that it can be discussed properly. Boud (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - At the moment, the amount of knowledge content in the article, in the sense of academic analysis rather than media interviews, doesn't seem to me sufficient to split. The content could be significantly expanded (for obvious reasons - these companies dominate the World and the World has started to notice) - but that editing hasn't happened yet. Independently, it seems to me that the choice of which companies to include/exclude is less important - in terms of "knowledge" - than what is common between the two visions - a world-dominating oligarchy with barely a hint of separation of executive-legislative-judicial powers. Splitting into GAFA vs GAFAM would also suggest that we should create a third overlapping article for G-MAFIA+BAT, which might be better justified, provided that we have enough RS'd content. Boud (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose to avoid repetition, especially at the moment when this article is tiny. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 14:53, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

• Since you oppose the proposal, please do not remove notable content. Some of the restructuring is OK, but not removal of significant content. The causes or origins of Wikipedia topic X are a notable aspect of topic X. Academic content is more significant than mainstream media content, since academics take time to study topics in depth and systematically. Thanks. Boud (talk) 13:15, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Big Five (technology companies) into Big Four tech companies

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The two topics can be more or less discussed in a common article since Microsoft is really the only notable difference. Neither deserves a separate article. ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 15:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

• Merging these two articles would be a good idea. The Big Five article doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than highlight the fact that some people consider Microsoft to be on the level of GAFA. Based on this edit, it seems like this might have been User:Zaheen's motivation for creating the separate Big Five page. Rogerthat94 (talk) 06:21, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed. Perhaps renaming the article into something like “Internet Giants” or “Web Giants” would help focus less on exactly which companies to include —which is a bit pointless and subject to change over time— and more on what they mean in the global society, as mentioned by @Boud. This is the solution adopted by the French and Dutch articles (the Dutch article seems to have some relevant additions). Regards, Maëlan 15:08, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support merger. The Big Five article only seems to add a little extra info compared to the main "Big Four" article. But the situation in the fr.Wikipedia is more developed in terms of content. Boud (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Rename proposal: Not yet. At the moment, in fr.Wikipedia, fr:GAFAM is a long in-depth article, fr:BATX is a stub, and it's true that fr:Géants du Web exists, though right now it's just a rather short overview article. This split seems reasonable to me: we have zillions of articles on Europe, North America, United States, China, Asia, Africa, and any proposal to merge them all into a single article wouldn't last more than a few seconds before being laughed off as utterly ridiculous. The new superpowers can surely be documented with depth appropriate to their significance in the world, and on a more practical side, appropriate to the number of WP:RS. But I don't see much point splitting until we have a bit more solid material written and sourced, preferably from academic sources.

This is actually a more tricky bootstrap (COI of the sources) problem than in the case of geographically based governments/powers. GAFAM directly affects what sources we have available, and indirectly affects Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia which affect the in-depth academic sources via their (Onex + BPEA) ownership of Clarivate Analytics which owns Web of Science which strongly influences academic careers and funding via bibliometry (quantification of "serious knowledge"). Academic bibliometric centralisation of power is a less visible world domination question than GAFAM/BATX. (BATX doesn't affect Wikipedia sources so much, because of the PRC choice to block Wikipedia - this shooting-one's-propaganda-in-the-foot irony is well-known: the PRC would influence "knowledge" as represented in Wikipedia more if Wikipedia were not blocked in the PRC.) I'm not opposing a rename now, but I think that it would make more sense with a bit more material, so that individual GAFAM and BATX articles are not too stubby. Boud (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

fr:Géants du Web is cross-linked from here, I hadn’t noticed that there were other French articles (the cross-language link should be fixed, then). I would support their merging in the French Wikipedia as well but this would require energy (fr:GAFAM is actually good and since it is tailored to the Big Five, generalizing it would be non-trivial) and I don’t have enough at the moment.

… On second thought I acknowledge that the Internet Giants and the GAFA(M) are largely the same topic but different things so that it can make sense to have separate articles. However GAFA and GAFAM are the same thing. No matter how well-sourced GAFAM would be, it would either be largely redundant (more than 80% redundant, to be precise) with GAFA, or amount to “The GAFAM are the GAFA plus Microsoft.”

