I Have Never Been So Wrong For So Long About Something

It is possible that this has been decades of wishful thinking on my part. I can tell you that there will be more wishful thinking on my part for as long as I have left to breathe.

So what I have I been so wrong about???

Technology as the Vehicle to Promote Small Business

When I first saw Amazon in the early days of the internet I envisioned a digital main street of independent small businesses selling goods and services.
WRONG!

When open source came into vogue, after I got over my own fear that this was communism invading technology I thought we would see a rise in garage companies, goods and services.
WRONG!

But, with sites like Stackoverflow, GitHub, and Sourceforge to ironically name the big players there has been a proliferation of developer resources, tools, and help we all can share with one another.
When Google first appeared on the scene with their fair advertising model that allowed a small company to get in the ad game and compete with the giants I thought we would see a spike and resurgence of small business, if only online.
WRONG!

When web 2.0 hit the scene and you could register your own url and create a dynamic website for as little as $10 a month I thought we would see a resurgence of small businesses and services online.
WRONG!

For almost a decade now AWS has offered a scalable cloud infrastructure that allows businesses of any size and shape to get into the game and compete with the big dogs. Still not much movement in the rise of small business.

Everything I have mentioned still exists. In my naive mind I still hold out hope for a resurgence of commerce and industry for small business but after all these years I am still waiting.

At the risk of waxing nostalgic let me offer a historical lens of what life used to be like. When I was young growing up in Chicago we did not have Walmart. We did have large department stores like Sears and chains like Rexall drugs. But we had even more small businesses. In fact, even for the larger stores like Sears mothers and fathers made a career working there actually making a living wage. I am not just talking about people in management, I am talking about cashiers and clerks.
Even today if you look at the shopping mall concept it is still pretty much the same. Large stores anchoring the mall surrounded by smaller stores. But, alas most of these smaller venues are mostly franchises. What has changed is that retail, with the exception of management (and not even every management position) no longer provides a wage one can live on. Full time positions are pretty much not common. But hey, you can buy a pair of 12 dollar (or 75 dollar) jeans made in a slave labor sweatshop in a third world country.

I hear manufacturing is coming back to America.

What has changed is that apart from restaurants everything today online or brick and mortar is a big box or a franchise. In fact, when we get into the online world we enter a realm of monopolies.
eBay, which admittedly is a digital flea market for small business and entrepreneurs is a monopoly. Amazon, the largest online retailer allows small business to sell their goods. What is their competition? at least Walmart has some competition in Target. Amazon and eBay really have no competition. Why is this?

I am not for a minute defending Target or Walmart. The Walmart model is to move into rural areas and setup shop. Put local businesses out of business and provide a model for employment that does not offer families a living wage. But hey, you can get those slave made $12 jeans. But not to worry, as wages are rising overseas your neighbors soon will be back to making those $12 jeans for a non living wage.

For so long I have never been so wrong about something. We live in an era where an individual has access to affordable technology and tools that allow them to sell goods and services to online for very little capital expenditure. This has been the case for a long time now. Yet, as the years have gone by commerce and technology have become consolidated into the hands of a few.

Let me put this into staggering perspective for you. Facebook has about 1.6 billion users (the entire planet has slightly over 7 billion inhabitants). So who is Facebook's competition? Do you realize Facebook only employees about 13,000 people. 1.6 billion members and 13,000 employees. China has 1.36 billion inhabitants. The largest country on the planet has less people than Facebook.
Business once was about competition. I am into music. Back in the 1970's when I was a young man in the high end stereo market there was Sansui, Luxman, Pioneer, Yamaha, Marantz, Kenwood and I have not named them all. For just about any business sector you could find a competitive landscape. Today competition does not seem to be something we see much of any more.

Why is this?

In brick and mortar retail we are lucky to see two main competitors. When in comes to the ecommerce finding two competitors for the "big-box" sites is even harder.

Pick a sector: transportation, health care, retail, social media, ecommerce, food and you will find that they are dominated by conglomerates and franchises. I do not have a problem with big business. I do not have a problem with medium size business. I do not have a problem with small business.

What I have a problem with is any business, any country, any society that does not pay its people a living wage. I have witnessed in my lifetime a shrinking middle class in America.

But, I keep coming back to the fact that for a long time now we have had an online landscape that has been ripe for the resurgence of small business ventures. Yet when compared to offline business competition is even more pathetic. Why is' this?

We vote will our wallets. Think about this the next time you buy something.