Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#121

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #35

alexmingoia wrote: post #7

The only practice listed in the paper that could be construed as anti-competitive is acquiring other “social networks.” However, it’s a stretch to consider every website that a user can use a competitor to Facebook. It’s not like Facebook acquired a MySpace or anything. But why are acquisitions anti-competitive? Nothing forces the competitor to sell. Acquisitions prove people can compete. It’s a contradiction to say…

The paper lists five different things as anticompetitive, why do you disagree with their assessment? Allowing Vine to use your API and then blocking it after Twitter acquired it seems anticompetitive.

Can I call up your company and get a list of your customers to create a competing service?

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#122

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #110

scarface74 wrote: post #105

The question is how does this “monopoly” hurt consumers? It’s social media . I use FB, just like most of the rest of the world. But if it died tomorrow the world would go on. Besides, anti trust in the US is focused on consumer harm. How does a Facebook’s monopoly hurt consumers?

I'm not trolling but the same way ALL monopolies hurt consumers and the fair market. It is not a hard thing to read on up monopolies across history. And it isn't just FB. We need to stop the M&A activity that is only good for the VCs and not the consumers. We need to start unrolling the ones that have already happened.

If M and A becomes harder, why would VCs invest?

There have only been two YC companies that have ever gone public. I doubt that YC invested in any of its companies to produce “lifestyle businesses”.

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#123

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

machinehermit wrote: post #94

Facebook obviously posses some interesting questions on various topics but framing the debate as Facebook collecting "monopoly rents" is ridiculous. I haven't used Facebook since 2010 and I have never used Instagram. If someone in my social network wants to send me some information they have my number and they can txt me. If someone wants to send me a picture they can do the same. I don't use Facebook because ultimat…

You are not the customer. Advertisers are.

Google and Facebook are the only games in town for online advertising these days; the fact both are making incredible amounts of money means either competitors aren't good enough, or are being priced out of the market, or squeezed out of it (due to network effects or anti-competitively).

For Google - the vast majority of whose income comes from search ads - there is no network effect. They are mostly much better (I try Bing every now and then, it's not even close; I set up ddg as my main search, but have to reach for google for about 1/3 of searches). However, they also employ tactics one could consider anticompetitive, e.g. paying Apple billions/year to be the default search engine on iPhones. YouTube does have a network-effect lock in, but AFAIK that's not really a revenue source for google. It does complete the advertising offering and keep newcomers out, though.

For Facebook - they are hardly doing anything better than competitors; it's all about the network effect. And they've been VERY busy making sure that every network which is big enough (or even growing quickly enough) to have its own network effect is either theirs (instagram, whatsapp) or sidelined (snapchat).

IIRC They paid $60M for Onavo - providing discounted bandwidth "safely encrypted" from the prying eyes of user's ISP but totally visible to Facebook, which gave them a real-time sample of application and website use -- which gave them the insight needed to purchase rising stars Instagram and reigning king WhatsApp (and attack Snapchat after they refused a buyout offer).

You are not Facebook's customer. You are a user, Facebook's product, sold to Facebook's customers, the advertisers.

Facebook and Google have a duopoly on online advertising (which, especially now with lockdown, but even independently, is nowadays much of advertising). There are unique new problems with these new models, but Facebook is definitely one part of a duopoly, and likely a monopoly by any existing legal definition.

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#124

Post by rbrtl » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

> by misleading users and buying potential rivals

As a Brit, I thought this was how Americans do business.

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#125

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

rmrfstar wrote: post #116

scarface74 wrote: post #105

The question is how does this “monopoly” hurt consumers? It’s social media . I use FB, just like most of the rest of the world. But if it died tomorrow the world would go on. Besides, anti trust in the US is focused on consumer harm. How does a Facebook’s monopoly hurt consumers?

The idea that antitrust law exists to improve "consumer welfare" is a modern one. Until the late 1970's, antitrust was about exercising democratic control over corporate power.

You mean like the democratically elected President wants to “shut down” Twitter?

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#126

Post by blocked_again » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #115

loceng wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws need to be updated to account for the network effects of the data lock position, where you, your data, and network are prevented from easily being mobile. Your digital data should be considered to be equivalent to you having built a house, a big asset, but now you have a big choice to make: abandon it because the state is doing some sketchy things that you don't agree with or want to support by the taxes collect…

Have you ever thought that the reason Facebook is successful is because people choose to use it? No one is forced to use social media.

Lol. Go and read Hooked book. The shitty things Silicon Valley does to keep users addicted to their social media apps would blow your mind. Facebook is a net negative to the society. The reason people are using their products are because they are addicted. Not because it's making their life bettter. It's like drugs. Atleast the drug companies have ethics to not give you some unless you continue paying money. Fucking Facebook want users scrolling their shitty feeds and clicking on notifications all day so that Zuckerberg and VCs can buy more yatchs.

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#127

Post by rmrfstar » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #125

rmrfstar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that antitrust law exists to improve "consumer welfare" is a modern one. Until the late 1970's, antitrust was about exercising democratic control over corporate power.

You mean like the democratically elected President wants to “shut down” Twitter?

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#128

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:11 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #122

snarf21 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trolling but the same way ALL monopolies hurt consumers and the fair market. It is not a hard thing to read on up monopolies across history. And it isn't just FB. We need to stop the M&A activity that is only good for the VCs and not the consumers. We need to start unrolling the ones that have already happened.

If M and A becomes harder, why would VCs invest? There have only been two YC companies that have ever gone public. I doubt that YC invested in any of its companies to produce “lifestyle businesses”.

If M&A became harder, more companies would go public; or stay private and distribute profits as dividends.

But the problem is not M&A on its own; the problem is that through M&A, big players are able to stifle competition. I'm sure it's possible to define a reasonable law (about company size, market size and kind) that would make it much harder for today's Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon from acquiring potential would-be competitors, without making it harder for two $100M companies to merge, or one $100M company to buy a $20M one.

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#129

Post by scarface74 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #126

scarface74 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever thought that the reason Facebook is successful is because people choose to use it? No one is forced to use social media.

Lol. Go and read Hooked book. The shitty things Silicon Valley does to keep users addicted to their social media apps would blow your mind. Facebook is a net negative to the society. The reason people are using their products are because they are addicted. Not because it's making their life bettter. It's like drugs. Atleast the drug companies have ethics to not give you some unless you continue paying money. Fucking…

And that could describe, alcohol, weed, sweets, gambling....

Re: Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

#130

Post by beagle3 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 1:14 PM UTC

noble_pleb wrote: post #118

snarf21 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trolling but the same way ALL monopolies hurt consumers and the fair market. It is not a hard thing to read on up monopolies across history. And it isn't just FB. We need to stop the M&A activity that is only good for the VCs and not the consumers. We need to start unrolling the ones that have already happened.

But the difference is that "ALL OTHER" monopolies are priced whereas facebook is a free product. Can it be called a monopoly if your product is free? Pretty sure, most lawyers won't have a hard time convincing a jury that it can't be. Besides, if FB is a monopoly then so are Twitter, Google, Reddit, Quora, etc. Its an oligopoly of sorts with each player dominating a slightly differentiated product and all products ar…

FB's users are not it's customers. It is free for users, in the same way that food is free for cows in a diary. Indeed, the cows did not choose to live that life, but increasingly [not] having a facebook account is not an option.

FB's customers are the advertisers. And they pay very good money, or FB wouldn't have had the money pay for WhatsApp, Instagram and its tens of thousands of employees.