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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

#301

Post by kermitismyhero »

koheripbal wrote: post #236
basetop wrote: post #19

Why just facebook? Why not Amazon, Google, JPM, Disney, etc? "Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, says the company is so big and powerful that it threatens our democracy." "threatens our democracy". I've heard this talking point so much that it has no meaning any longer. It's just another of the oft-repeated talking point created by PR firms as part of a propaganda campaign. If facebook is truly that powerful tha…

Google in particular. What makes a monopoly dangerous is when they control multiple links in the supply chain to push out competitors. If Google owns Search, Gmail, Android, Analytics, Chat, Google Fi, Google Fiber, Chrome, GPay, etc... then they are able leverage one monopoly to establish monopolies elsewhere. ...and that is ultimately what is most destructive to Competition and consumer value. All of the above coul…

>GPay

I'm very happy to live in Canada, where Google Pay is completely irrelevant thanks to Interac. I can walk into any business with a payment terminal and know that my debit card will just plain work, no matter my back or credit union. And I can send money instantly online to anyone else who also has an account at a Canadian bank or credit union.

Of course, this means that my bank knows all my transactions, but not using a bank is orders of magnitude harder than not using Google.

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

#302

Post by kermitismyhero »

adventured wrote: post #147
dageshi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter?

Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat Those are by far the dominant social networks in the US. They all compete in terms of fighting for limited user time. WhatsApp is kinda sorta in that group, however it's not particularly popular in the US. Tumblr used to be, it might as well be dead now, it's going the way of MySpace (sold off a few times, passed around, until it's hardly va…

>Tumblr used to be, it might as well be dead now, it's going the way of MySpace (sold off a few times, passed around, until it's hardly valuable at all).

That will turn around quick if Pornhub actually succeeds in buying it.

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

#303

Post by jerf »

T-hawk wrote: post #249
jerf wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You don't have to outlaw it, just tax revenue from the undesirable behaviors to dis-incentivize them." I think a 1 cent per impression ad tax would have a very positive impact on a lot of the internet. It doesn't destroy the advertising industry entirely, because there are still plenty of ads profitable at that point. A lot of the bullshit the advertising industry is subjecting us to isn't about those ads, where the…

Of course, you'd have everyone gaming what constitutes an "impression". Everyone might redesign into single-page apps to keep the same ad impression visible for a longer time, for one example. And the personal tracking side would still exist, it would just happen before showing the impression, to identify you and calculate whether the 1 cent is worth it for you.

"And the personal tracking side would still exist, it would just happen before showing the impression, to identify you and calculate whether the 1 cent is worth it for you."

I've encountered this argument before on HN now, and the problem is, you're accounting for all this tracking as being free. It isn't. It's actually very expensive. The tracking has to work in a world where impressions are much more expensive, and consequently, the demand for ads has shrunk along with its total market.

The entire purpose of this tax is put the industry in a new set point where it can't afford all this tracking. It can only afford very high-return things, which we can't really stop anyhow. It can't afford to hoover up every email you've ever written and subject it to high-quality ML learning run by a team of 25 PhDs with hundreds of support staff behind them with effectively unlimited hardware budgets to squeeze an additional 3 lifetime cents from everybody in the world in a world where ads have a cost floor of 1 cent rather than their current .000001 cents (or however many zeros it may have, it's enough).

(Those numbers may seem weird to you, because we are not good at working at large scales of factors of magnitude. But 3 cents over the liftime of seven billion people on Earth is 210 million dollars. This is the fundamental reason why the ad industry is so dangerous; it is not only worth it, but trivially worth it, to spend 100 million dollars to build a system for invading your privacy if it will net them just a few more pennies. We need to strike at that value calculation, not fritter around the edges.)

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

#304

Post by chupasaurus »

411mrc wrote: post #295
bluGill wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I wish there was a good way to stop that.

A custom router can do this for all devices on your network. That is what I use.

Do you carry your router with you all the time to provide a bridge to mobile networks?

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

#305

Post by panglott »

saintPirelli wrote: post #296
panglott wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People aren't mad because Facebook runs a social network or presents users with a newsfeed or provides a messaging service or stores users photos. Lots of companies do those things without complaint. People are mad at Facebook because the company constantly lies about privacy issues, makes one agreement with its users about their privacy and then does something else, and just generally treats the privacy of its users…

People aren't mad because MacDonalds runs a chain of restaurants or presents consumers with food or provides a easy way to get a meal. Lots of companies do those things without complaint. People are mad at McDonalds because the company constantly lies about health issues, makes one statement about the origins of their food when really it comes from somewhere else, and just generally treats the concerns of its consume…

have never been more on board with breaking up McDonald's. ;)

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

#306

Post by johannes1234321 »

GcVmvNhBsU wrote: post #269
johannes1234321 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Cambridge Analytica Case users where asked "do you want to share your data with that Game/quiz?" And users agreed. For average users understanding that control is hard, especially if people with bad objects are on the other side.

Not just your (user X) data, but your friend's (user Y) data. What if the API had sent user Y a confirmation, like "User X just installed CAapp and wants to access your information. Allow or Deny?"

If you take the "social" part serious frind's data is essential. When playing a game it should compare to your friends on the high score list. When using a birthday calendar you want to see birthdays.

Having to ask the friends for approval doesn't scale.

There is the fundamental conflict between a social network platform and privacy.

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

#307

Post by kerkeslager »

Spooky23 wrote: post #284
kerkeslager wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect there are two reasons we get more spam phone calls: 1. There's no effective signing on phone calls, so spoofing a phone number is easy. This makes it impossible to prosecute spammers. 2. There's no way to filter a phone call based on the content of the phone call before it arrives. It's possible to spoof senders on email and text messages as well, but it's also possible to filter these based on content befo…

The main reason is the telcos choose not to, because they make money on them. You can eliminate ~95%+ of junk calls from the telco side.

How?

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

#308

Post by reanimated »

basch wrote: post #196
istjohn wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Many people have moved away from FB to IG after all the bad publicity FB has had. If IG was an independent company that consumer choice would mean something. As it is, any privacy conscious social network that mounts any threat to FB will simply be bought as happened with WhatsApp.

IG was like a 13 person company, do you think they would have successfully scaled without FB? Thats a pretty pretty big if. Had they not sold, its possible FB would have just murdered them.

Before being acquired by Facebook they already had over 30 million users
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