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MAGA as a valid term

I (personally) have never heard/seen anyone refer to Microsoft | Apple | Google | Amazon as `MAGA`, and given much more obvious definition for that acronym, and the fact that only one (very paywalled) article even ventures to refer to it as such, indicates it should be removed, in my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Verygoodsoftwarenotvirus (talk • contribs) 19:12, 10 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree, strongly (and respectfully), for many reasons that I feel are strong. Firstly, the Financial Times article is not the only one - there is a CNBC article (cited also on this article) which also uses "MAGA" to refer to the same companies. In fact, from a quick internet search, there are other outlets using MAGA in the same way, including The Economist. Secondly, an article being paywalled doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or is somehow illegitimate. Especially when it comes from such a reputable source as the Financial Times. Thirdly, whether the acronym is the same as another acronym with a different meaning is completely irrelevant. All that matters is whether "MAGA" has indeed been used by reputable sources to describe four of the biggest tech companies, which it has. The National Rifle Association shares an acronym with Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority - does that mean we should delete the article on Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority? Again, with due respect, I very strongly disagree with your reasoning. Surely the ONLY criterion that should be used to judge whether "MAGA" should be included in this article, as a grouping of four tech companies (which is the subject of the article, until it is merged / renamed to "Big Tech"), is whether reputable sources have used that acronym to group four big tech companies together. And they have — the Financial Times, CNBC, and The Economist. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 18:42, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just to follow on from one of the points I made, about paywalled sources. Obviously sources without paywalls are preferable. But if the only sources are ones with paywalls, it's better than nothing, according to Wikipedia's official docs: "Do not reject reliable sources just because they are difficult or costly to access" (WP:PAYWALL). The Financial Times, CNBC, and The Economist are still definitely extremely reputable sources, despite any paywall / ad block blocker (in the case of CNBC). CyclingFan1234 (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Big Four Inconsistency

Facebook - "It is considered one of the Big Four technology companies along with Amazon, Apple, and Google."

Big Four tech companies - "The Big Four is a name used to describe the four multinational technology companies Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple."

???

The truth of the matter is that "Big Four" is not an objectively defined notion. Some people have grouped together the GAFA companies (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon), although it seems this is a more historical grouping - Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) grouped these companies together in 2011. 2011 is nearly a decade ago. I think they were grouped because, at the time, they were seen to be pushing innovation more than other tech companies were - companies like Microsoft. At the time, Microsoft was seen as a bit "old hat", I guess. However, in the last couple of years, a few publications (e.g. the Financial Times, CNBC, and The Economist, all cited in the article) have grouped together the MAGA companies (Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon). Which in my mind makes far more sense, because the MAGA companies have MUCH larger market caps than Facebook (the MAGA companies are all relatively close to each other, but the gap with Facebook is much larger - Amazon, the least valuable of the MAGA companies, has a market cap nearly 50% higher than Facebook's). And the MAGA companies have much larger revenues, and way more employees (Microsoft, Apple, and Google each have over twice as many employees as Facebook. Amazon has more employees than any of them by a gigantic margin, due to their warehouse workers.). However, regardless of what I think about which definition of a "Big Four" makes sense, Wikipedia should only be documenting objective reality. "Big Four" is not a consistently-used, widely-used term for any specific grouping of four big tech companies. Which is why I agree with the proposal to rename this article to "Big Tech" (just like the page on Big Oil). Then the article can feature different sections regarding different groupings that different authors can use. E.g. a section on "GAFA" and the authors who have talked about GAFA, then a section on "MAGA" and the authors who have talked about MAGA, etc. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 12:29, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

TODO - plenty of work

It's amazing how little sourced content is present on an article on the handful of totalitarian organisations that dominate the online world, and thus, the real world to a large degree. [Conspiracy theorists: you can create some conspiracy theories about GAFAM blocking Wikipedia editors ... ;) ]

But seriously: this page is worth doing some work on. There should be plenty of sources. Boud (talk) 13:27, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Correction: GAFAM + Wikipedia + git repositories dominate the online world - where Wikipedia/git repositories are the complete opposite to GAFAM. Anyway, let's see if I or others find time to do some work on this... Boud (talk) 13:29, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Word salad in lead

The term Gang of Four was coined for this context by Eric Schmidt in 2008 [??] Phil Simon, and Scott Galloway as describing the companies "behind the consumer revolution on the Internet" and "avoid[ing] taxes, invad[ing] privacy, and destroy[ing] jobs".

— MaxEnt 21:19, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal: Big Four tech companies vs GAFAM

Proposal: WP:SPLIT this article into separate, partially overlapping, articles GAFA (or Big Four tech companies = present main name; I'm not proposing a name change) and GAFAM.

