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Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

wsj.com

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Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#141

Post by burtonator »

lammalamma25 wrote: post #109

Does anyone else have trouble getting upset about these kind of stories? I can believe anti-competitive behavior is happening, but we're talking about snapchat stories and Instagram trends. It's not like they are a phone company raising prices on their customers or a railroad squeezing shippers. I get why this could be bad for a competitive marketplace, but does this hurt the consumer? What are the net downsides of t…

Whatsapp, Instagram, Oculus, ... do you want all companies to be under three main tech companies?

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#142

Post by jameslevy »

smsx wrote: post #129
krustyburger wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think FAANG is less useful as an abbreviation these days because it includes Netflix. I don’t think Netflix is guilty of much of anything sinister, at least by anyone’s reckoning except certain movie and tv studio executives.

While that’s a good point, if the alternative is going around and using the acronym FAAG I think we can stick with the original.

This is the main reason Netflix is included in the group, I think.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#144

Post by RaceWon »

Porthos9K wrote: post #88
MiroF wrote: post #17

Why is this thread full of commentators attacking Snap for completely unrelated things? Strikes me as odd. FB told IG influencers they might lose their verified status if they link to a SC profile? Seems like that was a mistake on their part, could they really not anticipate future antitrust action?

Assuming FB gave any thought to antitrust action -- which is unlikely the prevailing doctrine that businesses can do as they like as long as they don't charge customers too much -- I think they ran some risk analysis and reached the conclusion that in a worst-case scenario they might take a hit to revenue and have to throw a VP or two under the bus, but would otherwise be able to continue with business as usual. The…

> However, you think conservatives would be more open to the possibility of using antitrust as a cudgel against social media companies that seem intolerant toward right-wing viewpoints.

No, most of us actually welcome diversity of thought, and free expression of opposing ideas. Typically we don't want Big Brother to tell us, or anyone else what to do or how to do it.

Big Brother is just some guys or gals; like the crew that hung out in the parking lot at the mall, and after all--who the fuck are they anyway to tell us what to do, or how to do it??

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#145

Post by the_watcher »

khawkins wrote: post #60
toxik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the problem with this. Isn’t it fair market competition? Facebook had (and has) deeper pockets and more users, so they won against Snap and Foursquare. Their acquisition of IG and WA were great moves too, it’s almost impossible to escape the Facebook and Google internet.

If these features were critical enough that you could found a company on them, then clearly they brought innovation to the scene. If they had not come along, it's unclear as to whether Facebook would have ever introduced those features in their products. "Fair market competition" is the idea that products compete on their own merits, not that you can leverage your market position to destroy competitors. "Deeper pocke…

Do you really think Facebook rolled out Stories specifically to kill Snapchat? That may have been a side effect that Facebook wouldn't care about, but they rolled out Stories because they were a good feature that could increase the value of Facebook.

Does having deeper pockets mean you aren't allowed to learn from competitors who do something better than you do? Should Snapchat not be allowed to have a social graph because Facebook has one? It really seems like those who think stories was just "copying to kill Snapchat" actually think something like the former, but not the latter, despite the logic being identical.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#146

Post by the_watcher »

smacktoward wrote: post #73
toxik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the problem with this. Isn’t it fair market competition? Facebook had (and has) deeper pockets and more users, so they won against Snap and Foursquare. Their acquisition of IG and WA were great moves too, it’s almost impossible to escape the Facebook and Google internet.

It may be competition, but it certainly isn't fair competition. As you note, Facebook has much deeper pockets than even a well-funded startup. They can afford to build a clone of your product and give it away for free, without any expectation of even future revenue, specifically to drive you out of business. And they can bundle their clone with their already-popular apps, so people never even feel the need to check o…

For one, pretty much every example cited in the article are "clones" of products that the "aggrieved" party was also giving away for free. But let's ignore that.

Let's take Stories. Facebook has monetized them, and pretty clearly realized they could monetize them when they rolled out. Does the fact that Snapchat came up with them mean Facebook should not be able to launch something that they plan to monetize? By this logic, anything Facebook rolls out that someone else did first wouldn't be allowed.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#147

Post by skinnymuch »

randall wrote: post #139
krustyburger wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think FAANG is less useful as an abbreviation these days because it includes Netflix. I don’t think Netflix is guilty of much of anything sinister, at least by anyone’s reckoning except certain movie and tv studio executives.

g-mafia google, microsoft, apple, facebook, ibm, apple

But IBM isn’t that powerful in any direct way any more compared to other tech companies.

Oracle and rising powers like PayPal and Salesforce would make more sense. The latter companies still do a fraction of IBM’s revenue and profit. but they’re growing. I wouldn’t be surprised if their market caps are past IBM by now.

Unless IBM is being included because of the Red Hat acquisition.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#148

Post by skinnymuch »

monkeydreams wrote: post #120
underwater wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also the exact same playbook Google used against Facebook with Google+.

Except both companies had deep pockets in this scenario.

Facebook was nowhere near where it is today. It doesn’t even make money the same way with the majority of revenue and profits coming from mobile, with IG being a bigger and bigger factor. And it’s much more international (and monetizing international) now. Google was the giant when they tried Google+.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#149

Post by skinnymuch »

denzil_correa wrote: post #77
VHRanger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many economists that think the acquisition of IG should have warranted antitrust. This is a good case on it: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...

We don’t even need to go that far. Facebook snooped in users via an advertised VPN app to make WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions. That in itself should be enough fodder to discuss them. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-onavo-gives-social-me...

Instagram was way before Onavo acquisition. WhatsApp was officially announced as an acquisition 4 months after Onavo purchase. The article does say insiders say they used Onavo for WhatsApp purchase decision.

However I’m assuming you don’t do a $19B acquisition (and 10% of your market cap) in a month. Wouldn’t Facebook have already been close to or starting the process of trying to buy WhatsApp before the end of 2013? Onavo was announced as a purchase in mid Oct 2013.

Re: Snap Detailed Facebook’s Aggressive Tactics in ‘Project Voldemort’ Dossier

#150

Post by skinnymuch »

VHRanger wrote: post #55
toxik wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the problem with this. Isn’t it fair market competition? Facebook had (and has) deeper pockets and more users, so they won against Snap and Foursquare. Their acquisition of IG and WA were great moves too, it’s almost impossible to escape the Facebook and Google internet.

There are many economists that think the acquisition of IG should have warranted antitrust. This is a good case on it: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...

I tried seeing where it stated that. I don’t see it. Instagram was a relatively tiny iPhone app back in 2012. Two years old and 30M users.
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