Americans respond to print media, signage and off-line marketing methods, as attentive manufactured housing industry professionals know.
That noted, the research says that most home shoppers at some point are shopping online.
According to research by Google and the National Association of Realtors, 90 percent of housing shoppers are doing at least some of that shopping online.
Rephrased, that means that manufactured housing professionals are beholding, and to a real extent, are at the mercy of what Google and Facebook’s algorithms dictate.
What that means is that the search-tech giants have a huge influence over manufactured homes, or other housing searches. That same point – the influence of Google and Facebook – can be made about their influence over the news millions consume.
That concentration of monopolistic economic power has caused concerns among the mainstream media, politicos and others.
A Striking Admission by Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg
There are times that admissions are made by powerful people that deserve to be etched into the memories of manufactured housing industry professionals.
“Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Silicon Valley is an “extremely left-leaning place,” per the Washington Times.
That four-word candid admission by Zuckerberg speaks volumes.
It isn’t just billionaire Zuckerberg who leans left, is what he is admitting. High profile Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Berkshire Hathaway leaders all do too. Why? And why does it matter?
NewsCorp, the parent to Fox News, is calling for an outside audit of the algorithms the tech giants are using, per the Deadline, because of the enormous power they have over the marketplace.
To illustrate the power NewsCorp and others are fretting about, Drudge recently reported that:
- Google is the number one website online,
- Facebook is number two,
- and Google parent Alphabet owned YouTube is now number three.
Everything else online pales in comparison.
That monopolistic power in search means Alphabet-Google-YouTube and Facebook influences news consumption.
It also means that ad revenue is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the tech giants, not local or even national media.
Warren Buffett has admitted that newspapers as we know them are dying, and he owns a number of media outlets. “It’s difficult to see how the print product survives over time,” Buffett has said.
Left and Right, the Anti-Monopolistic Fight?
If the Democratic Party really is the people’s party, why have so many Democrats kissed up to billionaires for so long? It’s an issue for progressives among Democrats, question that Elizabeth Warren and others have wrestled with. Taking on the giant monopolies is part of the “Better Deal” the Democrats rolled several months ago.
Elizabeth Warren is among those calling for a breakup of monopolistic power. By doing so, some argue, it will boost the economy, fuel more businesses, create more jobs, and thus make wages go higher too.
As MHProNews has reported, there are voices ranging from the far left to the far right calling to control or break up the monopolies. Right leaning Breitbart, was joined by left leaning Fortune recently, with the following concern.
“The mere size, power, and mostly unregulated conduct of the digital monopolies—Facebook, Alphabet [parent to Google and YouTube], Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft — as well as the unprecedented scale and speed with which personal data is collected and turned into predictive algorithms, creates an omniscient, opaque machinery that threatens to erode the very foundation of American democracy,” wrote Moran Cerf, Sandra Matz, and Guy Rolnik.
Winner Take All?
“The digital economy has turned into a winner-takes-all arena, with a small number of companies controlling large parts of the market. The resulting lack of competition can potentially hinder innovation and entrepreneurial growth and exacerbate inequalities in labor markets. Companies like Amazon, for example, can strong-arm taxation systems and recruit our best and brightest talent to work on tasks that are crucial to its business,” said the trio of writers for Fortune.
News flash, to industry professionals. If it is “winner take all,” that means that the vast majority of businesses will become the losers.
“Specifically, they can employ anti-trust rules aggressively to break existing digital monopolies (i.e. break down Google into smaller corporations that are not allowed to share user data or resources)… Prior government interventions, such as the successful anti-trust regulation of Bell Labs—which resulted in the growth of Silicon Valley—could serve as role models,” per Fortune.
“In fact, standing up to digital monopolies is in corporations’ best self-interest…If Alphabet decided to enter the real estate brokerage market tomorrow, the sheer amount of data it holds on individuals from all over the world would make it a leading competitor overnight,” said Fortune.
The article added, “While many of the digital monopolies have started out under the ethos of audacious social missions—such as “connect the world” (Facebook) and “organize the world’s information” (Google)—their current practices make their missions sound more like “exploit human vulnerabilities” or “claim the maximum amount of user attention.”
NewsCorp says audit and regulate them.
But others are saying there is a need to break up these giants.
Scott Galloway is one the Daily Business News has mentioned before. The same principle applies to other giants, which are found in the related report links below. Note that left and right news media videos above and below show that the interest spans the spectrum.
But the takeaway for marketers, investors and industry professionals is this.
The midterms are rushing up. There ought to be a push to ask politicos where they stand on the problems of modern monopolies. Will they support those who believe that breaking up the monopolies is good for the majority of businesses, and is good long term for jobs and the vast majority of people?
There is still time to act. “We Provide, You Decide.” © ## (News, analysis, and commentary.)
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Related Reports:
Meet the Modular Housing Builder Google Picked, and their “Industrial Cathedral”
Progressive “Nation” Reports on Monopolies Cites Buffett, Clayton, Others – MH Industry Impact?
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Soheyla is a managing member of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
