Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has made the front page with its latest financials – overtaking Apple as the world’s most valuable public company. But size isn’t everything.

The numbers illustrate the nature of Alphabet’s grip over digital trade – with Alphabet really controlling the price of transactions, and what value means in the digital economy.

The digital economy hasn’t matured into a vibrant transactions-based marketplace with wholesale markets behind them. Compared to the real world, digital is over-dependent on advertising, and here Google is not merely king, but several ranks of knights and barons below the king too. (Last summer Google became the “legacy internet” part of the Alphabet operation. Yes, that takes some getting used to).