"The monster is voracious"

m&k: Martin Andree, your books paint a bleak picture of the future of our democracy. What is the biggest problem - and how did it get this far?

Martin Andree: The biggest problem is that European democracies have allowed the monopolization of public goods by US tech monopolists. Public goods are those that are actually indispensable for our existence - such as our modern media, i.e. social media, video, audio, messengers, etc. Those who monopolize them have endless opportunities to exploit the dependencies for blackmail. And that is exactly what is already happening.

Your new book "War of the Media" begins with a quote from Jan Delay and Udo Lindenberg: "Everything is fucked up and everything is finished and all you can say is, 'Woulda, woulda, coulda', yeah man At first it didn't matter, because it always works somehow You never did anything, but now it's too late." Sounds like the "war of the media" has long since been decided...

I describe this in the book as the "possum strategy": the possum plays dead when it is attacked. We have also been playing dead with dark tech companies and their monopolies for at least ten years. By 2013 at the latest, when it became known that the dark tech companies had passed on our data to the US intelligence services, it must have been clear to everyone that there was a huge problem here. We thought like the possum: The predator will go away. But it has only grown to gigantic size since then - because we were simply asleep.

In your book "Big Tech must go" from 2023, you wrote that we still had until 2029 to take countermeasures. But that was before the Trump administration. What has changed since then?

I correctly predicted back in 2023 that dark tech companies would also use their power in the political sphere. In reality, however, the political encroachment came faster and more radically. Fundamentally, little has changed - the dark tech companies have always pursued an anti-democratic, libertarian ideology. Fifty years from now, people are more likely to say: "How could people be so stupid back then and not realize that?" The libertarians have never kept their plans secret - if you read "The Sovereign Individual", a cult book in the tech ecosystems, you'll get the shivers. In 1997, the script was already formulated according to which democracy is being destroyed today. Incidentally, the authors already called the desired anti-democratic system change "information warfare" back then. If people are now frightened by the title of my book, I say: "I didn't make it up."

The platforms control the formation of political opinion and undermine competition - to what extent?

Around 60 percent of mass media attention today is in the digital world. This is almost completely controlled by the tech monopolies, primarily Alphabet (Google, YouTube) and Meta (Facebook, Instagram). These companies decide who gets to see what information. Anyone who understands a little about how tech companies make their money knows that traffic manipulation is not an epiphenomenon - on the contrary, these companies make their money based on traffic manipulation. It's crazy how blindly people believe the platforms' promise of neutrality. And it's even crazier that the irradiated right-wing "self-thinkers", who constantly see evil elites, censorship cartels and dark conspiracies at work behind all analog media, follow the most evil elite of our time, the tech oligarchs, like a horde of blind sheep.

"If we want to change something, we have to turn the tide now."

"We haven't heard the shot yet," you write. Don't we want to hear it? 

Under the conditions of monopolies, metaphorically speaking, we are all in bed with dark tech. This is not just the case for users, but in all areas of our society: brands, retail, start-ups, SMEs, television, publishers, film. Wherever I go, everyone tells me: "These tech companies are really bad." When I say: "Then do something about it", they often say: "Yes, our members are split on this because they also depend on the traffic. That's why they'd rather not make a big deal of it." Incidentally, the same conflict leads to cognitive dissonance. People know that this is wrong, even schizophrenic. But they have no real way out under monopoly conditions. That's why they suppress the issue.

What role does AI play in this process?

From the perspective of my research, AI is "only" an extension and dynamization of processes that we have been observing for years and decades. So above all: the total devaluation of content. I would even say provocatively: content had already lost 80 to 90 percent of its value before that. AI is "only" the shot in the back of the neck. But the same monopolization here. The same expropriation processes. And the same shift in value creation, away from content and towards the pure monopolistic granting of access.

To what extent do marketing and CMOs have the opportunity to make a difference?

