7.2 Big/Small Tech and Competition Issues

Big Tech (the gatekeepers): search, social, marketplaces, app stores, operating systems — the enforcement wave's names: the shopping-comparison self-preferencing case (Google), the app- store gates, the ebook conspiracy (Apple), the browser/OS tying (Microsoft — the classic that taught the moderns), the privacy-harms-as-competition-harms argument (the FTC-Facebook file). Small Tech (the challengers): startups as the innovation defence — and as acquisition bait; the small-business view of platforms (the restaurant and the delivery app; the shop and the marketplace — dependency without bargaining power). The Nepali reflection: platform markets reach Nepal (the social-marketplaces, the ride apps, the payment apps) while enforcement capacity is nascent — the 2063 Act's amendment debates reading the digital template: platform provisions, data-access remedies, and the extraterritorial question of Unit 5.