The analogy with geography does not hold : a more correct analogy would be creating articles for every subset of States, e.g. China and Canada, China and Canada and the Netherlands, China and Mauritius and New Zealand… That’s exponentially more than a zillion. Maëlan 18:38, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I'm not proposing to think of a long-term power set split of these powers ;) (2^{|UN member states|} ~ googol^{0.58}; so I think your estimate is fair, assuming that 1 zillion < 1 googol^{1/2}) - so obviously GAFA and GAFAM are close enough that (at least in the reasonably forseeable future) there's no justification in splitting them. But having an overall article, and separate GAFAM/GAFA and BATX articles, seems reasonably likely to be justifiable in terms of sources. Which raises the questions of European or Indian/South Asian internet giants - I guess Wipro and Infosys don't have the near-monopoly status of GAFAM or BATX for specialised services, and their financial evaluations are much smaller than GAFAM/BATX, so they gather less attention. Another interesting question (for academics creating source material for Wikipedia) would be how to include WMF wikis/Wikipedia in relation to the others: in terms of web influence and numbers of editors and readers working together, the WMF wikis/Wikipedia are "a tech giant" - one of the top few websites (or website groups), while in financial terms, we have negligible weight; our organisational nature (transparent, horizontal) is also completely opposite to GAFAM/BATX (opaque, vertical). Again: we need to find or wait for academics who study these things (and miraculously are independent of those things) to provide sources for these articles. Boud (talk) 22:39, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support. It is nonsensical to leave Microsoft out of any categorisation of "Big Tech". It is even more ludicrous to leave them out if you're including Facebook, who are a much, much smaller company by every metric I can see. Microsoft were the most valuable public company on the planet for the first three quarters of this year, and I think they are currently in third position, after Saudi Aramco in first (who very recently had their IPO, immediately putting them in first) and Apple in second. So Microsoft's market cap is ahead of Alphabet (by 26%), Amazon (by 35%), and Facebook (by 111%) by significant amounts. The comparison to Facebook is pretty staggering - Microsoft's market cap is over twice as much as Facebook's, and in the financial year of 2018, Microsoft collected almost exactly twice as much revenue as Facebook. And Microsoft have about 3.5 times as many employees as Facebook. And their shares have increased in value over the last five years to a greater extent than Facebook's (3.26x increase for Microsoft, vs 2.48x increase for Facebook). So how on Earth can Microsoft be excluded from any categorisation of Big Tech? CyclingFan1234 (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
• Support merger. This whole Big Four seams a bit dated. Leaving Microsoft out is goofy, considering their Market Cap of $1.215T and the overall size and comprehensiveness of their business including Windows, Azure, O365, Dynamics, Surface, LinkedIn, Github, etc. etc. Hypree (Ͳ · ∆ · @) 20:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Same concept, differing only by inclusion of a single company. Separate section in Big Four. —Wiki Wikardo 14:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support renamed "Big Tech" article - whether it's four companies or five, it doesn't make sense having two different articles on this topic. Readers would be served better with a single article on the topic. "Big Tech" should redirect to the merged article (and perhaps the merged article should exist at that title, rather than a title with a number or an acronym). The dispute about "GAFA" or "GAFAM" or "FAMGA" or "Big Four" or "Big Five" would be a sensible section of this article. -- RobLa (talk) 07:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 23 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 02:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

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Big Four tech companies → Big Tech – The title should not have a specific number, and "Big Tech" is a very common name for these large companies in tech. RobLa (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Wikardo (talk · contribs), thank you for merging the "Big Four" and "Big Five" articles.

It seems to me the next step is rename this article to "Big Tech", since it is often referred to as "Big Tech", and that better describes the concept in a suitably NPOV way, and sidesteps the debate about whether it's GAFA, GAFAM, MAGA, FAMGA, FAAMG, or any of the other permutations of 4-5 letters, not to mention FAANG or BATX. Objections? -- RobLa (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Big Tech is the right level of precision to head off weird corporate-patriotism membership debates. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:51, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support, with the caveat that we may need to reconsider this in the future, in the event there are two or more groups of notionally "Big Tech" companies. For now, though, this is fine. --Doug Mehus T·C 01:00, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. A better solution would be to write a "Big Tech" article, because this one spends a lot of ink explaining how it only relates to these four firms and excludes IBM and Microsoft intentionally. Calidum 16:08, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• I implicitly support doing this as well. I don't think Wikipedia should be propping up what really amounts to a puffy marketing term for a small group of tech companies. There's a better article to be written here about Big Tech and its geopolitical influence/ramifications but it can use this article as a base. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Hyperbolick (talk) 21:30, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support. I agree with Axem Titanium, this article should be impartial. There are multiple competing groupings of tech companies - some journalists refer to GAFA, some to MAGA, some to GAFAM, etc. There doesn't seem to be a consistent "Big Four" or "Big Five". So it makes way more sense to call the article "Big Tech" (just like the article on Big Oil). Then you could have one section on GAFA, one on MAGA, etc. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 12:36, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Article lead needs to say "Big Tech"

Yesterday, I made some adjustments to the lead section of the article to make a more sensible introduction to "Big Tech" (the new title of the page). Earlier today, an editor at 75.172.195.50 made this change to the article:

• Undid revision 938430922 by RobLa (talk) This doesn't improve the specificity of the article. "Big Four" is more common than "Big Five" or "Big Tech"

I reverted their change, since it was against the clear consensus on this talk page. Does anyone else want to re-open this conversation? -- RobLa (talk) 16:23, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

RobLa, Support the reversion of the good-faith edit, but I'm not pleased with the incidental editing done thus far. Lede should say Big Tech, with the other terms bolded and set off in an appositive, like this:

• Big Tech, sometimes referred to as the Big Four or Big Five tech companies, refers to (...)

Later on the Lede, the other terms can be added.

How's that? Doug Mehus T·C 16:36, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Dmehus, that would be fine. I think I'm done editing this article for today, though, and would prefer if someone else made the change. -- RobLa (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

RobLa, Sounds good. They can use this discussion as a mini-consensus. :) Doug Mehus T·C 16:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Groupings of Big Tech

It seems someone made an edit recently to claim that the "GAFA" grouping of companies is the "most common". I don't think this is true anymore. It might have been true a few years ago, since old articles seem to discuss that grouping. But there are other groupings that have been used more recently, like GAFAM and MAGA.

The whole point of renaming this article to "Big Tech" is surely that there are many subjective groupings of companies that different newspapers have come up with. This article should not be picking favourite groupings of companies. The article should be reporting the facts as they are. So, for example, "some newspapers have referred to GAFA, some to MAGA, some to GAFAM".