This informal proposal is motivated by recent edits by @RaphaelQS:. In this edit and this revert, RaphaelQS seemed to suggest that we split the article into two separate articles for the US versus the French views of the world's 4-5 dominant software/internet corporations. I oppose the proposal (see below), but I'm making a proposal so that it can be discussed properly. Boud (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - At the moment, the amount of knowledge content in the article, in the sense of academic analysis rather than media interviews, doesn't seem to me sufficient to split. The content could be significantly expanded (for obvious reasons - these companies dominate the World and the World has started to notice) - but that editing hasn't happened yet. Independently, it seems to me that the choice of which companies to include/exclude is less important - in terms of "knowledge" - than what is common between the two visions - a world-dominating oligarchy with barely a hint of separation of executive-legislative-judicial powers. Splitting into GAFA vs GAFAM would also suggest that we should create a third overlapping article for G-MAFIA+BAT, which might be better justified, provided that we have enough RS'd content. Boud (talk) 20:08, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose to avoid repetition, especially at the moment when this article is tiny. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 14:53, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since you oppose the proposal, please do not remove notable content. Some of the restructuring is OK, but not removal of significant content. The causes or origins of Wikipedia topic X are a notable aspect of topic X. Academic content is more significant than mainstream media content, since academics take time to study topics in depth and systematically. Thanks. Boud (talk) 13:15, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed merge of Big Five (technology companies) into Big Four tech companies

MERGE
There is strong consensus here, unanimity, in fact, to merging Big Five (technology companies) into Big Four tech companies as there is agreement that it is almost laughable that Microsoft would be excluded from Big Four tech companies.

In terms of actually carrying out the merge, editors are welcome to engage the requested mergers editing team, which includes GenQuest, among others. At the same time, once the merge has been completed, it's recommended that the rcat "from merge" and "with history" be added to the Big Five (technology companies) redirect to identify that the merged content contributed to the merged Big Four tech companies article. This is to prevent accidental deletion of the redirect at RfD that would contravenue the licensing and attribution requirements.

