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How big can the largest tech companies get? How completely can they come to dominate the economy? The “big five” — Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon — now have a combined valuation of over US$3.3 trillion, and make up more than 40 per cent of the value of the Nasdaq 100 index. As the digital economy continues to grow faster than the old economy, it’s hard to see what can stop these juggernauts. Unless reality intrudes.

After all, what exactly is their business? Who are their customers? What role do they play in the economy? Each answer points toward some limit on the size, scale and profitability of these giants.

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These companies are big for a reason: Nearly every aspect of the digital economy touches them in some way or another. We know that Facebook and Google represent a digital advertising duopoly. We know that Amazon is gobbling up more and more of e-commerce. Amazon, Google and Microsoft are leaders in providing cloud services. Apple sells high-margin smartphones and other computing devices. Put it all together, and you’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of annual revenue and tens of billions of dollars in profits.