Fortunately, the rest of America is not buying what these advocates and academics are saying. Zogby polling
shows that just 5 percent of Americans think regulators should focus
anti-competitive enforcement on tech. And less than 16 percent of
Americans think online services like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon
couldn’t be replaced if a better competitor came along.

To Americans, the anti-tech drum-beat is hollow.

In
fact, the bigger the tech-platform, the better it is for small
businesses. Online platforms with a large number of users can expose
otherwise hidden stores to thousands of potential customers. And polling
shows that a majority of Americans use online platforms to discover a
small business they had not previously known.

Artists can find
customers on Etsy. Repairmen can find customers on Thumbtack. And
home-owners can find extra revenue with Airbnb. And the bigger these
platforms get, the better it is for small businesses seeking customers.

These large platforms are the key to small business success.

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He then goes on to describe China’s internet companies as being the only
ones that can “match America’s in ambition and reach.” The country is
“years ahead” of the United States,” he says, with “a supernova of
creative expression” online. In fact, Zhong writes, “American social
media executives” are now looking to Chinese companies like
TenCent, ByteDance, TikTok, Alibaba, Weibo and Baidu for inspiration on
how to innovate, impress their customers, and “keep them glued” to their
devices.

Buried in the effusive praise, however, are some sobering statements like this one:

“All
this, on a patch of cyberspace that is walled off from Facebook and
Google, policed by tens of thousands of censors and subject to strict
controls on how data is collected, stored and shared.”

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For these reasons and more, artists should put their hatred of
President Trump aside and learn to embrace the rules of the music
licensing road before they wreck the system. Andrew Breitbart wasn’t
wrong when he said that politics is downstream from culture. Should the
creative talent that shapes the culture not educate itself on the cause
and effects of their actions and proclamations, they can begin
influencing politics – even at the DOJ – for the worse.

It’s time to start shaping up, Hollywood.

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