So if an everything app is terrible for liberal democracies and free markets and the internet is the everything app, then it follows that the internet is terrible for liberal democracies and free markets.
The internet is not an everything ‘app’ in the sense that it’s built/controlled by one firm. The reason the internet is good for liberal democracy is that it’s (declining) openness creates very low barriers for entry, free innovation undermines market power and architecture limits state power.
Stuff that changes that nature of the internet presents the danger to liberal democracy.
The article is clearly talking about centralized everything apps. I mean most of their complaints are about a private company dominating the whole market. If we want to talk about a generalized idea of an everything app that includes something decentralized like the internet, then I think we'll have mooted most of their concerns.
I would be inclined to agree, though whether that shows more the problems with liberal democracies and free markets or with the internet is still to decide.
It's actually an interesting analogy, because road design can have a great effect on the drivers - you can't prevent bad drivers, but you can mitigate issues (see: traffic calming, roundabouts, etc).
Similar things that were baked into the internet continue to provide dividends today, but it has to be intentional, and as more and more of the modern internet is designed by groups of companies rather than groups of academics it can shift.
Centralization is a logical result of unregulated capitalism. If money can be used to buy advantages in the market, it follows that any player with an edge can use it to widen their lead over time to the point nobody else can compete.
Anti-trust regulation is supposed to solve this, but in the US at least it seems we've settled on a status quo where we pretend having two giant players in a market rather than one is enough to protect the interests of consumers, despite many many examples where that has proven not to be the case.
Only if it's provably harmful. And only if you hire people into the anti-trust regulation role who are perfect uncorruptable beings that can see the future consumer implications of each business decision.
Given the regulators we've hired so far are neither, we shouldn't be assuming regulations can solve this.
In reality, regulations give a big first mover advantage. It's much easier to incorporate regulations when you're up and running than come in as a new competitor and slam into a wall of red tape, which due to years of relationship built up is much more porous for the incumbants.
And the benefits of centralization are immediate and obvious; the downsides are hidden, localized, and not clear.