"Silicon Valley tech firms exacerbating income inequality, World Bank warns", 14 Jan. 2016

...[To] the World Bank...Silicon Valley’s technology firms appear to be exacerbating economic inequality rather than improving it.

It’s not a new argument in California’s San Francisco Bay, where protesters have blockaded Google’s commuter buses and local activists try to curtail new development for tech company headquarters. But the 330-page report released on 14 January is perhaps the most high-profile examination of how specific American tech giants impact the global economy.

“...some of the perceived benefits of digital technologies are offset by emerging risks,” the report says. For instance, it says: “Many advanced economies face increasingly polarized labor markets and rising inequality – in part because technology augments higher skills while replacing routine jobs.”

“The economics of the internet favor natural monopolies, the absence of a competitive business environment can result in more concentrated markets, benefiting incumbent firms. Not surprisingly, the better educated, well connected, and more capable have received most of the benefits – circumscribing the gains from the digital revolution.”

...[Many] of the shortcomings of American tech firms can be overcome if governments can increase public access to the web. Technology firms such as Google and Facebook are working on projects to offer free internet to parts of Africa and India.  For those projects to work, the companies need to offer internet access with no strings attached, the World Bank says...

[also refers to Amazon]