Am I wrong here? This article should be as objective as possible, shouldn't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CyclingFan1234 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

You're correct. The assertion that "GAFA" ever is the "most common" needs citation. -- RobLa (talk) 20:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Superfluous GAFA/GAFAM text in the intro

@XXeducationexpertXX:, why did you restore the dubious claim that "GAFA" is the most common, and repeat the bolded "Four Horseman" text in the introduction (see XXeducationexpertXX's recent changes to "Big Tech")? Was there a discussion about this that I wasn't part of? It seemed to me that the consensus on this talk page was to remove that text. -- RobLa (talk) 04:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

GAFA is the most widely used and accepted term. There's an award winning book called the "The Four" about Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon - in which Scott Galloway refers to those four companies as the "The Four Horsemen". It is the only legitimate and referenceable grouping of "Big Tech" on this page. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 07:52, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

XXeducationexpertXX, I've never heard "GAFA." Maybe "GAFAM," but pretty sure not in that order. Doug Mehus T·C 13:00, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

So you've provided ONE (1) source for what you think is "the only legitimate and referenceable grouping" of Big Tech. Well that's interesting, because here's four sources that talk about the "MAGA" grouping. Does that mean that "MAGA" is the only "legitimate and referenceable grouping" (your words) because I've beaten your number of sources? Or MAYBE the reality is that there are MANY different groupings that different authors have used, which was exactly why this article was renamed to "Big Tech" and merged with the "Big Five" article? If you want to write a section in this article about Scott Galloway's book (whoever he is) then go ahead, but your claim that GAFA is the "legitimate and referenceable grouping" is false, as I've demonstrated. Therefore this claim does not belong in the intro, because it's false. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

RobLa, I have heard the term "Four Horsemen" used. I am neutral on the bolding; slightly prefer bolding the first instance, but am wondering if we need to invoke WP:IAR to unbold it? There's a lot of alias terms. Perhaps we should add the alias terms to the infobox and only list the primary two terms in the Lede? Doug Mehus T·C 12:59, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus, I'm probably not the best one to ping about this. It was CyclingFan1234's changes that were reverted. I'm just inclined to let y'all promote Scott Galloway fine book "The Four Horsemen", available at a bookseller near you. I've given up on the idea that this article can be neutral in our lifetimes. -- RobLa (talk) 04:29, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus, surely the lede shouldn't be taking sides on different groupings of Big Tech, since there are a few. Some authors have said GAFA, some have said GAFAM, some have said MAGA (there are multiple sources using MAGA, particularly from recent years, which may be due to Microsoft's very good stock performance recently). One single book published in 2017, about the GAFA companies, does not entail that GAFA is the "most common" grouping. Furthermore, by many metrics (market cap, revenue, number of employees), MAGA is actually the more sensible grouping, by a very long stretch. In fact let's look at the market caps of the GAFAM companies:

1. Apple - $1.42 trillion
2. Microsoft - $1.41 trillion (99% of Apple's)
3. Amazon - $1.06 trillion (75% of Apple's)
4. Alphabet - $1.04 trillion (73% of Apple's)
5. Facebook - $610.51 billion (43% of Apple's)

So if you were looking at market cap alone, there is a noticeable "Big Two" (Apple and Microsoft), who are very close in market cap. Then, a fair bit behind them, you find another two who are very close (Amazon and Alphabet). So if we were going to make a "Big Four", it would surely be them. Facebook trails all of them by some way. But "it's not just about market cap", some might reply. Well, for the most recent year (2019), Facebook's revenues were only 56% those of Microsoft. Their number of employees was only 30% the number found at Microsoft. I'll admit Facebook are doing better in terms of profit, but this doesn't mean much, especially when Amazon make small profits (smaller than Microsoft or Facebook) because they reinvest their profits to grow the business. Conclusions: 1) I don't think it is factually accurate to claim that "GAFA" is the "most common" grouping of big tech companies, when other authors have referred to GAFAM, MAGA, etc., and 2) I think it is especially stupid to act as if GAFA is any sort of objective grouping of "Big Tech" when, by many measures, Microsoft are a much larger company than Facebook. And no I am not biased towards Microsoft. I use a MacBook and have done for years. I'm just trying to go by the objective facts that I can see. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 01:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Please read WP:OR. The sources explicitly state that Microsoft is not included in the GAFA grouping for a variety of reasons including their lack of success with consumer products. This fact hasn't changed since Eric Schmit made the comment in the early 2010s. Regarding Market cap: Market cap is a valuation, it changes on a daily basis. A year ago Amazon was the world's most valuable company, two years ago Apple had an unbroken streak of being the world's most valuable company. During this time period, Microsoft struggled to break the Top 4 most valuable companies. The "Big Four" or "Big Five" isn't grouped according to market cap. These are groupings that attempt to put in perspective the landscape of technology, specifically consumer technology and which organizations are truly the most dominant. According to several reputed sources, dominance is defined by how these companies appeal to consumers, not enterprises. If this were about enterprises - Microsoft, AWS, IBM, Oracle would be the "Big Four" - with Microsoft being the leader because of their enterprise software.XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

And I think we can come to an agreement here. Clearly, Microsoft and Facebook are swapped in and out of these initialisms based on the author. Experts in the field including Scott Galloway and Eric Schmit seem to think that Microsoft does not belong in the GAFA group. Others, including the President of the United States, seem to think that Facebook isn't included in that group. We should be making reference to this discrepancy rather than sweeping it under the rug. Perhaps we need a statement that recognizes Google, Amazon and Apple as consistent members of the Big Tech group, while Microsoft and Facebook alternate as members of these groupings. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 22:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Merge FAANG here?

MERGE FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) TO Big Tech

There is a strong consensus to merge FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) to Big Tech.

How much material to merge is a material of editorial discretion. Several editors mentioned that FAANG likely should have its own section in the Big Tech article though not enough editors commented on this to form a consensus either way.

Opposers of a merge argue that Netflix is a media streaming company, not a technology company, so does not belong in a "Big Tech" article. Supporters cite cite Technical details of Netflix in countering that technology is a significant focus of Netflix's work.

