[dgudkov]

There is no company that controls 90% of banks, or 90% of gasoline, or 90% of electricity. Shutting down a single company won't affect availability of neither of the basic utilities. But there is Google that is 90% of internet search, and maybe 50% of email. Shutting it down for couple weeks would be a disaster for millions. Facebook or Twitter are less significant in this regard.

[grogenaut]

First, I said facebook, not google. Second, I still think you don't understand the word "Disaster".

These are disasters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

Those are disasters.

If google was down for 2 weeks, there would be some big problems for some companies and some people. But there are plenty of work arounds: phones still work just fine, amazon would be up, etc. If it was the whole information grid down, yes that'd be a large hit to the economy. But 9/11 essentially shut down business for 2 weeks as well. Google going down, not really a disaster. 9/11... Disaster.