Big Tech Q&A: Common Questions and Straight Answers

After introducing what Big Tech is and how it grew into hyperscalers, many people naturally have follow-up questions.
These questions are legitimate, worth asking, and deserve clear answers.

Here are some of the most common ones, with evidence and examples.

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1. “We’re the product — why is that so bad?”

On the surface, it might feel harmless: you use a free service, they show you some ads.
But when your data and attention become the product, the entire system is designed to extract as much of both as possible.

That means:
- pervasive tracking across apps and websites
- profiling and prediction of your behavior
- algorithms tuned to maximize engagement, not wellbeing

Examples and stats:
- Roughly 80% of Google’s revenue and 98% of Facebook’s revenue come from advertising — monetizing your data and attention. Together they’ve driven ~90% of growth in the digital ad market.⁶
- Amnesty reports Google trackers on ~86% of the top 50k sites, Alphabet trackers in ~90% of free Android apps, and Facebook trackers in almost half of free Android apps.⁸

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2. “So what if they know all about me? I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Mass surveillance isn’t just about catching “bad actors.”
It’s about shaping behavior — what you buy, what you believe, how you vote — and shifting power away from citizens toward a handful of corporations (and governments that rely on their systems).

Even if you feel safe, surveillance harms:
- vulnerable groups (journalists, activists, minorities)
- societies where power can shift overnight toward authoritarianism

Examples and stats:
- Amnesty calls Big Tech’s surveillance model a threat to human rights, undermining privacy, freedom of expression, and non-discrimination.⁵
- In a 2025 briefing, Amnesty described Big Tech as “digital landlords”, warning of their role in fueling violence and repression (e.g., Tigray, Rohingya).[^^7]

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3. “Walled gardens and echo chambers — don’t people naturally stick to their own groups?”

Yes, humans cluster. But Big Tech amplifies and hardens these bubbles because outrage keeps us scrolling.
What might start as community becomes algorithmically reinforced echo chambers.

Examples and stats:
- A major poll found 70% of U.S. adults say social media does more harm than good, and 72% believe social media has too much political influence.³
- Research on the 2016 U.S. election found social bots disproportionately amplified low-credibility content, helping false stories go viral.¹⁰

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4. “What’s the real harm — and what would I gain by leaving? Isn’t life just harder?”

Leaving Big Tech can feel inconvenient at first — and that’s by design. It’s called vendor lock-in: the deliberate creation of dependence so switching feels costly.

But what you gain is far greater:
- Privacy — less surveillance of your personal life
- Freedom — you’re not trapped in one ecosystem
- Choice — you can support ethical, open alternatives
- Wellbeing — fewer manipulative feeds competing for attention

Examples and stats:
- Surveys show 56–57% of Americans want stronger regulation of Big Tech. The concern isn’t fringe — it’s mainstream.³⁴
- Human rights groups call for banning surveillance advertising, more algorithmic oversight, and breaking up monopolistic dominance so people aren’t forced into walled gardens just to function.⁶⁷

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🌍 Recap

At the individual level, it may not always feel urgent. But at the collective level — with billions locked in — the stakes are enormous:
- Privacy erosion
- Polarization and manipulated politics
- Authoritarian surveillance powers
- Monopolistic capitalism beyond regulation

This isn’t just about inconvenience.
It’s about the kind of digital world we all live in — and whether it serves us, or extracts from us.

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Sources

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1. The Conversation — Is big tech harming society? To find out, we need research – but it’s being manipulated by big tech itself ↩

2. Surveillance Watch (lite) — Map of surveillance companies & funding ↩

3. Tech Oversight Project — Public Demand for Regulating Big Tech (Schaffner polling PDF) ↩↩

4. Tech Oversight Project — Antitrust polling flip-flops ↩

5. Amnesty International USA — Why Are Big Tech Companies a Threat to Human Rights? ↩

6. Amnesty International — Surveillance Giants ↩↩

7. Amnesty International USA — Breaking up with Big Tech briefing ↩

8. Amnesty International — Big Tech’s surveillance-based business model ↩

9. EFF — Behind the One-Way Mirror: A Deep Dive Into the Digital Advertising & Tracking Ecosystem ↩

10. Shao et al. (2017) — The spread of low-credibility content by social bots (arXiv) ↩