Power to the People?

In recent years, I feel like there has been a surge of criticism of the practices and first and foremost of the ballooning size of corporations from every sector of business - food and beverage, media corporations, huge conglomerates, you name it. They are being accused by consumers and consumer associations for their merging strategies and market power. GM buying Opel, fast food companies like Yum!Brands or Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp growing in size and influence and thus being able to defend themselves with the best lawyers and attorneys. The consumer is mostly seen as the silent little mind who is only asked to buy the whole stuff. But are the people really that powerless? Especially Bruns refers to the web-active consumers as being actually produsers, coming together in decentralized, but very huge "hive minds" - decentralized information communities that are very potent in generating content and putting forward vigorous criticism against corporate measures, products and practices. Via the Internet, they access almost any source of information with no costs, build up support for their campaigns and operate in collaboration and task-sharing. I think this might be seen as a hint that the old, imbalanced feedback loops corporations installed are slowly being replaced by a growing and watchful public, ready to articulate their opinions and needs, to which huge enterprises better should listen...