After the euphoria over the AOL - Time Warner mega merger, reality is setting in.

The price of both companies' shares has dropped again as investors cashed in profits following the massive gains achieved on Monday.

And while most commentators agree that the two companies are a perfect fit, AOL shares are nonetheless a touch out of favour.

The reason: The firm is not a pure high-growth internet play anymore.

"You've got a new company that's going to grow at a lot slower pace than AOL was growing before", said Mike Wallace, analyst with Warburg Dillon Read.

Back to 1984?

But there are concerns that are much more fundamental than whether the merger will deliver shareholder value.

Seasoned media watchers predict that this merger will not be the last link-up between an old media conglomerate and a high-tech internet company.

They fear that the internet is slowly becoming dominated by a few media giants. This could lead to an Orwellian society where consumers are spoon-fed homogenised news and their every click on the web is monitored and analysed.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, warns: "What this merger invites is the possibility of a new era in American communications that sees the end of an independent press".

It would be ironic if he was right. After all, the internet was always billed as the medium that would break up the power of the media giants and enable everybody to become a publisher.

People like Matt Drudge, the man first to publish the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, proved the point.

The web is shrinking

But even as the number of web sites is proliferating, the web is shrinking, at least in the eyes of the consumers. The top 100 web sites attract nearly half of all page views.

In fact, web surfers now spend almost 20% of their online time visiting only the top 10 sites.

As media and internet companies converge and "web portals" become ever more comprehensive, the majority of internet users may soon deal with four or five content providers.

Companies like AOL or Yahoo! do not write the news.

But should they be tied up in commercial interests, there would be a big temptation to direct users only to certain content providers - or screen out news they dislike.

Gerald Levin, designated chairman of AOL Time Warner, dismisses such concerns.

Presenting the merger deal he said: "This is not just about big business. This is not just about money. This is about making a better world for people."

And Time Warner's communications director, Scott Miller, chimes in: "The internet is the first limitless medium, and by its very nature, no single company or group can hope to control it."

'MegaMedia'

Gary Klatsky, who teaches a course on the 'human-computer interface' at Oswego State University in New York, is somewhat ambivalent.

"If you look at it from the perspective of Orwell, it's scary", he says.

But he is quick to add that "from the other perspective ... it will make life easier".

So does the AOL merger herald the advent of the "MegaMedia", giant corporation dominating media, distorting competition and endangering democracy, as author Dean Alger warns?

Both the Consumers Union and Consumers Federation of America worry that the concentration of media and internet power will "hurt the public".

The International Federation of Journalists has similar concerns, raising the spectre of a threat to democratic values and freedom of speech.

However, even though web portals limit choice by their very nature, every browser has bookmarks or lists of favourites that allow users to create their own shortcuts to the news that they want.

And on the global web, an alternative opinion or content provider is only a few clicks away.