Note: There is a parallel requested move discussion that will effect this page in a tangential way in that Big Four tech companies is being proposed to move to Big Tech. It may be advisable to wait for the move discussion to conclude before completing the merge. --Doug Mehus T·C 01:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The two topics can be more or less discussed in a common article since Microsoft is really the only notable difference. Neither deserves a separate article. ««« SOME GADGET GEEK »»» (talk) 15:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Merging these two articles would be a good idea. The Big Five article doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than highlight the fact that some people consider Microsoft to be on the level of GAFA. Based on this edit, it seems like this might have been User:Zaheen's motivation for creating the separate Big Five page. Rogerthat94 (talk) 06:21, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed. Perhaps renaming the article into something like “Internet Giants” or “Web Giants” would help focus less on exactly which companies to include —which is a bit pointless and subject to change over time— and more on what they mean in the global society, as mentioned by @Boud. This is the solution adopted by the French and Dutch articles (the Dutch article seems to have some relevant additions). Regards, Maëlan 15:08, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merger. The Big Five article only seems to add a little extra info compared to the main "Big Four" article. But the situation in the fr.Wikipedia is more developed in terms of content. Boud (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Rename proposal: Not yet. At the moment, in fr.Wikipedia, fr:GAFAM is a long in-depth article, fr:BATX is a stub, and it's true that fr:Géants du Web exists, though right now it's just a rather short overview article. This split seems reasonable to me: we have zillions of articles on Europe, North America, United States, China, Asia, Africa, and any proposal to merge them all into a single article wouldn't last more than a few seconds before being laughed off as utterly ridiculous. The new superpowers can surely be documented with depth appropriate to their significance in the world, and on a more practical side, appropriate to the number of WP:RS. But I don't see much point splitting until we have a bit more solid material written and sourced, preferably from academic sources.
This is actually a more tricky bootstrap (COI of the sources) problem than in the case of geographically based governments/powers. GAFAM directly affects what sources we have available, and indirectly affects Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia which affect the in-depth academic sources via their (Onex + BPEA) ownership of Clarivate Analytics which owns Web of Science which strongly influences academic careers and funding via bibliometry (quantification of "serious knowledge"). Academic bibliometric centralisation of power is a less visible world domination question than GAFAM/BATX. (BATX doesn't affect Wikipedia sources so much, because of the PRC choice to block Wikipedia - this shooting-one's-propaganda-in-the-foot irony is well-known: the PRC would influence "knowledge" as represented in Wikipedia more if Wikipedia were not blocked in the PRC.) I'm not opposing a rename now, but I think that it would make more sense with a bit more material, so that individual GAFAM and BATX articles are not too stubby. Boud (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
fr:Géants du Web is cross-linked from here, I hadn’t noticed that there were other French articles (the cross-language link should be fixed, then). I would support their merging in the French Wikipedia as well but this would require energy (fr:GAFAM is actually good and since it is tailored to the Big Five, generalizing it would be non-trivial) and I don’t have enough at the moment.
… On second thought I acknowledge that the Internet Giants and the GAFA(M) are largely the same topic but different things so that it can make sense to have separate articles. However GAFA and GAFAM are the same thing. No matter how well-sourced GAFAM would be, it would either be largely redundant (more than 80% redundant, to be precise) with GAFA, or amount to “The GAFAM are the GAFA plus Microsoft.”
The analogy with geography does not hold : a more correct analogy would be creating articles for every subset of States, e.g. China and Canada, China and Canada and the Netherlands, China and Mauritius and New Zealand… That’s exponentially more than a zillion. Maëlan 18:38, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify: I'm not proposing to think of a long-term power set split of these powers ;) (2^{|UN member states|} ~ googol^{0.58}; so I think your estimate is fair, assuming that 1 zillion < 1 googol^{1/2}) - so obviously GAFA and GAFAM are close enough that (at least in the reasonably forseeable future) there's no justification in splitting them. But having an overall article, and separate GAFAM/GAFA and BATX articles, seems reasonably likely to be justifiable in terms of sources. Which raises the questions of European or Indian/South Asian internet giants - I guess Wipro and Infosys don't have the near-monopoly status of GAFAM or BATX for specialised services, and their financial evaluations are much smaller than GAFAM/BATX, so they gather less attention. Another interesting question (for academics creating source material for Wikipedia) would be how to include WMF wikis/Wikipedia in relation to the others: in terms of web influence and numbers of editors and readers working together, the WMF wikis/Wikipedia are "a tech giant" - one of the top few websites (or website groups), while in financial terms, we have negligible weight; our organisational nature (transparent, horizontal) is also completely opposite to GAFAM/BATX (opaque, vertical). Again: we need to find or wait for academics who study these things (and miraculously are independent of those things) to provide sources for these articles. Boud (talk) 22:39, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It is nonsensical to leave Microsoft out of any categorisation of "Big Tech". It is even more ludicrous to leave them out if you're including Facebook, who are a much, much smaller company by every metric I can see. Microsoft were the most valuable public company on the planet for the first three quarters of this year, and I think they are currently in third position, after Saudi Aramco in first (who very recently had their IPO, immediately putting them in first) and Apple in second. So Microsoft's market cap is ahead of Alphabet (by 26%), Amazon (by 35%), and Facebook (by 111%) by significant amounts. The comparison to Facebook is pretty staggering - Microsoft's market cap is over twice as much as Facebook's, and in the financial year of 2018, Microsoft collected almost exactly twice as much revenue as Facebook. And Microsoft have about 3.5 times as many employees as Facebook. And their shares have increased in value over the last five years to a greater extent than Facebook's (3.26x increase for Microsoft, vs 2.48x increase for Facebook). So how on Earth can Microsoft be excluded from any categorisation of Big Tech? CyclingFan1234 (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merger. This whole Big Four seams a bit dated. Leaving Microsoft out is goofy, considering their Market Cap of $1.215T and the overall size and comprehensiveness of their business including Windows, Azure, O365, Dynamics, Surface, LinkedIn, Github, etc. etc. Hypree (Ͳ · ∆ · @) 20:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Same concept, differing only by inclusion of a single company. Separate section in Big Four. —Wiki Wikardo 14:00, 16 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support renamed "Big Tech" article - whether it's four companies or five, it doesn't make sense having two different articles on this topic. Readers would be served better with a single article on the topic. "Big Tech" should redirect to the merged article (and perhaps the merged article should exist at that title, rather than a title with a number or an acronym). The dispute about "GAFA" or "GAFAM" or "FAMGA" or "Big Four" or "Big Five" would be a sensible section of this article. -- RobLa (talk) 07:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Strongly oppose excempting Microsoft from GAFAM

Microsoft has high market value than Amazon and Facebook[1] It is factually incorrect to call Amazon and Facebook are bigger than Microsoft.

The reason cited is not based on data and facts but merely just because a Google staff called Microsoft is not part of it, what happened to review policies of Wikipedia.

  1. ^ Staley, Oliver. "There's a new list of the world's largest companies and tech isn't on it". Quartz. Retrieved 2019-12-16.

Requested move 23 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 02:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Big Four tech companies → Big Tech – The title should not have a specific number, and "Big Tech" is a very common name for these large companies in tech. RobLa (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Wikardo (talk · contribs), thank you for merging the "Big Four" and "Big Five" articles.

