> seeing how these giants all have incestuous relationship with each other makes me uneasy about putting money in the markets

If you invest in index funds (instead of picking single stocks), you shouldn’t be too worries IMO.

E.g. something tracking MSCI World/All-World or just the S&P500 (US-only though).

You won’t get 100x homeruns (more like 10-15% avg returns/year), but you will drastically lower your risk of losing your money.