Giants and swarms. The middle gets eaten.

The swarm exists. The US has roughly 28 million nonemployer businesses - companies with an owner and nobody else. That's not a prediction, that's the current Census count, and it's been growing since the 90s.

The giants exist too. Concentration has been rising across most US industries since the 1980s. Revenue share keeps shifting to the top few players in sector after sector. And the biggest employers are bigger than any in history.

The strongest evidence isn't in tech, it's in the industries that already finished the transition:

Retail.
Amazon and Walmart at one end, millions of Etsy and Shopify sellers at the other, and the mid-tier department stores are dead. Sears, JCPenney, Macy's shrinking. 🛍️

Media.
Netflix and YouTube at one end, individual creators with 50,000 subscribers at the other, and mid-sized magazines and regional papers gone. Completed. 📺

Music.
Three major labels, millions of self-distributing artists, mid-list dead. Completed. 🎵

So the pattern is real and repeatable. The question is whether professional services and software follow?

What blocks the swarm from eating the middle: enforcement.
A one-person firm can't carry liability, can't survive procurement, can't be sued for enough to reassure a buyer. That's not a small friction, it's the thing that keeps the middle alive. The swarm scales in revenue, not in risk absorption. 🛡️