It seems to me the next step is rename this article to "Big Tech", since it is often referred to as "Big Tech", and that better describes the concept in a suitably NPOV way, and sidesteps the debate about whether it's GAFA, GAFAM, MAGA, FAMGA, FAAMG, or any of the other permutations of 4-5 letters, not to mention FAANG or BATX. Objections? -- RobLa (talk) 22:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I implicitly support doing this as well. I don't think Wikipedia should be propping up what really amounts to a puffy marketing term for a small group of tech companies. There's a better article to be written here about Big Tech and its geopolitical influence/ramifications but it can use this article as a base. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Article lead needs to say "Big Tech"

Yesterday, I made some adjustments to the lead section of the article to make a more sensible introduction to "Big Tech" (the new title of the page). Earlier today, an editor at 75.172.195.50 made this change to the article:

  • Undid revision 938430922 by RobLa (talk) This doesn't improve the specificity of the article. "Big Four" is more common than "Big Five" or "Big Tech"

I reverted their change, since it was against the clear consensus on this talk page. Does anyone else want to re-open this conversation? -- RobLa (talk) 16:23, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

RobLa, Support the reversion of the good-faith edit, but I'm not pleased with the incidental editing done thus far. Lede should say Big Tech, with the other terms bolded and set off in an appositive, like this:
  • Big Tech, sometimes referred to as the Big Four or Big Five tech companies, refers to (...)
Later on the Lede, the other terms can be added.
How's that? Doug Mehus T·C 16:36, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, User:Dmehus, that would be fine. I think I'm done editing this article for today, though, and would prefer if someone else made the change. -- RobLa (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RobLa, Sounds good. They can use this discussion as a mini-consensus. :) Doug Mehus T·C 16:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge FAANG here?

MERGE FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) TO Big Tech

There is a strong consensus to merge FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) to Big Tech.

How much material to merge is a material of editorial discretion. Several editors mentioned that FAANG likely should have its own section in the Big Tech article though not enough editors commented on this to form a consensus either way.

Opposers of a merge argue that Netflix is a media streaming company, not a technology company, so does not belong in a "Big Tech" article. Supporters cite cite Technical details of Netflix in countering that technology is a significant focus of Netflix's work.

Opposers argue that Microsoft is not part of the FAANG grouping, while supporters counter that Microsoft is already mentioned in the Big Tech article and that FAANG could be described in its own section.

Opposers argue that FAANG is a Wall Street term used to refer to the best-performing stocks while supporters counter that FAANG is just another term (such as GAFA and GAFAM) to refer to Big Tech company stocks.

Newslinger offered a strong argument for a merge, writing, "Big Tech is the most neutral title to refer to major technology companies as a group, as it does not specify exactly which companies are included in the acronym. As the composition of the technology sector changes, Big Tech will stand the test of time much better than FAANG or its variants."

There is a strong consensus for a merge based both on the stronger arguments for a merge and a clear majority of editors supporting a merge.

Cunard (talk) 23:06, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Apparently this is controversial enough that someone reverted my merge. I think we should merge Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google to here because as that article's lead admits, FAANG is a "buzzword to entice investors". I already integrated the useful information from that article into this one; the rest is finance babble or only relevant to other articles like BATX and Cambridge Analytica. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:09, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support as an unnecessary and largely duplicative content fork. One possibility is to have a section of Big Tech titled FAANG, though some of the content of FAANG will likely need to be refactored and removed as it will already, essentially, be here. Doug Mehus T·C 20:01, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I agree it should be merged. I think User:Dmehus has the right idea of having a "FAANG" section, since "FAANG" arguably deserves a section of an article. The pro-FAANG argument falls apart when arguing for a separate article, though. -- RobLa (talk) 20:58, 1 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose - FAANG is a Wall Street term used to refer to the best performing stocks. Microsoft is not included in this grouping. Big Tech and FAANG are based on two entirely different concepts. Merging these two would just demonstrate that Wikipedia editors no nothing about finance [1][2][3]

