The big picture: Pressures are coming to bear as the growth of smartphones stalls and innovators vie to figure out what will replace them. Platform transitions always make tech incumbents quake.

• In Washington, regulators and lawmakers are finally getting the details they've wanted about the full power of tech companies — and how to fight back.
• In state capitals, attorneys general and legislators are stepping in to investigate and counter anticompetitive practices.
• On the campaign trail, liberals assail the power of big tech and call for breaking up Facebook and Google, while conservatives decry their power and accuse them of silencing their voices.
• In newsrooms, investigative reporters are following more threads and leads to expose the power of tech giants and the false promises of new startups.
• On Wall Street, investors have lost patience with money-hemorrhaging startups and loose-cannon founders.
• Around the world, a trade breakdown is severing supply chains and nationalist forces are splintering the global internet, shaking the foundations of the tech industry's decades-long march to dominance.

Yes, but: Tech giants today control vast hoardes of cash, armies of talent and troves of data, and they provide billions of customers around the world with convenient, personalized, often free services.

• Unlike their predecessors, they might have the resources to outmaneuver and outlast government assaults.

The bottom line: Partisan political battles dominate the headlines, but this is the conflict that will shape our economy and society.

Go deeper:

• The fall of unicorns
• States add to Big Tech's headaches

• Our interviews included Democrats who want to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry and those who are advocating restraint, citing the political ramifications of forging down that path too soon.

The trends:

• Several members, including Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), shot down the notion that impeachment is bad politics.
• Each of them pointed to what happened in the aftermath of the 1998 impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, where Republican George W. Bush went on to win the presidency and the GOP held its majority in the House until 2007.
• The caucus is divided on concern about timing. Some, like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who doesn't yet call for impeachment, argues that an inquiry must be launched in 2019 or risk deteriorating in the 2020 election year. Others, like Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and Jeff Van Drew (D-N.J.) said the timetable shouldn't matter.
• They're split on whether it matters that the Republican Senate wouldn't convict Trump. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) is against impeachment for this reason, while other members maintain the House has an obligation to provide a check on the president irrespective of the Senate.

A common theme: Nearly every Democrat we interviewed argued that the caucus is united in the belief that Trump is unfit for office, but they disagree on the tactics for how to hold him accountable.

The bottom line: The impeachment whip count currently stands at 66 House Democrats and one House Republican publicly in support of it, according to an Axios analysis. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has held most of the caucus together by calling for restraint — but that's going to get harder as Democrats lose patience with Trump.

Go deeper: Where 2020 Democrats stand on impeaching Trump

As my colleague, Axios media trends reporter Sara Fischer, wrote 18 months ago(!): " In the smartphone-dominated world — where any media company can access almost anyone at anytime — the fight is shifting to dominating a person's attention."

So there's a growing need for the type of people who can steer teams to tell stories and deliver information in a way that gets potential customers to take heed.

Driving the news:

• Airbnb this year started a print magazine — it's free for hosts or $18/year for everyone else.
• Bumble, a dating app, launched a lifestyle magazine.
• Netflix is publishing a free magazine "to promote its programs and stars ahead of this year's Emmys," Bloomberg reports.
• BlackRock, the giant money manager, recently hired a global head of content.
• Robinhood, a millennial-based financial services company, last month bought MarketSnacks, a financial newsletter and podcast company.
• Stripe, a payments company, published a book last year.
• Goldman Sachs has a talk show.
• Blue Apron, Slack, Away, Shopify and Casper have created their own podcasts.
• Verizon is hiring an "Editor in Chief-Social" to oversee an editorial team tasked with "high frequency coverage" of Verizon activities.

By the numbers: The proportion of people on LinkedIn who report they work in content/editor roles at non-media companies has grown by 32% in the past decade, according to LinkedIn data. The biggest increases were at "consumer," "high tech" and "corporate" firms, like marketers and consultancies.

Yes, but: Sara insists that I note much of this content creation is not typical news or journalism; many of these editor jobs are more accurately described as "head of content" roles.

Our thought bubble from Axios Chief Financial Correspondent Felix Salmon: "Basically the adjacency model is a gruesomely inefficient way for companies to communicate. It’s, like, here’s something you do know that you want to read, let’s put it next to something you don’t particularly want to read, and maybe you might read that anyway."

• "Much better to create something that people do want to read directly, and give them that. You know how every company is a technology company? Well maybe on some level every company is a media company, too. There’s no point felling trees in forests if nobody hears them."

Editor-in-chief's note: The writer of this piece, about how editor in chief is the job of the future, is the editor in chief of Axios. He is aware of how preposterous this might look. 🙄