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Intuitively, it would appear to me that in the hierarchy of needs, a large chunk of the tech sector essentially falls into the highest bucket - entertainment, self realization and pursuit of curiosity. I would imagine that, as an economy suffers stress, we would see industries failing in a top-down manner, where the most abstract industries that are the furthest removed from immediate basic needs feel the burn first.
Is there any prior art establishing whether or not big tech is such an industry?
It’s because you are taking so much of it for so granted that the only tech products you realise are the ones explicitly providing entertainment to you. What was the last time you looked at, say a water bottle and thought about the CAD software used to design it, embedded and PLC softwares running on the production machines, ERP systems used by companies producing and distributing it, navigation and tracking systems on board the ship bringing it from China, messaging apps used to communicate between manufacturers and importers, payment systems etc etc.
When people talk about big tech failing my first thoughts are Google, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and Apple. Not exactly companies designing industrial manufacturing / CAD software.
Just looking at your list:
Google has so many crucial infrastructure products that it is difficult to imagine a modern company without it. Gmail, Maps, Drive, Docs, Meet, Translate, Search, Android, Ads, Analytics are just the ones that almost any business will be using daily.
Amazon is essentially a logistics company with a large tech arm. AWS is also the single most important piece of web infrastructure at this point and drives most of Amazon's profits.
Apple's products are not "crucial" for businesses, but there is a reason iPhones and MacBooks are preferred so often as company devices by places that can afford them. They are amazing for design/development/regular office work.
Facebook itself is probably not that important but they own WhatsApp and outside of the US WhatsApp is what people think when you talk about sending a message. I have witnessed the workings of a food import business between China and Peru for example and almost entire business dealings happened through WhatsApp with Google Translated English.
Netflix.. yeah okay. But it has barely 10k employees so it is more on the same league as Twitter.
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I don't know, but it seems relatively easy to search for. Maybe ask on /r/badeconomics. However, while a lot of what tech companies produce is not a necessity, it also has low marginal cost. Many websites, like facebook, reddit, twitter, etc. are free to use. More active entertainment like spotify, hulu, netflix, Steam, Blizzard games, etc. are also either free to play or require a cheap monthly subscription. If you're unemployed, they're probably substantially cheaper per hour than going to a sports bar, movie theater, etc. Especially if you have lots of free time, you're going to be looking for low-cost ways to kill time. What will happen is that companies dependent on advertising will see a drop in revenue, but in terms of magnitude it should resemble the rest of the economy and in terms of timing it will depend on whether their advertisers see the recession coming or not.
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