Big Tech benefits research and development

The argument

The size and stability of the Big Tech companies enable them to pursue longer-term goals than would be feasible for smaller companies, which includes making massive investments into research and development (R&D). Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google's parent company Alphabet are all among the top 15 companies in the world in terms of R&D spending, with Alphabet and Amazon being the first- and second-biggest spenders on R&D respectively. Rather than stifling innovation, the research conducted and funded by the Big Tech companies represents a vast support network for forward-looking innovators and inventors. If Big Tech is broken up, private sector R&D will be diminished significantly.

Premises

Counter-arguments

These R&D investments in private terms are large, but most real breakthough innovation happens through public funding and university models. Value created through private R&D innovation in not generally shared with the public, but is sold back to them.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Corporate size is not what makes long-horizon research possible: publicly funded laboratories and universities work on longer horizons than any firm, and much of the foundational science these companies build on came from that sector. [Rejecting P2] Spending totals measure inputs rather than results, and a large share of corporate research budgets goes to incremental product development rather than to the breakthroughs the premise credits them with. [Rejecting P3] The premise assumes the research would vanish rather than be redistributed, when a break-up separates the units doing the work from a single owner; the counter adds that value created privately is sold back to the public rather than shared with it, which weakens the claim that the arrangement serves innovators generally.