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Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

nytimes.com

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Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#181

Post by c0vfefe »

criddell wrote: post #139
c0vfefe wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because targeting is very profitable.

Sure, but you don't have to watch the user to do that. Target indirectly via the content of the page. If I search for "Harley Davidson", it makes a lot of sense to show motorcycle ads. If I'm reading an article about curing cancer with apricot kernels, then show me ads for oncology centers or maybe for woo enhancer.

But it's more profitable to store multiple user interests & behaviors in a database to be exploited in any number of ways, including selling. The aggregation even lets you infer other valuable information about the user, such as the scandal with Target inferring pregnancies several years ago.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#182

Post by username223 »

> I don’t blame Mark for his quest for domination. He has demonstrated nothing more nefarious than the virtuous hustle of a talented entrepreneur.

What a strange juxtaposition. It would be a shame if "entrepreneur" now only refers to the VC dream of either domination or flaming death. There are many trajectories in between.

Zuckerberg's focus on "domination" in the company's early days, added to his famous "dumb f*s" comment, makes me even more certain that Facebook was rotten from the beginning.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#183

Post by craigsmansion »

orbifold wrote: post #83
craigsmansion wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great idea, so: - How do you feel about the minimal training of seafarers and the existing directives to that end? - Also, the use of vehicles hired without drivers for the carriage of goods by road? - Amending the regulations contracts for sales of goods? - Postal services directive? - Sustainable urban mobility? - and, of course, cableway installations, how about those? "Well", you might say, "If you'…

Have you read any of these reports? Are you sure they are truly necessary? There have been written reports on the human rights situation of Woman all over the world since the 70s. Do you think those reports contributed to anything? Their formulation is extremely formulaic, the people writing them are underpaid interns or overpaid politicians, that got that cushy job by years of mingling in their respective home count…

I'm not sure I follow. The original claim was that it would be better to create a democracy without politicians and with continuous citizen participation.

The point wasn't the reports, or the quality of the reports, but the wide range of topics a random politician would have to be at least somewhat informed about to make a decision.

> They don't truly represent the will of the people.

So what is the true will of the people when it comes to safe cableway installations?

Also, I'm not sure if countries get their seat on the UN through elections, so I'm not sure how your example relates to the topic of democracies.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#184

Post by davemp »

jvagner wrote: post #158
davemp wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with other companies being worse influences than FB. Though I'd guess that FB is the target for these articles just because of brand recognition in the publisher's target demographics.

Aside from Equifax, I disagree. I think FB is getting what they deserve.

FB definitely deserves negative press, there are just a lot of other companies who should be getting blasted harder. IMO at least.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#185

Post by jmastrangelo »

adventured wrote: post #161
jmastrangelo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>WhatsApp and IG _were_ alternatives Are they though? They're nearly completely separate products with different activities and goals. If WhatsApp and Instagram were never acquired, I don't see them actually being very different at all from the consumer's pov, though I see them being less successful businesses without Fb's ad network and infrastructure. I don't think these two are actually competition for facebook, f…

> Are they though? They're nearly completely separate products with different activities and goals. Yes. By Facebook's own admission, photos are the center of the Facebook core platform, along with the social networking properties - comments, likes, status signaling, feedback - of the service that surround photos. Instagram was a dramatic threat to the center of Facebook: personal, social networked photo sharing, wit…

I agree with your second point but not with your first.

To the consumer, Instagram remains nearly completely decoupled from facebook except for friend recommendations and SSO. Instagram has a fundamentally different photo "culture" and most people don't spend time on instagram OR facebook, they simply use both for different things. On facebook I'll see 900 pictures of my cousin's new baby or graduation photos, on instagram I'll see travel/lifestyle/modeling shots. Instagram gave facebook a kick in the ass to get on the mobile train before it was too late, but I don't think it was ever a threat to facebook's core social graph model.

Back to your second point, I agree, Instagram is an enormously valuable business line for facebook. But i think its also true that facebook's infrastructure and Ad platform lead to a 2 + 2 = 5 situation for the companies. An independent instagram would likely be doing well, but not be as valuable as they are within Facebook. Sure, facebook would be worth $100B less without the ads it serves on instagram, but there's no law or moral imperative against one company having multiple, highly lucrative business lines that share certain overhead.

I see the instagram acquisition as more akin to Tata group acquiring Jaguar. Jaguar had a good brand and an interested demographic, but were a terribly run business leading to poor sales and quality issued. Tata buying them gave new life to the brand and they're now successful and standing on their own again. Instagram was always going to be some level of successful, but with facebook they're a juggernaut.

I think a lot of people have the idea that facebook acquired instagram as a defensive play to remove a direct competitor, but I don't think that they are direct competitors. Facebook and MySpace were competitors, both shooting for the generalized social graph, and Facebook won that fight, from then on being a natural monopoly in that space.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#186

Post by basch »

jmastrangelo wrote: post #179
basch wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its absolutely possible to break facebook up horizontally. And if the government were to explore a breakup, its the way they should go. Company 1 would be a Social Networking and Hosting PaaS from hardware, networking, bandwidth, databases, serverless workers to services like ads, anti-evil, localization, social graph, development tools, frameworks, runtimes. Company 1, would be THE place to build a social network, i…

I think the idea of your "company 1" is actually super interesting, essentially social Graph as a Service(GAAS?). But , I don't think that addresses any of the issues people actually have with facebook. What does facebook running both the front and backend of their site have to do with their market power? That company 1 would still retain 90% of Facebooks value, as it would be the social graph where people acknowledg…

They use their market power against Company 2 competitors. Its waaay too hard to get a Company 2 type company off the ground, because you have to build/buy/lease the equivelant Company 1 services (from AWS etc) and assemble them in a logical way, all while getting a product off the ground before Company 2 can clone you. Giving people a huge head start, by eliminating the need to recreate Company 1, means the Public will see more competing social networks, and those social networks will have less incentive to sell to FB, because they can benefit from Company 1 engineering and anti-evil services without being gobbled up by the mothership.

