What is unique about these big five monopoly-monopsony hybrids is that they have carved out the social quantification space among themselves under an informal Pax Britannica–type of noncompetitive agreement. Yes, Microsoft spends about $5 billion a year keeping up with Google Search, and Apple spends about $1 billion45 competing only with Google Maps (just as Google tried unsuccessfully to launch Google+, an alternative to Facebook). But what this really means is that there are no other corporations out there with the resources to compete at the same scale in this sector.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 193