References

  1. ^ https://www.investors.com/news/technology/what-are-fang-stocks-faang-stocks
  2. ^ "Analysts: These 3 FAANG Stocks Could Outperform in 2020". finance.yahoo.com.
  3. ^ "FAANG Stock Definition". Investopedia.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.195.50 (talk) 22:10, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Big Tech" article includes many different grouping of the biggest technology companies. On January 23 of this year, I suggested (on this page) that we merge the GAFA and GAFAM articles into this new "Big Tech" article, and said this: "It seems to me the next step is rename this article to "Big Tech", since it is often referred to as "Big Tech", and that better describes the concept in a suitably NPOV way, and sidesteps the debate about whether it's GAFA, GAFAM, MAGA, FAMGA, FAAMG, or any of the other permutations of 4-5 letters, not to mention FAANG or BATX." As you can see, there is now a summary-style section for BATX in this article, but the BATX article remains separate. The BATX article appears to be a substantial enough article to justify a separate article, but the FAANG article seems to make more sense as a section of this article. -- RobLa (talk) 03:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've replied to 75.172.195.50 comment as part of this revision. This editor insinuates that disagreement with their anonymously stated position "would just demonstrate that Wikipedia editors no nothing about finance". If the goal of Wikipedia is to have edit wars which serve as free advertising for finance websites, then we're clearly doing our job by having this conversation. If the goal of Wikipedia is to educate readers on the terminology surrounding the big technology companies (as part of the sum of all human knowledge) then I think that is best done with a single merged article of GAFA, GAFAM, and FAANG (among others), with only splitting articles when the topic is too complicated to be adequately covered by a single article. I still agree with your initial "support" comment for merging Big Tech and FAANG. The scope of of the "Big Tech" article can (and should) encompass the FAANG grouping. -- RobLa (talk) 03:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • My response is that I don't think the term FAANG has independent notability except as a subgrouping under Big Tech and my support of the merge is unchanged. Wall Street comes up with acronyms all the time (just look at how many permutations of G, A, F, A, and M they've come up with!) and this one might be a hair more popular than most, but not to the extent that it justifies a whole article. Axem Titanium (talk) 08:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • RobLa and Axem Titanium, Thank you for both your replies, as I figured you both might. Thanks for expanding on so eloquently why the anonymous opposer's arguments are procedurally flawed. I just figured we should rebut the assertion since the anonymous editor's "strong oppose" !vote was made so emphatically despite this not being a !vote.
    Note, too, that I had to reformat that comment several times as it was not present that way originally. Have a look at the original edit diff. Doug Mehus T·C 17:40, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose FAANG should not be merged for several reasons. 1) Netflix is not a tech company in the same way Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or Google are. Netflix is a media streaming company and is rarely considered to be "Big Tech" if not ever. 2) As previous editors have noted, Microsoft is not part of this grouping. 3) The FAANG grouping is used in the context of best performing stocks – it has nothing to do with market capitalization or being a tech company. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 17:48, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for your perspective, but respectfully, Netflix is a tech company in the same broad context in which Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google are. Moreover, even if not, that's not a reason to oppose the merger. It's just a reason to oppose an entire merger; we can still merge the article and trim out Netflix. That won't be a problem. Regarding #2, only one editor in this discussion has made that claim but, more importantly, it's a moot argument since (a) Microsoft is already part of the Big Tech article (b) we can refer to the members of the FAANG grouping within that section and #3 is, frankly, a laughable argument. There's no notability for the term and, per WP:NOTDICTIONARY/WP:DICDEF, we can't maintain a sub-stub or stub-class article defining the term. If you want to propose such a definition to wikt:FAANG at Wiktionary, I would be supportive of that, but suspect it's already there. Nevertheless, it's not an argument at all as we can include the Wiktionary definition link in the FAANG section. Doug Mehus T·C 18:09, 9 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your perspective, but Netflix is not a tech company anymore than Disney is a tech company. It's a media and entertainment company. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft produce hardware, software, and cloud computing services. Further, Big Tech is a reference to these companies' market capitalizations and border line monopolistic practices in multiple industries. FAANG is a reference to a group of companies with strong stock market returns of a certain period of time. These are two fundamentally different things. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 04:21, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting that stock performance and market cap are the same thing? Beyond Meat is one of the top 5 performing stocks of 2019, it would be never grouped together with Big Tech. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 04:21, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
By that logic, Facebook and Google are advertising companies, Amazon is a bookstore, and Apple is a music library. Tech is clearly a big part of what Netflix works on and invests in (cf. Technical details of Netflix) and by all accounts, Netflix is a fairly Big company. I'm not seeing a compelling reason to exclude it other than weird corporate fanboyism. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You clearly can't decipher the logic. Read: "Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft produce hardware, software, and cloud computing services." Amazon builds AI assistants (dominant market leader), cloud computing services (dominant market leader), devices (tablets, smart speakers, AirPod equivalents, etc.), Apple builds electronic devices and software, Google builds software (market leader in mobile OS, browser, email, search engine), etc. etc. Netflix creates and streams content - their streaming technology isn't even their's - it streams on AWS - Amazon's cloud as does Disney+. Netflix is a Media and entertainment company not a tech company. It's one of the best performing stocks of the 2010s, which is why it's part of FAANG - not because it's part of Big Tech. Please, educate yourself.XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 07:34, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep up that attitude. It'll make you lots of friends on this website. As Doug pointed out above, even if we take your premise as true (that Netflix is not a tech company), that still doesn't make the term FAANG independently notable and warrant a separate page. I'm happy to leave Netflix out of the merge if it'll address your concerns but the FAANG article is getting merged or AFD'd. Your call. Axem Titanium (talk) 08:41, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I see, because you can't back up your own claims you revert to ultimatums and threats. It's not "my call". FAANG is a widely accepted and known term, so it should not and will not be deleted. You're no big shot so please stop acting like one ... I'm embarrassed for you. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 09:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Lmao, "FAANG is a widely accepted and known term" are literally weasel words. Also your ad hominem doesn't bolster your argument; it actually significantly detracts from it. I didn't even have a strong opinion on this FAANG / Big Tech matter, but just your methods of arguing are irrational and extremely stupid. Why do you think you're such a big shot, Mr. Personal Attack? CyclingFan1234 (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with Axem Titanium. If you would prefer, for failing WP:GNG as written, I'll be happy to propose FAANG for deletion. Your choice; certain delete/draftify/merge at AfD or merge here. Since we're notionally not a bureaucracy, this seems to me to be the more expedient approach. Nonetheless, based on the arguments here, there's consensus to merge, so I've requested closure from an experienced, non-involved administrator. Doug Mehus T·C 08:54, 10 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus to merge. The Oppose votes equal the support votes. So the options are ... 1) Gain Consensus 2) Get reported for POV pushing and WP:OWN XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 09:11, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would just remind you, respectfully, that this is not a vote. Consensus determination involves assessing arguments based on how accurate or rationale each is and assessing the degree to which policies were correctly interpreted applied by the opposing sides. There may well not be a consensus to merge, but I was just offering my own interpretation of how I viewed the consensus of the discussion thus far. I wouldn't close the discussion, and the consensus determination may well differ from my view or there could be added arguments that change the consensus. So, at present, I think it's best to let it be, and let the process play out. Doug Mehus T·C 15:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Also, even looking at the strict nosecount before Amakuru's and CyclingFan1234's comments were added, I'm not quite sure how you arrived at your assert that the "[o]ppose votes equal the support votes." I think you didn't take into account Axem Titanium's own nomination, and subsequent comments, which, taken together, equate to support for the merge/redirect. It matters not one iota whether Axem, as nominator, used a bolded !vote. Doug Mehus T·C 19:03, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just responding to XXeducationexpertXX's insistence that Netflix isn't a tech company. If you go to the FAANG page itself, it literally describes all those companies as "high performance technology companies" in the leading paragraph. Lmao. Also, your remark about education is ad hominem, a.k.a., not an argument. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge. As already noted, there is a proliferation of these terms - GAFA, GAFAM, etc. each one spelling out the various major tech players in different combinations. Essentially they all just describe the same topic though, which is amply covered at big tech and FAANG is no different. The arguments made in opposition look unconvincing. FAANG is not just a grouping of largest stocks, and clearly Netflix is a tech company. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per RobLa. Big Tech is the most neutral title to refer to major technology companies as a group, as it does not specify exactly which companies are included in the acronym. As the composition of the technology sector changes, Big Tech will stand the test of time much better than FAANG or its variants. — Newslinger talk 12:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Merge completed

