They also ruled the world last year, and will rule the world next year. "Person of the Year" awards tend to highlight people that have had a particularly atypical effect in one particular year. They'd be pretty boring if they didn't.
Another way to look at it: while Bezos has done plenty with Amazon in 2017, it's a continuation of what he was doing in 2016. And I suspect 2018 will continue this year. It's not that his achievements aren't notable, it's that they didn't dramatically change the course of this year's events, or inspire a dramatic change of direction. By comparison, 2017's awakening to sexual assault/discrimination claims is an absolutely huge deviation from existing patterns.
You are getting clobbered, I will join you in this one.
There is no rhyme or reason for the basis for selecting a Person of the year. None what so ever. They are primarily focused in a specific part of the world. Forget Asia, Africa and other so called Third World.
Selecting a person of the year is not more substantive than sitting in a drum circle and passing the beer and talking stick. Especially since the newspaper business is now shadow of itself.
Honestly, I really do not know who the person of the year should be. The world does not revolve around a person, 10 years from now when one would have to think about 2017, Susan Folwer's Uber takedown will be very unlikely thing many would remember.
If you just make a tiny grammatical change it will eliminate all that unease. Change it to "A Person of the Year", rather than "The Person of the Year". :)
My guess is that when people look back on this era, Macron will by far be the most influential of that list. But it's hard to explain why now, and Fowler is very much the start of this year's zeitgeist.
> The other people have a extraordinary larger impact on global economics and politics.
That would only make sense if the primary criterion for selection were raw power. I don't know FT's criteria or the MO behind their Person of the Year designation. My hunch, however, is that it might be more nuanced, and they might be interested in people who stand up against established power, especially given the current sociopolitical climate.
I'm not sure that they were that interesting, really. Macron was arguably inevitable unless you assumed that for some reason France would abandon its tendency to reject the far-right candidate when it came to a one-on-one vote. While there was a lot of talk that it might do this, there wasn't that much evidence. Xi continues to exist; there'd definitely have been a year where it'd make sense for him to get it, but it wasn't this year. Bezos ditto. Musk ditto. MbS is the only one that I'd argue of these as being truly significant _in this particular year_.
Another way to look at it: while Bezos has done plenty with Amazon in 2017, it's a continuation of what he was doing in 2016. And I suspect 2018 will continue this year. It's not that his achievements aren't notable, it's that they didn't dramatically change the course of this year's events, or inspire a dramatic change of direction. By comparison, 2017's awakening to sexual assault/discrimination claims is an absolutely huge deviation from existing patterns.