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Facebook’s dominance is built on anti-competitive behavior

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

#221

Post by stale2002 »

scarface74 wrote: post #192
stale2002 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instagram had no business model when it was acquired. They would have created one, by doing the obvious thing. Selling ads. I don't think they would need FB to figure out that they need to do that.

If they hadn’t run out of money first. Also advertisers don’t want to deal with every mom and pop website. If they did, you wouldn’t have the pervasiveness of as networks. What are the chances that they could have grown organically? Do you really want the government to tell founders that they couldn’t accept Facebook’s $1 billion dollars? Would you want the government telling you who you couldn’t sell your property t…

Instagram is now worth something like 100 billion dollars.

If FB was offering them 1 billion, I am sure that there would have been many investors willing to out some money into it.

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

#222

Post by camgunz »

scarface74 wrote: post #219
camgunz wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say this seriously? Disinformation on FB had a huge impact on the 2016 election in the US.

So do we want a “Central Department of Truth” to regulate Facebook?

We don’t have to choose between Ayn Rand and George Orwell here. There are plenty of things FB can do to regulate the flow of information. A couple basic ideas are to apply the libel standard and to ensure the news feed isn’t full of hyperbolic echo chamber garbage. Stuff mainstream media outlets have been doing for decades, and has been effective.

I feel like you’re not discussing in good faith; please try and be sympathetic to the idea that Facebook’s pursuit of ad revenue has an outsized negative effect on our society. You act as though nothing is wrong and any regulation we apply would be completely illiberal. Neither is true.

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

#223

Post by beagle3 »

scarface74 wrote: post #216
beagle3 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree. Do note that Microsoft had essentially zero lobbying before they were convicted, and a huge army of lobbyists when the punishment was neutered; and Google had a lobbying army from very early in its life. Are you claiming that this state of affairs is good for citizens at large? I disagree. I believe the function of a government is to make life better for its citizens at large, and that the enforceme…

I am saying it is better to let the market along with people using their free will decide. Yes MS still has 90% market share with the desktop - but it doesn’t matter. People’s attention and all of the energy and money moved to the web and mobile making alternate platforms viable. Apple alone sells more iOS devices than all personal computers combined. It’s only 15% of the market. It wasn’t the government that allowed…

I read your response as “I don’t care if any abuses or how much better things could have been as long as they are good enough”. Did I get it right?

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

#224

Post by pferde »

jfengel wrote: post #104
pferde wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get #2 and #3, but why #1? I like being able to "whisper" to people privately. Private messaging has been part of all communication protocols and pre-web2.0 social networks, and even in real life, you can lean in towards someone and, well, whisper something in their ear.

I suppose it might be worth recognizing that a social media system with access to your private messages both gives them a lot of power, and confuses users. Privacy on social media isn't really trustworthy. If you want to whisper, do it via email, where at least it isn't on Facebook's servers. I don't say anything on Facebook that I wouldn't want on the front page of the New York Times. I don't trust either them or ot…

Fair enough - you're basically erring on the side of caution, although it limits the usefulness of the network to you. Can't say I blame you. :)

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

#225

Post by beagle3 »

stale2002 wrote: post #220
beagle3 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft’s release of IE was horrible for customers and likely set the web back 5-10 years. You might not have witnessed the damage that the “free” “competitive” IE 6 caused, but I assure you it was a lot of damage both directly to consumers and indirectly through the direct costs to developers. They wouldn’t do it if it didn’t benefit them, and as a rent extracting monopolist, it’s always at the expense of the rest…

Regardless, in the modern era, I don't see how any of the free products that FB has released have been bad for society, for the mere reason of them being free. I hope more companies release free products. As many as possible. Basically all internet products are free, in the modern era. This is not some crazy, extreme thing. Because it is what literally almost every internet products does.

Nothing is free. Society at large, and possibly you, are paying in ways that are not well understood by most - with your concentration, mental well being[0]; as well as sucking the air out of innovation and lots of funding -- a lot of FB income is VC money channeled through startups' advertising budget.

