How Big Tech uses its stranglehold to stamp out alt-tech competitors

? Apple, Google, and Facebook's control over mobile app distribution, search, and social is being used to restrict alt-tech solutions in multiple ways.

Tom Parker

In 2001, tech giant Microsoft lost its antitrust case against the United States with the court ruling that it "unlawfully suppressed nascent competition" via its actions against alternative technologies and software.

At the time, smartphones had yet to take the world by storm, traditional computers were the main device people would use to access the internet, and the internet had yet to achieve widespread adoption with just 500 million global users in 2001.

Despite the relatively small scale of the internet compared to where it is today, Microsoft's huge 80% share of the computer operating system market at the time meant that the tech giant was essentially an internet gatekeeper and much of the case against it centered around the way it used its dominant position in the market to restrict the Netscape Navigator web browser.

Now, almost two decades later, the tech landscape has changed with the internet having 4.1 billion global users, the internet being deeply ingrained into almost every aspect of people's lives, and smartphones being the primary device people use to access the internet.