Edit: Linkedin shows 300k jobs available in the us for the term "software engineer". I like to think and hope that things will be fine for those laid off.
Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, they all have very good businesses with very concrete productivity bonuses and real world advantages that they give to people, you can't make those things disappear.
They also don't have good foreign competitors, like Chrysler and so on had in Japan.
There are Chinese companies, but those companies largely exist thanks to their state barring competition from the outside, and I don't see it being super likely that that is a real threat, especially because if Chinese companies really start taking off the United States government will clamp down on them hard.
I think these layoffs are more an example of just how crazy short-term we are thinking in the world. Everyone thought coal was going to go away, remote work was the future, tech jobs were the future!
In reality we need more productivity, less labor demand, and for our smartest people to be out working on those problems, not on delivering people advertisements.
All of these lay off people may end up out more distributed in the country working no boring jobs that ultimately free up butts and seats so that those butts can go take other seats for they are more necessary and important and productive.
TikTok is a Chinese company and is major competition for Facebook
They absolutely dominate among Gen-Z, and is catching on mainstream appeal pretty quickly as well.
Microsoft, apple, amazon, and so on are critical infrastructure. They go away, the lights go out.
> (...)the United States government will clamp down on them hard.
In the same sentence, nice one. :)
American companies today don't need the protection. They are better companies.
With China now using state imbalances to fund their tech sector, restrictions will be needed. You can't compete with free stuff backed by a foreign state.
Larger world market share. More internal diversity and understanding of other cultures.
Facebook? Sure, people can live without that. But Microsoft, Google, i'd argue even Amazon are integral parts of the economy. Trying building a modern business without the business software Microsoft maintains. Try doing work without Google. Amazon is a part of our modern shopping habits.
Do they need to be as big as they were? Probably some room to go down, but they're an essential part of the economy now.
The world needs a search engine, but the moment a new, competent, one pops up all you need to do is switch a URL and you are done with google. All other services google provides are replaceable.
Amazon is a cool marketplace, infested by scams and low quality products, an alibaba of the west. It is an integral part of the economy by I manage to do just fine without it. AWS is a wake up call away from trending out of fashion.