Colorado Sun: Big Tech asserts its influence in Colorado, but the U.S. Senate candidates aren’t willing to discuss it
When Boulder-based phone accessory company PopSockets decided it was tired of being “bullied” by Amazon, the company terminated its relationship in 2018. It cost them $10 million in lost revenue.
David Barnett started the company that makes collapsible phone grips and stands in 2014 while still a college philosophy professor. Now, he thinks powerful tech companies, like Amazon, limit growth options for smaller businesses and that means trouble.
“We didn’t feel like it was a true partnership, and there was this asymmetry with much of the communication where it was as if an adult was talking to a child,” Barnett said.
The experience of PopSockets, which employs about 150 people in Colorado, illustrates the bipartisan push in Congress to regulate technology giants and informs the high-profile congressional hearing in July into workplace conditions and antitrust laws.