A market is characterized by increasing returns to scale when the cost of producing an additional unit of a product (the marginal costof the product) goes down as the quantity of the product produced goes up. This is the definition of a 'natural monopoly' and typically governments have granted official 'sole provider' status (like in the case of a local water company) in exchange for regulating service conditions and prices. This did not happen with big tech even though it can be argued that firms like Google, Facebook, Amazon & Microsoft meet the economic specifications for such status.

write about why this may not have happened and what the consequences are of not regulating these firms.