Social Graph SERVICES are Company 1, the FB Social Graph would be Company 2.

I actually think Company 2 would retain most of the value, Company 1 would only gain value after non-Company 2 clients start buying their services. Company 1 has high fixed costs, and makes money at scale. Company 2 is where all the data about people is stored in a usable, actionable way. Company 1 can only see it in an abstract or encrypted set, they cant actually see what Company 2 or Company 2 competitors are holding. Company 1 builds the Ad infrastructure itself, allowing Company 2 competitors to spin up their own ad marketplaces, (like shopify for ads), but Company 2 is the one profiting off matching Ad customers to datasets and displaying the ads, and keeping peoples eyeball attention on them. It's like Azure, Microsoft isnt looking inside what people are doing at their data for product ideas or extracting the customer held data for its own advertising purposes (Amazon might be, but they shouldnt be.) Company 1 would be a completely agnostic company, it wouldnt know ANYTHING about the data it holds. Just database/graph/toolkit leasing service.

>FB, IG and WA all have separate social graphs

That wouldnt be the case, because Company 2 can compare, merge social graphs at will. What they cant do is look at competing social graphs hosted by Company 1. Company 2 could buy competitors to acquire their social graph or client app or userbase.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#187

Post by solipsism »

HNthrow22 wrote: post #123

FB is the sacrificial lamb, popular scapegoat and effective distraction in this new era of SV policies shaping public opinion, ideas and as a result global politics. It seems misplaced, the amount of vitriol and negative press directed at facebook when from my perspective Google/Twitter/Amazon and even Reddit are far, far worse in terms of aggressively monopolistic behavior and negative effects on society and democra…

If you believe it, say it from your real account.

This ubiquitous practice of commenting on contentious topics using throwaways reveals much of that's wrong with HN culture.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#188

Post by tremon »

stickfigure wrote: post #122
loudmax wrote: post #108

Better than breaking up social networks would be to force them to interoperate on an open protocol. When I first signed up for Facebook I was disappointed that only other Facebook users could see my account. Then when Google+ came on the scene I thought they'd worked out a way to interoperate with Facebook, but instead Google just wanted their own silo. What we really need is for social networks to interoperate the w…

Are you suggesting that there be an API to access social network information? That is literally what Facebook had, and what people excoriate them over thanks to Cambridge Analytica. The Facebook haters are driving social network data into a silo; how else are you going to "keep control of your data"? You can have privacy (or at least the illusion of privacy), or you can have access. You cannot have both.

This sounds to me like a backwards argument. The Cambridge Analytica scandal revolved around unsanctioned access to data. I don't think the premise of having an API was the problem, it was the lack of transparency and control offered to Facebook's users.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#189

Post by wastedhours »

dominotw wrote: post #116
ardy42 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have trouble understanding why we should break up Facebook but not google. Is it because we think google is less evil than Facebook? The article does not argue against breaking up Google, in fact it says: > Finally, an aggressive case against Facebook would persuade other behemoths like Google and Amazon to think twice about stifling competition in their own sectors, out of fear that they could be next. It's basi…

> It's basically saying Google's next I don't think that answers GP's question though, why is facebook first? Why is facebook the chosen one. Surely it wasn't chosen using random number generator.

> why is facebook first?

Because the article's written by a Facebook co-founder and the framing here is therefore through that lens? I think any of the others could have (and have been previously) chosen as the one to focus on.

On a more philosophical point, Facebook is very "personal". The core money-making business acts of Google and Amazon are focused around intent to do something, whereas Facebook's entire raison d'etre is to monopolise the whole gamut of your daily interaction.

That's not to say the others aren't either, but it's so explicit to who Facebook is, they're an easier one to focus on first.

Re: Chris Hughes Says It’s Time to Break Up Facebook

#190

Post by specialist »

Kalium wrote: post #150
specialist wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"... if anything [Zuckerberg] has ever done has indicated he's honest ..." By way of comparison: Look at Bill Gates' actions independent of Microsoft. If his foundation cures malaria, and so forth, all other sins are forgiven. I'm pretty conflicted about Gates. But I accept that people are complicated. eg Ruthless on the battlefield of business, humanitarian in retirement. I'm still chewing on Zuckerberg San Fran Gen…

Given that he donated millions of dollars to fund public healthcare, often delivered for free by a public entity, what should he have done instead that would qualify as giving away healthcare? Bearing in mind that he is not pesonally a medical professional.

I have no idea. I'm just saying how it looks from the peanut gallery.

If I were Scott Galloway advising Zuckerberg, I'd probably say better PR, damage control, more puff pieces (below). Once "Zuckerberg General" hit the press, I'd swoop in, apologize to everyone for the oversight & misunderstanding, forgive the debts, set up financial aide for students & other hardships, host a press conference to announce a new study for improving access & simplifying health care. Blah, blah, blah.

https://www.vox.com/2017/7/10/15771676/priscilla-chan-facebo...

I guess I'm saying I don't really care that Zuckerberg is a bad actor. (No different than any other titan.) I'm just surprised that he's tone deaf and seemingly unable to adapt.

--

This privacy debacle is a long time coming. Per the structure of scandals, there's no new information or revelations. Zuckerberg just ran out of goodwill.

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