Opposers argue that Microsoft is not part of the FAANG grouping, while supporters counter that Microsoft is already mentioned in the Big Tech article and that FAANG could be described in its own section.

Opposers argue that FAANG is a Wall Street term used to refer to the best-performing stocks while supporters counter that FAANG is just another term (such as GAFA and GAFAM) to refer to Big Tech company stocks.

Newslinger offered a strong argument for a merge, writing, "Big Tech is the most neutral title to refer to major technology companies as a group, as it does not specify exactly which companies are included in the acronym. As the composition of the technology sector changes, Big Tech will stand the test of time much better than FAANG or its variants."

There is a strong consensus for a merge based both on the stronger arguments for a merge and a clear majority of editors supporting a merge.

Cunard (talk) 23:06, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Apparently this is controversial enough that someone reverted my merge. I think we should merge Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google to here because as that article's lead admits, FAANG is a "buzzword to entice investors". I already integrated the useful information from that article into this one; the rest is finance babble or only relevant to other articles like BATX and Cambridge Analytica. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:09, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support as an unnecessary and largely duplicative content fork. One possibility is to have a section of Big Tech titled FAANG, though some of the content of FAANG will likely need to be refactored and removed as it will already, essentially, be here. Doug Mehus T·C 20:01, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support - I agree it should be merged. I think User:Dmehus has the right idea of having a "FAANG" section, since "FAANG" arguably deserves a section of an article. The pro-FAANG argument falls apart when arguing for a separate article, though. -- RobLa (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - FAANG is a Wall Street term used to refer to the best performing stocks. Microsoft is not included in this grouping. Big Tech and FAANG are based on two entirely different concepts. Merging these two would just demonstrate that Wikipedia editors no nothing about finance

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.195.50 (talk) 22:10, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

• The "Big Tech" article includes many different grouping of the biggest technology companies. On January 23 of this year, I suggested (on this page) that we merge the GAFA and GAFAM articles into this new "Big Tech" article, and said this: "It seems to me the next step is rename this article to "Big Tech", since it is often referred to as "Big Tech", and that better describes the concept in a suitably NPOV way, and sidesteps the debate about whether it's GAFA, GAFAM, MAGA, FAMGA, FAAMG, or any of the other permutations of 4-5 letters, not to mention FAANG or BATX." As you can see, there is now a summary-style section for BATX in this article, but the BATX article remains separate. The BATX article appears to be a substantial enough article to justify a separate article, but the FAANG article seems to make more sense as a section of this article. -- RobLa (talk) 03:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Noting 75.172.195.50's good-faith contribution to the merger discussion, what do you you guys think, @RobLa and Axem Titanium:? I personally think that it does not matter one iota whether it's a Wall Street term. We have no rules, notionally, and it's up to us, decided by consensus, on the scope of the article. Doug Mehus T·C 01:31, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• I've replied to 75.172.195.50 comment as part of this revision. This editor insinuates that disagreement with their anonymously stated position "would just demonstrate that Wikipedia editors no nothing about finance". If the goal of Wikipedia is to have edit wars which serve as free advertising for finance websites, then we're clearly doing our job by having this conversation. If the goal of Wikipedia is to educate readers on the terminology surrounding the big technology companies (as part of the sum of all human knowledge) then I think that is best done with a single merged article of GAFA, GAFAM, and FAANG (among others), with only splitting articles when the topic is too complicated to be adequately covered by a single article. I still agree with your initial "support" comment for merging Big Tech and FAANG. The scope of of the "Big Tech" article can (and should) encompass the FAANG grouping. -- RobLa (talk) 03:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• My response is that I don't think the term FAANG has independent notability except as a subgrouping under Big Tech and my support of the merge is unchanged. Wall Street comes up with acronyms all the time (just look at how many permutations of G, A, F, A, and M they've come up with!) and this one might be a hair more popular than most, but not to the extent that it justifies a whole article. Axem Titanium (talk) 08:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• RobLa and Axem Titanium, Thank you for both your replies, as I figured you both might. Thanks for expanding on so eloquently why the anonymous opposer's arguments are procedurally flawed. I just figured we should rebut the assertion since the anonymous editor's "strong oppose" !vote was made so emphatically despite this not being a !vote.

  Note, too, that I had to reformat that comment several times as it was not present that way originally. Have a look at the original edit diff. Doug Mehus T·C 17:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose FAANG should not be merged for several reasons. 1) Netflix is not a tech company in the same way Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or Google are. Netflix is a media streaming company and is rarely considered to be "Big Tech" if not ever. 2) As previous editors have noted, Microsoft is not part of this grouping. 3) The FAANG grouping is used in the context of best performing stocks – it has nothing to do with market capitalization or being a tech company. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 17:48, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you for your perspective, but respectfully, Netflix is a tech company in the same broad context in which Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google are. Moreover, even if not, that's not a reason to oppose the merger. It's just a reason to oppose an entire merger; we can still merge the article and trim out Netflix. That won't be a problem. Regarding #2, only one editor in this discussion has made that claim but, more importantly, it's a moot argument since (a) Microsoft is already part of the Big Tech article (b) we can refer to the members of the FAANG grouping within that section and #3 is, frankly, a laughable argument. There's no notability for the term and, per WP:NOTDICTIONARY/WP:DICDEF, we can't maintain a sub-stub or stub-class article defining the term. If you want to propose such a definition to wikt:FAANG at Wiktionary, I would be supportive of that, but suspect it's already there. Nevertheless, it's not an argument at all as we can include the Wiktionary definition link in the FAANG section. Doug Mehus T·C 18:09, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your perspective, but Netflix is not a tech company anymore than Disney is a tech company. It's a media and entertainment company. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft produce hardware, software, and cloud computing services. Further, Big Tech is a reference to these companies' market capitalizations and border line monopolistic practices in multiple industries. FAANG is a reference to a group of companies with strong stock market returns of a certain period of time. These are two fundamentally different things. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 04:21, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• @XXeducationexpertXX:, are you suggesting that stock performance and market capitalization are unrelated? -- RobLa (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that stock performance and market cap are the same thing? Beyond Meat is one of the top 5 performing stocks of 2019, it would be never grouped together with Big Tech. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 04:21, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