@Dmehus: I merged the only information that I found useful from the FAANG article with this edit. The rest was just stock-picking/marketing doublespeak that barely qualifies as RS (or relevant to BATX and not FAANG). I don't have a strong opinion on whether FAANG needs its own section. There certainly wasn't a section's worth of material to merge from the old article, that's for sure. BTW, you don't have to dummy edit in mainspace to ping me. You can just @ me on a talk page. I won't be offended. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Axem Titanium, Sometimes I find it very efficient to have short- or short-ish brief little conversations in edit summaries, though. You're right, though, talk page might've been better. What do you mean by "in mainspace to ping me," though? Doug Mehus T·C 20:36, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Axem Titanium, You're right; there wasn't much to merge. A sentence, maybe two, at most was all that was necessary. If and when someone wants to have a future FAANG section, I'm not opposed to it, but at present, it's not needed. I see there's a bit of edit warring going on, but not likely enough to request page protection, eh? Doug Mehus T·C 20:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Axem Titanium, I updated the redirects to Big Tech; tagged the main one as {{R from merge}} and {{R with history}}, and then added various applicable rcats to each, as appropriate. So, feel free to update as needed, but I seem to have beat the bots on fixing the double redirects. ;-) Doug Mehus T·C 20:41, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't know mentions in edit summaries caused a ping until now. From a user standpoint, you're bumping an article on people's watchlists without actually changing the content. I don't know how widespread this behavior is but I can't say I'm a big fan. RE: page protection, this probably does not require such a drastic action. User:XXeducationexpertXX appears to be operating under the assumption that their content is being removed. It is not. It exists approximately 6 inches lower on their screen in the Membership and definitions section. Thanks for fixing the double redirects and maintenance. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:48, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Axem Titanium, Oh, really, no one's ever pinged you in an edit summary? Good point about bumping the watchlist; that can be both a benefit and a positive, though. Yeah, I agree with you re: XXeducationexpertXX. Nothing wrong with the way the merge was implemented. The editor is welcome to expand, with reliable sources (i.e., no Investopedia; The Motley Fool can be okay, as long as it's an actual news article), but we don't need much in the Lede (beyond maybe the acronym/initialism). Doug Mehus T·C 21:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Groupings of Big Tech

It seems someone made an edit recently to claim that the "GAFA" grouping of companies is the "most common". I don't think this is true anymore. It might have been true a few years ago, since old articles seem to discuss that grouping. But there are other groupings that have been used more recently, like GAFAM and MAGA.

