How Tech's Defiance of Economic Gravity Came to an Abrupt End

The most dramatic loser is $Meta Platforms (META.US)$. Nearly two-thirds of its value was wiped out, leaving its market capitalisation at just over $300bn.

Tech firms are also trespassing more on each other's turf. $Amazon (AMZN.US)$'s cloud-computing arm has seen a sharp slowdown in growth, partly because Google is pouring billions into its own cloud service, taking big losses in order to gain a toehold in the business.

$Netflix (NFLX.US)$, which for years had streaming virtually to itself, now faces competition not just from $Disney (DIS.US)$ and $Warner Bros Discovery (WBD.US)$ but from $Apple (AAPL.US)$ and Amazon.

Advertising is the lifeblood of Alphabet and Meta, and a growing sideline for Amazon, Apple and $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$. Meta and Alphabet have lost their dominance over the digital advertising market they have ruled for years, as the duopoly is hit by fast-growing competition from rivals.

Over the past two years the supply of chips has built up as manufacturers have added capacity. But just as chip production bloomed, demand withered, thanks to falling sales of s and smartphones. Further pain was caused by the collapse of the cryptoverse, which meant miners of digital currencies no longer needed the advanced processors built by $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ and $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ two big chipmakers.