By that logic, Facebook and Google are advertising companies, Amazon is a bookstore, and Apple is a music library. Tech is clearly a big part of what Netflix works on and invests in (cf. Technical details of Netflix) and by all accounts, Netflix is a fairly Big company. I'm not seeing a compelling reason to exclude it other than weird corporate fanboyism. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

You clearly can't decipher the logic. Read: "Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft produce hardware, software, and cloud computing services." Amazon builds AI assistants (dominant market leader), cloud computing services (dominant market leader), devices (tablets, smart speakers, AirPod equivalents, etc.), Apple builds electronic devices and software, Google builds software (market leader in mobile OS, browser, email, search engine), etc. etc. Netflix creates and streams content - their streaming technology isn't even their's - it streams on AWS - Amazon's cloud as does Disney+. Netflix is a Media and entertainment company not a tech company. It's one of the best performing stocks of the 2010s, which is why it's part of FAANG - not because it's part of Big Tech. Please, educate yourself.XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 07:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Keep up that attitude. It'll make you lots of friends on this website. As Doug pointed out above, even if we take your premise as true (that Netflix is not a tech company), that still doesn't make the term FAANG independently notable and warrant a separate page. I'm happy to leave Netflix out of the merge if it'll address your concerns but the FAANG article is getting merged or AFD'd. Your call. Axem Titanium (talk) 08:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I see, because you can't back up your own claims you revert to ultimatums and threats. It's not "my call". FAANG is a widely accepted and known term, so it should not and will not be deleted. You're no big shot so please stop acting like one ... I'm embarrassed for you. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 09:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Lmao, "FAANG is a widely accepted and known term" are literally weasel words. Also your ad hominem doesn't bolster your argument; it actually significantly detracts from it. I didn't even have a strong opinion on this FAANG / Big Tech matter, but just your methods of arguing are irrational and extremely stupid. Why do you think you're such a big shot, Mr. Personal Attack? CyclingFan1234 (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I concur with Axem Titanium. If you would prefer, for failing WP:GNG as written, I'll be happy to propose FAANG for deletion. Your choice; certain delete/draftify/merge at AfD or merge here. Since we're notionally not a bureaucracy, this seems to me to be the more expedient approach. Nonetheless, based on the arguments here, there's consensus to merge, so I've requested closure from an experienced, non-involved administrator. Doug Mehus T·C 08:54, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

There is no consensus to merge. The Oppose votes equal the support votes. So the options are ... 1) Gain Consensus 2) Get reported for POV pushing and WP:OWN XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 09:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

I would just remind you, respectfully, that this is not a vote. Consensus determination involves assessing arguments based on how accurate or rationale each is and assessing the degree to which policies were correctly interpreted applied by the opposing sides. There may well not be a consensus to merge, but I was just offering my own interpretation of how I viewed the consensus of the discussion thus far. I wouldn't close the discussion, and the consensus determination may well differ from my view or there could be added arguments that change the consensus. So, at present, I think it's best to let it be, and let the process play out. Doug Mehus T·C 15:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Also, even looking at the strict nosecount before Amakuru's and CyclingFan1234's comments were added, I'm not quite sure how you arrived at your assert that the "[o]ppose votes equal the support votes." I think you didn't take into account Axem Titanium's own nomination, and subsequent comments, which, taken together, equate to support for the merge/redirect. It matters not one iota whether Axem, as nominator, used a bolded !vote. Doug Mehus T·C 19:03, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Just responding to XXeducationexpertXX's insistence that Netflix isn't a tech company. If you go to the FAANG page itself, it literally describes all those companies as "high performance technology companies" in the leading paragraph. Lmao. Also, your remark about education is ad hominem, a.k.a., not an argument. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support merge. As already noted, there is a proliferation of these terms - GAFA, GAFAM, etc. each one spelling out the various major tech players in different combinations. Essentially they all just describe the same topic though, which is amply covered at big tech and FAANG is no different. The arguments made in opposition look unconvincing. FAANG is not just a grouping of largest stocks, and clearly Netflix is a tech company. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support per RobLa. Big Tech is the most neutral title to refer to major technology companies as a group, as it does not specify exactly which companies are included in the acronym. As the composition of the technology sector changes, Big Tech will stand the test of time much better than FAANG or its variants. — Newslinger talk 12:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge completed

