Digital-Platform Power Concentration

What this driver is

Digital platform power concentration is a continuing meter of how far a small set of intermediary firms control the routes by which users, advertisers, app makers, and newsrooms reach each other. It is a mechanism, not a single company and not a unique Factrail market-share integer. It is not the NEW event bundle EU platform regulation (DSA/DMA). That bundle holds Regulation 2022/1925, Regulation 2022/2065, the 2023 VLOP list, and the 2023 gatekeeper list. This node is the concentration meter.

The driver is not Social Platform Dependence, not Cloud Infrastructure Concentration, and not Antitrust Pressure in Digital Markets as a second name. Those neighbouring nodes can move with this meter. They do not replace it. It is not Ukraine war.

It applies globally as a time-varying intensity. The live Factrail series uses Individuals using the Internet (IT.NET.USER.ZS) as a disclosed proxy: more users online is treated as a larger surface for a few platforms, not as a complete operational definition of concentration. Missing releases stay missing. This page does not interpolate. Internet use is not a Herfindahl index.

The documentary neighbourhood includes the DMA gatekeeper decisions of 5–6 September 2023 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft; 22 core platform services) and the DSA VLOP list of 25 April 2023. Those instruments belong on platform-regulation-eu when they are Union events.

Mechanism

Concentration moves welfare through named channels.

First, gatekeeping. App stores, search, ads, and social feeds set default routes.

Second, lock-in. Switching costs, identity graphs, and cloud-and-ad bundles keep users and business users inside a few firms.

Third, rule-setting. Ranking, ranking-for-pay, and takedown practice become private law. DSA due-diligence is the neighbouring overlay.

Fourth, the proxy’s limits. IT.NET.USER.ZS measures use of the internet, not shares of search or app-store revenue.

Timing is months for a designation and years for an ITU point. A later dedicated concentration series would be a better meter.

Evidence base

The live quantitative record is IT.NET.USER.ZS via the World Bank API (https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/all/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?date=2020:2025&format=json&per_page=20000 (opens in a new tab)). Context sits at the Commission DMA designation press of 6 September 2023 (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328 (opens in a new tab)) and EUR-Lex for the DMA.

This page does not invent a unique market-share, user, or fine integer as Contribution.size. Where the Commission names 22 core platform services, that count stays on the press release.

Evidence is strongest for the stored proxy observations and for named designation decisions on the neighbouring EU bundle. It is weaker for the claim that every internet-user movement was concentration. It is weakest where a “consumer surplus” brochure is asked to replace the series.

Effect on welfare indicators

This driver, when it actually runs, is a first-order channel into civic and consumer voice.

• Having a say in government: direction lower when a few ranking systems set the public square and business access; direction mixed if DMA contestability actually bites. Horizon: months to years. Confidence: medium. The indicator is higher-is-better. Strengthening concentration is treated here as welfare-negative unless a sourced contestability series dominates. No unique share integer is invented here.

Missing coefficients stay missing.

The welfare sign of strengthening this meter is negative for contestable civic and commercial access. That is the opposite of treating a user-growth chart as a democracy good that rebates a gatekeeper designation.

Interactions and contested points

The mechanism interacts with platform-regulation-eu, social-platform-dependence, and cloud-infrastructure-concentration when a designation, a fine, and an ITU point sit in the same year. Reinforcement is obvious. Offsetting is the claim that concentration is efficient scale. Efficiency can be stored. It does not cancel Article 3.

The strongest competing view is that IT.NET.USER.ZS cannot carry concentration. That objection is serious. The competing defence is the existing disclosed proxy plus DMA designations as neighbourhood, not as a unique Factrail coefficient.

A second competing view is that this node should be merged into platform-regulation-eu. It should not. Regulation is the Union event bundle. Concentration is the meter.

A later dedicated series would update the meter.