Talk:Alterra Corporation/@comment-5293026-20180719022606

I enjoy the highly diversified international megacorporation concept of future fiction. However, while that was the trend of the global economy in the 1970s and 1980s that defined modern science fiction, the modern world is different. While some companies do well in economies of scale, they prefer to focus on specific fields in which they're specialized in. Exxon Mobil is a household name, but besides oil they don't make smartphones. Companies that are diversified are vertically integrated to bring their goods to market and they're more competitive than monopolies. The reason for all this is because investors who buy stocks in these companies can already have diverse portfolios so the company doesn't need to be in so many fields in order to capitalize on the exchange. Most big players you see today have thousands of subcontractors and joint ventures and isn't the sterotypical octopus like Alterra, Umbrella, Weyland-Yutani, etc. Apple Computers doesn't actually manufacture their technology. They design the intellectual property, and then liscense it to Foxconn to produce electronics in China. Meanwhile local Chinese firms like Anker produce a lot of blank electronics that the big companies like Apple and Foxconn will apply their brand to for distribution in the western market. And Chinese mining companies will go out to the Congo to contract local militias to dig up cobalt and other minerals for the I-phones and they'll ship it across the ocean in a bulk carrier on behalf of Mearsk in Denmark and the port they ship out from is likely operated by DP World in Dubai. The point is, even these giant brands are just cogs in the wheel of capitalism.