@Dmehus: I merged the only information that I found useful from the FAANG article with this edit. The rest was just stock-picking/marketing doublespeak that barely qualifies as RS (or relevant to BATX and not FAANG). I don't have a strong opinion on whether FAANG needs its own section. There certainly wasn't a section's worth of material to merge from the old article, that's for sure. BTW, you don't have to dummy edit in mainspace to ping me. You can just @ me on a talk page. I won't be offended. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Axem Titanium, Sometimes I find it very efficient to have short- or short-ish brief little conversations in edit summaries, though. You're right, though, talk page might've been better. What do you mean by "in mainspace to ping me," though? Doug Mehus T·C 20:36, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Axem Titanium, You're right; there wasn't much to merge. A sentence, maybe two, at most was all that was necessary. If and when someone wants to have a future FAANG section, I'm not opposed to it, but at present, it's not needed. I see there's a bit of edit warring going on, but not likely enough to request page protection, eh? Doug Mehus T·C 20:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Axem Titanium, I updated the redirects to Big Tech; tagged the main one as {{R from merge}} and {{R with history}}, and then added various applicable rcats to each, as appropriate. So, feel free to update as needed, but I seem to have beat the bots on fixing the double redirects. ;-) Doug Mehus T·C 20:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I didn't know mentions in edit summaries caused a ping until now. From a user standpoint, you're bumping an article on people's watchlists without actually changing the content. I don't know how widespread this behavior is but I can't say I'm a big fan. RE: page protection, this probably does not require such a drastic action. User:XXeducationexpertXX appears to be operating under the assumption that their content is being removed. It is not. It exists approximately 6 inches lower on their screen in the Membership and definitions section. Thanks for fixing the double redirects and maintenance. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Axem Titanium, Oh, really, no one's ever pinged you in an edit summary? Good point about bumping the watchlist; that can be both a benefit and a positive, though. Yeah, I agree with you re: XXeducationexpertXX. Nothing wrong with the way the merge was implemented. The editor is welcome to expand, with reliable sources (i.e., no Investopedia; The Motley Fool can be okay, as long as it's an actual news article), but we don't need much in the Lede (beyond maybe the acronym/initialism). Doug Mehus T·C 21:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

FANG

Why can't this article introduce the term FANG? --Mortense (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Image for the social media unfurl

As a result of all the arguments about the membership of "Big Tech", there isn't an image at the top of this article. Which means that when someone puts a link to this article on any of the big social media websites, the unfurl banner looks kinda awful. The corresponding French article has File:Les 10 entreprises ayant les plus grandes capitalisations boursières.png, which seems a fantastic image for this article (assuming someone translated it to English). Anyone with charting skills want to create a translated version? -- RobLa (talk) 01:29, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for your remark! I translated the image and put it online here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_Largest_Corporations_by_Market_Capitalization.png -- YBSLE (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2020

Antitrust enforcement

With this edit, I removed from ‎Antitrust investigations in 2019-2020 a bunch of off topic editorial content that is non-neutral. (Part is false too, but unfortunately, sometimes false information is verifiable.) But again the central issues I raised are WP:N was being violated, and off topic editorial content doesn't belong.

As I said in my edit summary "It's more than just "how a monopoly is obtained or preserved" that violates antitrust. And there's more to it than just Sherman." I claim this is patently obvious after a quick read of our United_States_antitrust_law or Cartel or Clayton Act articles, or to anyone with any understanding of US antitrust law.

(Also, Microsoft is missing! https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-microsoft-corporation-browser-and-middleware ... I see an addition on it was thrown out in a big revert, but it's moot, as the whole thing should go.)

My edit was reverted in its entirety with the comment, "Reversing the edit. All information is properly sourced. If there is an alternative source, you must list it and describe the changes. Please do not delete properly sourced content" Its only source (but with two footnotes to it) is an article from the Five Myths Challenging everything you think you know WashPo series. AFAICT it's not been deemed less of a RS than the rest of WashPo, but it reads like an opinion piece. But in any case, I clearly didn't remove the content because of a RS issue, so arguing there's no RS issue is no reason to edit war over this for sure.

I was jut going to comment and not edit the article, but now looking at the edit history, I see that this section was added by the user who reverted my edit, Litesand and there's been much prior contention over it making the article a, as one user put it, a "mess". I see that user, XXeducationexpertXX has been heavy handed - discarding some good edits with some bad, but is right - I think it's appropriate to insist, "please discuss new edits on the talk page", that is, WP:BRD.

And there's great potential for CoI issues with an article on Big Tech!

--50.201.195.170 (talk) 01:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

50.201.195.170 you have improperly reverted my content. This section of the article clearly identifies the issue with regards the the antitrust law application to 2019-2020 investigations of Big Tech companies. Microsoft is not currently a target of these investigations, at least not actively. You MUST produce a better source of information if you want to challenge information I offer. This entire section was added to bring clarity and balance to the idea that Big Tech is bad because it's simply big. Antitrust law does not punish success. Period. This reference is not editorial, it is factually accurate and is supported with case law. Feel free to provide alternative sources, but do not delete legitimate content added with an appropriate reference. What makes you think that anyone here has a COI in this article? What exactly is your source? What exactly is your basis for reverting this edit?

redundant

Discussions of antitrust policy are clouded, however, by common myths about this widely misunderstood area of the law. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 criminalizes monopolistic business practices, specifically agreements that restraint of trade or commerce. At the same time, the Sherman Act allows organic creation of legitimately successful businesses that gain honest profits from consumers. The Act’s main function is to preserve a competitive marketplace. The Big Tech companies are large and successful companies, but success alone is not reason enough for antitrust action. A legitimate breach of antitrust law must be the cause of any action against a business. Antitrust law doesn’t condemn a firm for developing a universally popular search engine, such as Google, even if that success leads to market dominance. It’s how a monopoly is obtained or preserved that matters — not its mere existence. The correlation between alleged anticompetitive behavior and questionable online privacy practices is also far from clear. Antitrust law is narrowly tailored to protect consumers from business conduct that harms the competitive process itself. Questionable practices that relate to privacy, however, may require their own regulatory framework of online privacy laws.

Litesand (talk) 04:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

You make claims* with no support whatsoever.

