91–100 of 308 posts
The whole business model of Silicon Valley is finding companies that can grow to become abusive monopolies, and then growing them into that. Cut off one head and two will take its place.
The thing you point to is the model for which Capitalism selects, not some local quirk of Silicon Valley.
I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?
Facebook won't have much of an impact on the 2020 election imo. Users are already Leaving. I don't see why we can't let FAANG grow big and fail like every other company.
Do you really think a company of Facebook's scale will be able to detect and somehow neutralize all of the political ads that are introduced into their targeting systems even if they wanted to, which they don't because it's antithetical to their revenue narrative.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may not be on Facebook but you can bet your friends or family have shared your contact info with them. And even if that exposure is limited, you can bet they’ve got a shadow profile of you.
Facebook’s shadow profile of me does not even begin to hold a candle to Google’s shadow profile of me. And Google has been monetizing that profile for a lot longer than Facebook has.
I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook?
It's not as clear that stripping away YouTube or Android etc from Google would have the same sort of effect. It's hard to see how Bing or DuckDuckGo would benefit against Google Search, although it might allow some other businesses to more effectively compete against YouTube or Android.
I agree to breaking up Facebook. But the message falls flat when the suggestion is to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram into separate companies. This doesn't really do anything. When standard oil or Bell telephone broke up, they were broken across geographic lines or "horizontally" in situations where the business was vertically integrated (separating extraction, refining or transport in the case of standard oil) FB, I…
It does, because Facebook protects its monopoly by making sure it owns its competition. Instagram, WhatsApp, and Snapchat are its competition, and the first to are far larger than the last.
Bell telephone was broken up geographically for technical and infrastructural reasons (too expensive to build duplicative) telephone exchanges, I'd imagine), and I'd argue it was a poor example since it left regional monopolies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are the business models different?
FB, IG and WhatsApp are isolated silos (for now). FB tries to work for everyone whereas IG and WhatsApp target younger demographics, since Facebook is no longer cool to be on.
"Mark Zuckerberg is a good guy. But his company is a threat to our economy and democracy." "Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks." I always find it difficult to take an argument seriously when someone is defined simply as "good". It glosses over a lot of things, like what motivates a person and how we define "good". For example, if w…
"Mark Zuckerberg is a good guy. But his company is a threat to our economy and democracy." "Mark is a good, kind person. But I’m angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks." I always find it difficult to take an argument seriously when someone is defined simply as "good". It glosses over a lot of things, like what motivates a person and how we define "good". For example, if w…
A common aphorism that approximates this is "you catch more flies with sugar."
I found this piece very unconvincing. Where is the articulate and data supported argument that our democracy is under threat? Are people no longer voting? No, they are voting in droves. People of all ages are more politically charged than ever before. I’m seeing 10 year olds engaging in our democracy. To me it is becoming increasingly apparent that the issue here is that people aren’t voting for the issues the NYT an…
>To me it is becoming increasingly apparent that the issue here is that people aren’t voting for the issues the NYT and Chris want people to vote on. While you're getting downvoted, there is likely an element of truth to this. The "old" media has seen entities like Twitter and Facebook as a threat to their business model, as well as their ability to be influencers. There are legitimate gripes that we should all have…
This up/down voting mechanism is just another system of censorship and it has gotten worse on HN and you see the restraint exercised in comments. Anyone can spot articles that are “safe” to comment on and articles that are not (from the perspective of sharing views that do not jive with the HN majority and being downvoted into oblivion). I made a conscience decision not to let that bother or deter me. I try to balance that with my attempt to not troll and try to be constructive if a choose to post.
The bias that NYT has here to destroy Facebook is evident to anyone who takes a moment to think about it. Their entire business model has been upended because they no longer control distribution, FB does. How can we form thoughtful / well balanced opinions based on these one-sided pieces? We can’t. Alas, who cares.