If the CMOs were smart, they would understand that the mechanics described above - i.e. the shift in value creation away from content towards monopolistic access - will be just as deadly for their business model in the medium term as it already is for broadcasters or publishers. One example: According to an analysis by consultants Oliver Wyman, 30 percent of all manufacturers are already no longer earning money on Amazon. This is because Amazon is sucking more and more added value out of the transactions. When the Amazon monopoly vampire has sucked out the last drop of blood, it throws you away - because it has collected all the data over the years and can therefore immediately copy the strongest brands and bestsellers. Amazon already has more than 140 own brands. Dark tech is a crocodile, it is hungry and it will keep on eating. Anyone who is still doing well and thinks they will be spared in the medium term must be very naive. Now we can still fight back together. The more potential comrades-in-arms are devoured by the crocodile, the more difficult it will be to fight back.

When did you realize that the situation was becoming threatening - and to what extent can you make a difference through your initiatives?

My first scientific publication on the digital monopolies was in 2010, I published about it in the press in 2012 - but nobody was really interested. The discourse belonged to the cool digital evangelists. Society only woke up about ten years later, after Musk bought Twitter and turned it into his personal propaganda machine. Politicians are now also discovering the topic, but far too slowly. The dark tech companies are now closing the bag. If we want to change something, we need to turn the tide now.

Our cover story is "Efficiency". The US platforms are an efficient channel for many advertisers and promise fast performance. Why is this wrong?

I would dispute the efficiency outright. I keep hearing the same thing from all corners - namely a sharp drop in advertising impact. Even worse: because large parts of the digital funnel are now controlled by AI, those responsible often don't even know why. And even worse: unlike in the past, the metrics of tech companies are not audited by external studies. We have no neutral monitoring of these values. It's the same here as with AI: everything flashes great, but we no longer have any understanding of how all this stuff came about. We are completely incapacitated. And that's why it's even cynically consistent when Zuckerberg announces that he now wants to take over the entire agency business. Because if we no longer understand it ourselves, we won't be needed anymore.

What political or legal measures would be particularly urgent?

We know how to unbundle monopolies and enable competition. We could force platforms to use open standards. Youtubers could publish their content on a dozen competing platforms with the same click. They would no longer be trapped in YouTube's prison - and the platforms would compete for the best content. More money would end up with the creators, less with the platforms. We can also open up platforms - so that traffic outside the silos is possible again. Finally, we can prohibit platforms from earning money with punishable content such as defamation, racism and discrimination. Together with Karl-Nikolaus Peifer, I have formulated some very specific proposals (mstv2go.de). So far, politicians have not had the courage to implement such proposals.

What can each and every one of us do ourselves?

We can of course use alternatives such as Mastodon or Ecosia - but we need to get into political action. This is about the free media. A functioning public discourse is the basis of our democracy. It's worth fighting for.

If you look ten years into the future: What does the scenario look like?

We are behaving like a bird that has been in a cage for so long that it can no longer imagine leaving it, even though the door is wide open. After all, an uprising against Trump and tech has huge potential. We wouldn't simply leave the digital markets of the future to the US monopolists without a fight and could really take off here in Europe. And we would also save our democracy. So you have to ask the other way around: what are we waiting for?

Prof. Dr. Martin Andree teaches media studies at the University of Cologne. He has been researching the power of big tech companies for more than 15 years and is the author of eight books. Andree became known for his "Atlas of the Digital World", the first holistic scientific survey of the digital world (2020). He was awarded the Günter Wallraff Special Prize for Freedom of the Press and Human Rights for his bestseller Big Tech muss weg. Andree is the founder of the digital company AMP Digital Ventures GmbH with a focus on full funnel consulting and implementations.

Latest books

Big Tech must go (2023) |The digital corporations are destroying democracy and the economy - we will stop them; analysis of digital monopolies and the consequences for democracy and the economy. Campus publishing house

War of the Media (2025)| Dark Tech and Populists Take Over; Political Essay on the Threat to Democracy and Media Freedom. Campus Publisher