1. "you have improperly reverted my content"*(1)
2. The idea that 'Big Tech can operate without facilitating child porn must remain to keep this discussion balanced' is as supported as your claim, "The idea that Big Tech can operate without violating the law must remain to keep this discussion balanced."*(2) I don't agree re.balance, but I'd be willing to go along with a short sentence expressing the idea of the "Five Myths" piece as such. But not a polemic in the 'pedia's voice.
3. "You MUST produce"*(3). I MUST nothing of the sort. See WP:CIVIL.

MSFT is a convicted abusive monopolist. Let me get this straight. As a member of Big Tech, you are arguing that MSFT does not merit mention in the section on of the "Big Tech" article on antitrust!*(4) You should hear yourself. It frightens me that [you think my edits are the bizarre ones.

I see the great potential for CoI issues with an article on Big Tech as self-evident. I didn't say or say I thought anyone here had a COI issue. You misrepresented me with your misstatement.

But now, because of your further comments, edit warring and hostility on my talk page and here, I do wonder if you're aware of and compliant with the policy. Have you made any WP:Paid editing disclosures?

--50.201.195.170 (talk) 07:30, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

50.201.195.170 Your comments on child porn make no sense. You probably need to read WP:CIVIL yourself as well as WP:NOR. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it - the same thing holds if you want to remove something. Microsoft is a Big Tech but it is not currently under investigation in 2019-2020. The current investigation is clearly aimed at Internet giants, so is the section. Another section can probably be added about Microsoft, but there is a whole article that exists here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp If you feel frightened, place a cross against your chest. What exactly is your reference? Are you disputing the FACT that the antitrust law MUST distinguish between purposeful monopolies and businesses that found themselves in a monopoly position purely as the result of business success? There are plenty of references that say this exact same thing. Nobody pays me on wikipedia to post anything, and what you feel is hostility is merely a frustration directed at your actions to add or removing information without a reference source, forcing my time to go back and reedit it. WP:CIVIL requires an ability to remain constructive, thus far, your edits are anything but.Litesand (talk) 14:31, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

References

Improper scaling in the graph

As explained in the misleading graph article, improper scaling gives the false impression that Microsoft is more than 10 times the size of Visa, whereas the figures say it's about 3 times the size. If this graph is the best we can do, then we should at least link to that article surely? 79.72.117.96 (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Indeed! Good like. Creator YBSLE may be able to help with a better graph. --50.201.195.170 (talk) 01:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Fixed! YBSLE (talk) 16:58, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Antitrust investigations section seems to violate WP:NPOV

I felt the need to create a talk page to gather the views of other editors rather than just edit it without consultation. The 4th paragraph of the Antitrust investigations section seems to lack an objective, unbiased tone to the extent that it violates WP:IMPARTIAL, its only cited source is a non-academic Washington Post opinion piece and a large amount of this section directly quotes or paraphrases text directly from it. While citing opinion pieces is not in itself an issue, I feel this section reads like an endorsement of the the views expressed in that opinion piece and stating said views as if they were facts when they are opinions. Antitrust legislation against the unique quote on quote "monopoly" that big tech has is largely untested legally, I feel this section, specifically the 4th paragraph previously mentioned, either needs to be rewritten to comply with WP:NPOV or alternatively cited with academic sources and/or US court rulings which support the views expressed by the writer of this article. RedAlert 007 (talk) 11:16, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Just want to piggyback onto this. The Antitrust investigations, Opposition, Accusations of censorship, and Alternatives sections, as currently written, all have a really strong POV and contain several grammatical errors as well. Particularly the Accusations of censorship and the Alternatives sections look like they're written by a member of the offended parties/the political fanbase of Donald Trump. I know WP:BOLD encourages us to "be bold," but due to my relative inexperience as an editor, I didn't feel comfortable going all "scorched Earth" and deleting entire sections, or reverting the article back several edits.

Yes, I could've easily fixed the grammatical errors myself without commenting on them, but I felt that doing so would be an endorsement of that content as encyclopedic. drgribb (talk) 16:06, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I could fix the WP:NPOV issues right now but im not the most experienced editor either so im hoping for a more experienced editor/wikipedia staff to chime in. RedAlert 007 (talk) 00:06, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

On second thought, im gonna make an attempt to make it more WP:NPOV compliant, worst that can happen is it gets reverted. RedAlert 007 (talk) 00:20, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Alt Tech

I'd like to propose that we remove the sentence "some have become popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extreme and fringe viewpoints." I believe this is not a neutral point of view, because saying "some" mean some do allow this, but also some don't. This can be written either way to suggest bad or good, which means its not neutral. There are many alt-tech platforms that forbid racism and anti-semitism according to reliable sources. If there are any objections, please let me know. Canadianr0ckstar2000 (talk) 22:12, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

“Paragraph 2 “Concerns over…” should be removed.”

I believe that “the description of the summary on paragraph 2 “Concerns over…” is inappropriate because of following 2 reason - The content is open to argument. - it’s too far from the point.

So I suggest that it should be removed. Natu12345 (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

It seems to summarize a big part of the article - the regulation or possible oversight that is being looked at for the Big Tech, and tries to stay neutral (identifying the benefits of big tech alongside its problems). All which is sourced in the body appropriately. No reason to remove based on this. --Masem (t) 20:28, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Masem. The second paragraph in the lead section provides an overview of the "Antitrust investigations" section below, plus it is well-sourced and maintains a neutral point of view. It should not be removed. The paragraph solely consists of factual statements, so I'm not sure what you mean by the content is open to argument. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:20, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Certainly, as you say, this paragraph summarizes a lot of the content of this article.I agree with that.

