{"id":36575,"date":"2022-05-27T10:33:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-27T10:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/"},"modified":"2022-05-27T10:33:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T10:33:00","slug":"lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t<em>New York Times<\/em> tech writer Shira Ovide tried to describe the size, power, and wealth of the Big Tech companies. She writes, &ldquo;Every few months, I concoct new ways to say that tech giants make a lot of money. Today, I give up. I&rsquo;ll just say that Big Tech companies are really, really, really, really big and really, really, really, really, REALLY rich.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>America&rsquo;s five technology superpowers&mdash;Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook&mdash;are titanic, and still growing. They have nearly infinite resources to help them stay on top. She showed the following numbers:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Apple&rsquo;s profit for the past year ($101 billion) was more than the combined yearly profits of&mdash;take a deep breath&mdash;Walmart, General Motors, Exxon, Pfizer, Verizon, Disney, Coke, and McDonald&rsquo;s.<\/p>\n<p>People watch 15 billion YouTube Shorts (bite-sized videos like TikTok&rsquo;s) each day.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook generates, on average, $214 for each user in the U.S. and Canada last year. Facebook is one of the best money-making machines in internet history.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft owns the (not popular) Bing search engine. And yet the company&rsquo;s annual advertising sales of more than $10 billion are about 20 times the 2021 ad sales of <em>The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon is so mammoth that just the current decreased value ($267 billion) is about the total value of Disney. Jeff Bezos&rsquo; new yacht is so big that a bridge in the Netherlands will be dismantled to accommodate the boat&rsquo;s height. THAT is rich.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Possible Preaching Angles:<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>With this level of successful money-making, we need to ask how these companies are influencing and shaping our minds, hearts, and lives.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[410,411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[446],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3682,3860,4133,4245,4272,4444,4468,4488,4634,4662,4670,4731,5012,5038,5129,5157,5266,5302,5303],"tax_ctp_topics":[388,400],"class_list":["post-36575","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-consumerism","tax_ctp_tags-empowered","tax_ctp_tags-heart","tax_ctp_tags-influence","tax_ctp_tags-internet","tax_ctp_tags-media","tax_ctp_tags-mind","tax_ctp_tags-money","tax_ctp_tags-persuasion","tax_ctp_tags-pop-culture","tax_ctp_tags-power","tax_ctp_tags-prosperity","tax_ctp_tags-social-media","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-bondage","tax_ctp_tags-technology","tax_ctp_tags-thoughts","tax_ctp_tags-wealth","tax_ctp_tags-worldliness","tax_ctp_tags-worldview"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New York Times tech writer Shira Ovide tried to describe the size, power, and wealth of the Big Tech companies. She writes, &ldquo;Every few months, I concoct new ways to say that tech giants make a lot of money. Today, I give up. I&rsquo;ll just say that Big Tech companies are really, really, really, really Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/\",\"name\":\"The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-27T10:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-27T10:33:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/lavish-wealth-and-influence-of-big-tech-companies\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Lavish Wealth and Influence of Big Tech Companies - CT Pastors","og_description":"New York Times tech writer Shira Ovide tried to describe the size, power, and wealth of the Big Tech companies. 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