Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#91

Post by dhyreueu » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #86

dhyreueu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, everybody thinks it's evil except for the people who use Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp. It's bizarre to me how many upvotes pretending society isn't still embracing FaceBook gets. And when you say this people parrot tired points about how most people "use it because they have to" as if people who thought it was evil, in the the real way, wouldn't be willing to resist the compulsion. I don't think most HN po…

Facebook is crack cocaine. Most people aren't informed about the dangers, and by the time they understand, they're addicted. Moreover, it was explicitly and willfully designed to work that way.

They're not addicted to Facebook you just don't like that the social landscape is changing. Calling people was terrible compared to the convenience of social media, sure it was more intimate but most people aren't looking for intimacy in every interaction they have with their friends. A lot of the time they just want to shoot the breeze. People like memes, seeing what trendy garbage with avacado on top their friends ate, and they like having an easy way to coordinate a group meetup without making ten phonecalls.

I recognize that some people do get addicted to social media but for most people the only thing they're addicted to if anything is convenience. We're already at a point where many people feel more comfortable giving out their public insta than their phone number to new acquaintances because of how much more control they have if things go badly. Before social media parents were complaining that cell phones were turning their kids into shut-ins who just wanted to text all day instead of having real conversations. The whole dialogue is just another repeat of people feeling like something must be wrong because it's not how they think the world should be.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#92

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

pyrrhotech wrote: post #89

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Amazon is not predatory to me. It has greatly improved my life from a convenience and cost perspective. They also recently raised their wages for all warehouse employees such that it's one of the best places to work for unskilled labor in many locations. Amazon has made many small time merchants rich through their platform, and it's software engineers are among the highest paid in the industry, so I have to strongly…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#93

Post by kemiller2002 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Personally, I think we should rephrase this. Facebook is not evil in and of itself. Facebook's management is evil. Amazon's management is predatory. Microsoft is good (at the moment), because they have leaders at the helm that are taking notice of how to do things in a more ethical manner. We need to start assigning blame to people to start correcting the problem.

It's too easy to just pass of blame and say "Well, the machine is evil, no fixing that." Management should not get to hide behind the organization. We need to start sending a message that it's easy to fix what they are doing. Change out the people in charge, and change out the members of the board.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#94

Post by durnygbur » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

pyrrhotech wrote: post #89

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Amazon is not predatory to me. It has greatly improved my life from a convenience and cost perspective. They also recently raised their wages for all warehouse employees such that it's one of the best places to work for unskilled labor in many locations. Amazon has made many small time merchants rich through their platform, and it's software engineers are among the highest paid in the industry, so I have to strongly…

Amazon from Europe's perspective:

- IT - an average employer at best including salaries, extremely competitive workplace, offices in most expensive cities, I don't think they offer any equity

- warehouses - they were wrecked by German unions and opened 4 warehouses in Poland serving exclusively German market and burdening the brand new EU-funded highways, as if they were shunning from complying with the German labor code and German wages (the market is too lucrative to abandon it)

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#95

Post by x87678r » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Actually FB pays a lot of tax, last year $6B on $24B profits. Amazon never makes money so doesn't pay tax. Google is good at not paying.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#96

Post by chewz » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #75

friendlybus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long until the one drink I had too many at a bar whilst dating turns into a statistically higher insurance premium. Or my church finds out about my in-progress divorce and excommunicates me. The ability for the individual to reveal specific information on their own terms is necessary for social cohesion. Let's not pretend we have transparency on what our information is being used for, nor are we likely to ever ge…

Why belong to a church and hide major life events like divorces from it? But your broader point is sound. I'd just replace "church" with "nosy extended relative".

Some years ago Polish people living and working in Germany declared apostasis to avoid German church tax. They were suprised after returning back when their parish in Poland refused child baptism or church burial..

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#97

Post by treis » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #31

Out of all of FAANG, which has had new competitors emerge recently (that are potentially huge threats)? Facebook - Snap, Tiktok, Telegram, Discord, Houseparty (and we still have Twitter, Pinterest, Wechat) Google - Duckduckgo (really?) Amazon - Shopify (really?) Apple - Android (really?)

Amazon has competition from online stores like ebay, AliExpress, Wayfair, and Overstock. Traditional retailers like Walmart, Target, and Best buy also have online presence challenging Amazon. It's pretty trivial to cut them out of your life. They don't have much that you can't get elsewhere

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#98

Post by bredren » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

dhyreueu wrote: post #91

ethbr0 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is crack cocaine. Most people aren't informed about the dangers, and by the time they understand, they're addicted. Moreover, it was explicitly and willfully designed to work that way.

They're not addicted to Facebook you just don't like that the social landscape is changing. Calling people was terrible compared to the convenience of social media, sure it was more intimate but most people aren't looking for intimacy in every interaction they have with their friends. A lot of the time they just want to shoot the breeze. People like memes, seeing what trendy garbage with avacado on top their friends…

There are very real reasons to consider Facebook a threat that have nothing to do with projections of "it just isn't for me."

Facebook embraced Q Anon and turned it into a gold mine for engagement. Facebook is directly responsible for the growth of that conspiracy and made the United States much worse as a result.

Facebook did this by feeding a culture of fear, suspicion and bigotry in the guise of belonging, community and group 'fun' via memes and 'trendy garbage.'

Facebook is crack cocaine and the pipe has already blown up in our faces. The United States is on fire like Richard Pryor.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#99

Post by loudmax » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #27

Facebook platform is evil and no one doubts it at this point. Amazon is predatory for everyone - merchants, warehouse employees, IT employees, job candidates. Google screwed the recruitment irrevocably and what's worse every minor shop attempts to copy their processes. Microsoft temporarily plays the nice guy. Then we have this whole dating thing entirely owned by one media hegemon. All together pay minuscle taxes. .…

Microsoft only appears to play the nice guy if you assume large swaths of the computing market are a natural monopoly. Enterprise level desktop software and the Office suite are still locked into a single vendor.

Re: Facebook is a monopoly that buys, copies, kills competitors: antitrust committee

#100

Post by leetcrew » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

durnygbur wrote: post #94

pyrrhotech wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is not predatory to me. It has greatly improved my life from a convenience and cost perspective. They also recently raised their wages for all warehouse employees such that it's one of the best places to work for unskilled labor in many locations. Amazon has made many small time merchants rich through their platform, and it's software engineers are among the highest paid in the industry, so I have to strongly…

Amazon from Europe's perspective: - IT - an average employer at best including salaries, extremely competitive workplace, offices in most expensive cities, I don't think they offer any equity - warehouses - they were wrecked by German unions and opened 4 warehouses in Poland serving exclusively German market and burdening the brand new EU-funded highways, as if they were shunning from complying with the German labor…

if having a warehouse in germany is so unattractive that it's better to put them in poland and ship everything across the border, isn't that more of a problem with germany than amazon?

edit: okay, that was a bit glib. but isn't complaining about this sort of thing at odds with the idea of an integrated european economy?