The whole point of renaming this article to "Big Tech" is surely that there are many subjective groupings of companies that different newspapers have come up with. This article should not be picking favourite groupings of companies. The article should be reporting the facts as they are. So, for example, "some newspapers have referred to GAFA, some to MAGA, some to GAFAM".

Am I wrong here? This article should be as objective as possible, shouldn't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CyclingFan1234 (talk • contribs) 18:18, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct. The assertion that "GAFA" ever is the "most common" needs citation. -- RobLa (talk) 20:02, 12 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Superfluous GAFA/GAFAM text in the intro

@XXeducationexpertXX:, why did you restore the dubious claim that "GAFA" is the most common, and repeat the bolded "Four Horseman" text in the introduction (see XXeducationexpertXX's recent changes to "Big Tech")? Was there a discussion about this that I wasn't part of? It seemed to me that the consensus on this talk page was to remove that text. -- RobLa (talk) 04:44, 14 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

GAFA is the most widely used and accepted term. There's an award winning book called the "The Four" about Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon - in which Scott Galloway refers to those four companies as the "The Four Horsemen". It is the only legitimate and referenceable grouping of "Big Tech" on this page. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 07:52, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
XXeducationexpertXX, I've never heard "GAFA." Maybe "GAFAM," but pretty sure not in that order. Doug Mehus T·C 13:00, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
So you've provided ONE (1) source for what you think is "the only legitimate and referenceable grouping" of Big Tech. Well that's interesting, because here's four sources that talk about the "MAGA" grouping. Does that mean that "MAGA" is the only "legitimate and referenceable grouping" (your words) because I've beaten your number of sources? Or MAYBE the reality is that there are MANY different groupings that different authors have used, which was exactly why this article was renamed to "Big Tech" and merged with the "Big Five" article? If you want to write a section in this article about Scott Galloway's book (whoever he is) then go ahead, but your claim that GAFA is the "legitimate and referenceable grouping" is false, as I've demonstrated. Therefore this claim does not belong in the intro, because it's false. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 01:08, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RobLa, I have heard the term "Four Horsemen" used. I am neutral on the bolding; slightly prefer bolding the first instance, but am wondering if we need to invoke WP:IAR to unbold it? There's a lot of alias terms. Perhaps we should add the alias terms to the infobox and only list the primary two terms in the Lede? Doug Mehus T·C 12:59, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dmehus, I'm probably not the best one to ping about this. It was CyclingFan1234's changes that were reverted. I'm just inclined to let y'all promote Scott Galloway fine book "The Four Horsemen", available at a bookseller near you. I've given up on the idea that this article can be neutral in our lifetimes. -- RobLa (talk) 04:29, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Dmehus, surely the lede shouldn't be taking sides on different groupings of Big Tech, since there are a few. Some authors have said GAFA, some have said GAFAM, some have said MAGA (there are multiple sources using MAGA, particularly from recent years, which may be due to Microsoft's very good stock performance recently). One single book published in 2017, about the GAFA companies, does not entail that GAFA is the "most common" grouping. Furthermore, by many metrics (market cap, revenue, number of employees), MAGA is actually the more sensible grouping, by a very long stretch. In fact let's look at the market caps of the GAFAM companies:
  1. Apple - $1.42 trillion
  2. Microsoft - $1.41 trillion (99% of Apple's)
  3. Amazon - $1.06 trillion (75% of Apple's)
  4. Alphabet - $1.04 trillion (73% of Apple's)
  5. Facebook - $610.51 billion (43% of Apple's)
So if you were looking at market cap alone, there is a noticeable "Big Two" (Apple and Microsoft), who are very close in market cap. Then, a fair bit behind them, you find another two who are very close (Amazon and Alphabet). So if we were going to make a "Big Four", it would surely be them. Facebook trails all of them by some way. But "it's not just about market cap", some might reply. Well, for the most recent year (2019), Facebook's revenues were only 56% those of Microsoft. Their number of employees was only 30% the number found at Microsoft. I'll admit Facebook are doing better in terms of profit, but this doesn't mean much, especially when Amazon make small profits (smaller than Microsoft or Facebook) because they reinvest their profits to grow the business. Conclusions: 1) I don't think it is factually accurate to claim that "GAFA" is the "most common" grouping of big tech companies, when other authors have referred to GAFAM, MAGA, etc., and 2) I think it is especially stupid to act as if GAFA is any sort of objective grouping of "Big Tech" when, by many measures, Microsoft are a much larger company than Facebook. And no I am not biased towards Microsoft. I use a MacBook and have done for years. I'm just trying to go by the objective facts that I can see. CyclingFan1234 (talk) 01:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:OR. The sources explicitly state that Microsoft is not included in the GAFA grouping for a variety of reasons including their lack of success with consumer products. This fact hasn't changed since Eric Schmit made the comment in the early 2010s. Regarding Market cap: Market cap is a valuation, it changes on a daily basis. A year ago Amazon was the world's most valuable company, two years ago Apple had an unbroken streak of being the world's most valuable company. During this time period, Microsoft struggled to break the Top 4 most valuable companies. The "Big Four" or "Big Five" isn't grouped according to market cap. These are groupings that attempt to put in perspective the landscape of technology, specifically consumer technology and which organizations are truly the most dominant. According to several reputed sources, dominance is defined by how these companies appeal to consumers, not enterprises. If this were about enterprises - Microsoft, AWS, IBM, Oracle would be the "Big Four" - with Microsoft being the leader because of their enterprise software.XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 22:32, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And I think we can come to an agreement here. Clearly, Microsoft and Facebook are swapped in and out of these initialisms based on the author. Experts in the field including Scott Galloway and Eric Schmit seem to think that Microsoft does not belong in the GAFA group. Others, including the President of the United States, seem to think that Facebook isn't included in that group. We should be making reference to this discrepancy rather than sweeping it under the rug. Perhaps we need a statement that recognizes Google, Amazon and Apple as consistent members of the Big Tech group, while Microsoft and Facebook alternate as members of these groupings. XXeducationexpertXX (talk) 22:45, 21 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