However, this paragraph does not answer the question, "What is Big Tech?"

Therefore, I still insist that this paragraph be deleted. Natu12345 (talk) 12:58, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

The lede section summarizes the entire article, it is not there to simply give the definition of the topic. That definition is defined by the first paragraph, but a significant part of the article is the criticism that Big Tech has drawn, and thus wholly appropriate. --Masem (t) 13:00, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course, the overview should be a summary of this article. In other words, lede should be summarizing of the most important aspects of the story. However, the argument in the second paragraph is too long.

I think we should still remove the second paragraph, but if you leave a critique of Big Tech, it should be more concise and less personal.

I persist it needs to be revised to a summary that gives an overall picture. Natu12345 (talk) 23:04, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Slightly mangled sentence

"hence Samsung is not included in the BAT formulation, though They is based in Korea."
The end of this has issues with capitalization, grammar, and also content. Shall we remove the last part of the sentence, or try and rework it?--Plexish (talk) 22:53, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

 Fixed. There were other problematic edits that came with it, so I reverted those too. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:34, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Including Microsoft

Okay, so the linked article talking about why Microsoft should be left out of the conversation is way out of date. For one, Microsoft started coming back a few years after that article was written. Secondly, it's not the same Microsoft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:844:4302:40a0:bdfd:9651:8061:1b2b (talk • contribs)

We don't get to decide what companies are grouped here in this. MS is likely excluded as they don't have the big pervasive social features, in addition to the fact that MS had already been subject to monopoly practices years ago in both the US + EU and thus likely keeps above the bar otherwise. I'm sure that there are some big tech groupings that would include MS, but the larger group exclude MS. --Masem (t) 05:26, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

See User:RobLa/COI to see my conflicts of interest in editing this page. Living in San Francisco since 2011 has given me a clear view of the "Bay Area bias", which is opposed to Microsoft and snobbish about many things that aren't within an eighty-mile radius of San Francisco. I can imagine an author like Scott Galloway (who got his MBA at UC Berkeley) might be a little biased toward Google, Facebook, and Apple, and might be including Amazon grudgingly, but will love to see us debating his book on this talk page (because no publicity is bad publicity). Many people who know me would never describe me as "pro-Microsoft", but it seems that this article has used the Galloway citation to inject a lot of Bay-Area bias. This article reads like a giant advertisement for Galloway's book (perhaps like a fawning book review). I believe that the "#Big Five" section of this article should be moved to the top of the "#Membership and definitions" section of the article, and that the "#Big Four" section should be trimmed back considerably (probably removing the comically biased Eric Schmidt quote about what consumers think of Microsoft, completely ignoring the wildly successful Xbox franchise, not to mention the enormous worldwide desktop and laptop marketshare of Microsoft Windows). -- RobLa (talk) 03:07, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, I've tried to rework the definition section so that it starts with the main 7 companies in Big Tech, and how that has subsets and other groupings, so that why MS is dropped from the Big Five to the Big Four is keeping things more neutral. I do think a better reason why MS is not included in the Big Four is needed but I can't find a better a source at the immediate time. --Masem (t) 18:17, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Facebook/Meta

Keeping in mind WP:RECENTISM and WP:COMMONNAME, we should not be mass changing this article to reflect "Meta" as the name of Facebook, since so many of the past sources are based on Facebook being part of Big Tech/Four/Five. Yes, we should ID that Facebook is now Meta, similar to how Alphabet is identified as the owner of Google, but until we see how mainstream sources handle over time the name transition, we need to keep Facebook as Facebook in this article. --Masem (t) 20:09, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

To add we will not be added terms suggested only from social media, per WP:NEO. We need to wait to see if terms like FAANG are updated appropriately in reliable sources to reflect the name change. --Masem (t) 20:11, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Big Four Inconsistency

Facebook - "It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies along with Amazon, Apple, and Google."

Big Four tech companies - "The Big Four is a name used to describe the four multinational technology companies Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple."

???

The truth of the matter is that "Big Four" is not an objectively defined notion. Some people have grouped together the GAFA companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), although it seems this is a more historical grouping - Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) grouped these companies together in 2011. 2011 is nearly a decade ago. I think they were grouped because, at the time, they were seen to be pushing innovation more than other tech companies were - companies like Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft was seen as a bit "old hat", I guess. However, in the last couple of years, a few publications (e.g. the Financial Times, CNBC, and The Economist, all cited in the article) have grouped together the MAGA companies (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon). Which in my mind makes far more sense, because the MAGA companies have MUCH larger market caps than Facebook (the MAGA companies are all relatively close to each other, but the gap with Facebook is much larger - Amazon, the least valuable of the MAGA companies, has a market cap nearly 50% higher than Facebook's). And the MAGA companies have much larger revenues, and way more employees (Microsoft, Apple, and Google each have over twice as many employees as Facebook. Amazon has more employees than any of them by a gigantic margin, due to their warehouse workers.). However, regardless of what I think about which definition of a "Big Four" makes sense, Wikipedia should only be documenting objective reality. "Big Four" is not a consistently-used, widely-used term for any specific grouping of four big tech companies. Which is why I agree with the proposal to rename this article to "Big Tech" (just like the page on Big Oil). Then the article can feature different sections regarding different groupings that different authors can use. E.g. a section on "GAFA" and the authors who have talked about GAFA, then a section on "MAGA" and the authors who have talked about MAGA, etc. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 12:29, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so can we stop giving a dated (and decidedly non-neutral) quote from Eric Schmidt so much prevalence in this article? Is Microsoft not part of the "Big Four"? -- RobLa (talk) 05:47, 26 March 2022 (UTC)