If I understand your position correctly, you are fine with it. I'm not. We can agree to disagree.

[0] Facebook had an experiment where they showed only sad news to some people, only happy news to others, and tracked the resulting mood which was affected.

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

#226

Post by hkai »

cambalache wrote: post #205
hkai wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't have a choice. Either it's Facebook, which is relatively transparent and can be sued, regulated and criticized in the media. Or it's another social network that you have absolutely no recourse against.

Hi Mark nice of you passing by. > Either it's Facebook, which is relatively transparent Nice joke to break the ice. > and can be sued, regulated and criticized in the media Well, the same applies to any other App, and yes this include tik-tok or Wechat. China jurisdiction is not supranational. The situation inside China is different. > Or it's another social network that you have absolutely no recourse against. If th…

> China jurisdiction is not supranational

It absolutely is.

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

#227

Post by slim »

pferde wrote: post #81
slim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need laws. Operating a social network should be subject to specific rules like : 1- Everything is public, no private messages. 2- Public unlimited standardised API. 3- No denial of access, no censorship, without court order.

I get #2 and #3, but why #1? I like being able to "whisper" to people privately. Private messaging has been part of all communication protocols and pre-web2.0 social networks, and even in real life, you can lean in towards someone and, well, whisper something in their ear.

it should be clear for the user when what he says is private vs public. it should not be the same app. plus private messaging apps don't need to be regulated, they just need strong crypto.

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

#228

Post by nabla9 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #215
nabla9 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Antitrust laws were always based on supply side monopolies I don't think this is true. The idea that antitrust is only about supply and consumer benefit is extremely limited view. It came in flavor in the US late-1970's and it's known as "Chicago School of Antitrust Law". The defining book of that school is Robert Bork's 'The Antitrust Paradox' (1978).

I wonder were there any historical precidents of antitrust actions taken specifically when there wasn't control over suppply either horizontally or vertically resulting in the end of the chain being unable to compete. Not taking this as evidence of "it never existed" but genuinely wondering if there was ever an obscure bit of precedence by "pure quality". Microsoft's privileging of Internet explorer and its were a cl…

I don't think where this is coming from, but you seem to imply that there is case now with FB.

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

#229

Post by scarface74 »

beagle3 wrote: post #223
scarface74 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am saying it is better to let the market along with people using their free will decide. Yes MS still has 90% market share with the desktop - but it doesn’t matter. People’s attention and all of the energy and money moved to the web and mobile making alternate platforms viable. Apple alone sells more iOS devices than all personal computers combined. It’s only 15% of the market. It wasn’t the government that allowed…

I read your response as “I don’t care if any abuses or how much better things could have been as long as they are good enough”. Did I get it right?

No, I am saying that technology moves so fast and government is so incompetent, that it is better to let the market disrupters take care of it.

As another anecdote, the government sued IBM for being a monopoly in 1969. By the time the case wound its way through the courts, the government dropped the case because it didn’t matter. The market had moved on. (https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/09/business/why-baxter-dropp...)

By 1982, the PC was already taking over. Just like while the government was worried about the Microsoft “monopoly”, Jobs was busy raising Apple from the dead, Google was moving from a college campus to being a real company, Amazon was expanding from just selling books and companies were starting to decrease their dependence on Win32 APIs and on to the web. Not to mention that Java and Flash was making rich cross platform web apps viable.

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

#230

Post by scarface74 »

camgunz wrote: post #222
scarface74 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do we want a “Central Department of Truth” to regulate Facebook?

We don’t have to choose between Ayn Rand and George Orwell here. There are plenty of things FB can do to regulate the flow of information. A couple basic ideas are to apply the libel standard and to ensure the news feed isn’t full of hyperbolic echo chamber garbage. Stuff mainstream media outlets have been doing for decades, and has been effective. I feel like you’re not discussing in good faith; please try and be sy…

Would you like every platform that allows users to post comment to be held liable for the content the user posts - including HN?
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