FANG

Why can't this article introduce the term FANG? --Mortense (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image for the social media unfurl

As a result of all the arguments about the membership of "Big Tech", there isn't an image at the top of this article. Which means that when someone puts a link to this article on any of the big social media websites, the unfurl banner looks kinda awful. The corresponding French article has File:Les 10 entreprises ayant les plus grandes capitalisations boursières.png, which seems a fantastic image for this article (assuming someone translated it to English). Anyone with charting skills want to create a translated version? -- RobLa (talk) 01:29, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! Thank you for your remark! I translated the image and put it online here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:10_Largest_Corporations_by_Market_Capitalization.png -- YBSLE (talk) 15:42, 8 April 2020

Improper scaling in the graph

As explained in the misleading graph article, improper scaling gives the false impression that Microsoft is more than 10 times the size of Visa, whereas the figures say it's about 3 times the size. If this graph is the best we can do, then we should at least link to that article surely? 79.72.117.96 (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed! Good like. Creator YBSLE may be able to help with a better graph. --50.201.195.170 (talk) 01:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Antitrust enforcement

With this edit, I removed from ‎Antitrust investigations in 2019-2020 a bunch of off topic editorial content that is non-neutral. (Part is false too, but unfortunately, sometimes false information is verifiable.) But again the central issues I raised are WP:N was being violated, and off topic editorial content doesn't belong.

As I said in my edit summary "It's more than just "how a monopoly is obtained or preserved" that violates antitrust. And there's more to it than just Sherman." I claim this is patently obvious after a quick read of our United_States_antitrust_law or Cartel or Clayton Act articles, or to anyone with any understanding of US antitrust law.

(Also, Microsoft is missing! https://www.justice.gov/atr/case/us-v-microsoft-corporation-browser-and-middleware ... I see an addition on it was thrown out in a big revert, but it's moot, as the whole thing should go.)

My edit was reverted in its entirety with the comment, "Reversing the edit. All information is properly sourced. If there is an alternative source, you must list it and describe the changes. Please do not delete properly sourced content" Its only source (but with two footnotes to it) is an article from the Five Myths Challenging everything you think you know WashPo series. AFAICT it's not been deemed less of a RS than the rest of WashPo, but it reads like an opinion piece. But in any case, I clearly didn't remove the content because of a RS issue, so arguing there's no RS issue is no reason to edit war over this for sure.

I was jut going to comment and not edit the article, but now looking at the edit history, I see that this section was added by the user who reverted my edit, Litesand and there's been much prior contention over it making the article a, as one user put it, a "mess". I see that user, XXeducationexpertXX has been heavy handed - discarding some good edits with some bad, but is right - I think it's appropriate to insist, "please discuss new edits on the talk page", that is, WP:BRD.

And there's great potential for CoI issues with an article on Big Tech! 

--50.201.195.170 (talk) 01:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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